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Kashmir & Kerala
houseboats are a
study in contrast A few months ago, during a tourism seminar, the lunch-time discussion among journalists turned towards the comparative merits of houseboats in Kashmir and in Kerala. While the militancy problem in Kashmir has shackled its tourism industry, Kerala, in the last decade, has made rapid strides in tourism, one of the star attractions being the introduction of houseboats. The houseboats in both states offer an interesting contrast. Whenever the word houseboat is mentioned, one invariably thinks of Kashmir. Hundred years ago, the Britishers in India, irked by a Kashmir maharaja’s edict that no outsider could buy houses in his state, decided to bypass the law by opting for huge houseboats on the Dal lake. Today, there are about 1400 houseboats, costing a minimum of Rs 15 lakh, and 1200 shikaras (the small boats to take you up and down the lake) moored in the Dal lake, most of them empty due to lack of tourists, kept away by the terrorism in the valley. During the days of normalcy in the 1980s, hiring a houseboat for a day cost Rs 3000. Besides the problem of
terrorism, the Kashmiri houseboats face a challenge from the pollution
and encroachments plaguing the Dal lake. It is feared that unless steps
are taken to stem the encroachments by vested interests, in 100 years,
there will be no Dal lake!. |
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On the other hand, in
Kerala, it is only in the past 10 years that the houseboats, built
around the kettuvallom (meaning in the local language "tied
together boat"), have taken root and burgeoned into a huge
industry. Fifty years ago, there were more than 5000 kettuvalloms in
the backwaters of Kerala, mainly used for transporting goods. Then came
the proliferation of goods carriage by rail and road and the kettuvalloms
became obsolete. In 1991, one enterprising travel agent, Babu
Verghese, took to using remodelled kettuvalloms as houseboats. As
on date, the number of houseboats in Kerala is 150 and the number is
increasing.
The average Kashmiri houseboat, made out of deodar and other sweet-smelling wood, is 80 feet by 120 feet in length, priced at Rs 15 lakh (luxury ones cost as high as Rs 50 lakh), has individual double bedrooms (often five in number) with attached bathrooms, in addition to a drawing room, a dining room and alcoves with doors. The Kerala houseboat is almost half the size of its northern counterpart (seldom exceeds 80 feet in length and costs about Rs 6 lakh) with provision for only two couples with attached baths and rarely a third pair of guests. The Kerala Government has ensured that all environment-protection measures are taken at the very inception of houseboat tourism. The houseboats are classified into gold star and silver stars, based on their service and quality standards and progressively, the aim is to make all Kerala houseboats eco-friendly (no dumping of any type of sewage in the backwaters) by giving them a special classification, the Green Palm. In comparison the greatest handicap for the Kashmir houseboat is that during the holidays, it has to be kept moored at a particular location, whereas a guest on a Kerala houseboat has more than hundreds of kilometres of backwaters to explore. The tourist on a Kerala houseboat is mobile, and can swim whenever he wants in the clear water. With the houseboat having the advantage of outboard motors, the tourist on board gets to see ancient temples, Venice-like waterways, flanked by a blanket of emerald palms, antique palaces, etc. The largest of these backwater lakes, the Vembanad, which opens into the Arabian sea near Cochin is about 200 square km in area. You are taken on a 100-km-long Alappuzha to Kollam prestige run, "floating in liquid history and passing through enchanting antiquity -laden, tradition-rich state". The boatmen tell you solemnly, that for the last 200 years, visitors like St Thomas, the Apostle (A.D 52), and Marco Polo, the famous traveller (A.D 1292), had taken the route you are traversing! The third advantage for the Kerala houseboat is that since this state is the most literate in India, the educated boatmen are aware of their responsibilities. As against this, the hanjis, (the boatmen manning the 1400 Kashmiri houseboats) are barely literate (5 per cent), are starved by years of terrorism and often refer to the Indian tourists (their bread and butter) in derogatory ways. Consequently, tourism in the beautiful Kashmir valley, which Mughal emperors described as the ‘Paradise on Earth’, is languishing. Considering all these aspects, a
discerning tourist is more likely to give more marks to the Kerala
houseboat as compared to its northern counterpart. MF |
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