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J-K flood fury As water recedes, Valley traders on salvage mission Ishfaq Tantry Tribune News Service Srinagar, September 22 The worst part of the tragedy, which has befallen on Kashmiris, particularly the business community of Srinagar city, is that Yasir has not insured his shop items. “It was a disaster which nobody could have prevented. I won’t blame anybody or the government for what we are witnessing today,” says Gulzar sitting in front of his now devastated shop, where before the floods tourists would queue up to buy famous Kashmiri items like pashmina shawls, silk-embroidered sarees and other works, which adored the shelves of this shop. While he gives account of the losses he has suffered during the floods, Gulzar also directs the men engaged in salvaging whatever is left in the shop. However, everything the workers bring out of the shop is just a pile of silt with shawls, embroidered suits, woolen gowns stuck inside it. “See, this stuff now has no worth. I will just get these things out of the shops and throw them away, only to be taken by the sanitation workers for garbage dump,” he says. Asked about the damages, Gulzar says he has incurred a loss of Rs 30 lakh in the flooding of his shop. “The damage would have been much more, had I not salvaged nearly 40 per cent of the items from the shop on Sunday morning when this area began flooding,” he says. He also reveals that he has not insured even a single item in his shop.“As a Muslim trader, I don’t believe in insuring my property. Even my forefathers would not ensure the items at the shop,” he says, adding that his elders had established Samdani Handicrafts in 1957. “Though the loss is irreparable, I will have to restart my life and business once again, even if it means starting from a scratch,” he says with optimism and his “strong belief” in the will of God. “These disasters are a lesson for us. We need to learn from such tragedies. The life has to go on,” Yasir Gulzar said. In fact, there are countless shopkeepers and the businessmen in the area who had not ensured their properties or the items. And for them, it is a real challenge to rebuild their businesses and homes which have been washed away by the unprecedented floods in Kashmir’s modern history. The only thing which does not seem to have been washed away by the floods is the will and hope to live for another day.
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