Before the city wakes, the lake belongs to the vegetable sellers. At five, the water is flat enough to hold the mountains. Shikaras slide out from the…
At five, the water is flat enough to hold the mountains. Shikaras slide out from the floating gardens loaded with lotus stems, turnips and kohlrabi, and the market assembles itself on the water without a word. We go out with Ghulam, who has rowed this lake for thirty years. He doesn’t point things out; he simply stops when something is worth seeing, and waits. By eight the light is hard and the moment is gone. It is the reason we start every Kashmir journey with a night on the lake.