Happy times are here again

Yana Banerjee-Bey celebrates the buzz that marks the return of peace and sporting activity in the Valley. She finds the revival of tourism and the upbeat mood a welcome change from the sense of gloom marked by bunkers and sandbags that loomed large during her last visit in 1996

Gondola Cup Ski Race in progress during the March winter festival. Photos by the writer

It is said that the grass of Gulmarg’s golf course, at 2,730metres above sea level, the world’s highest, owes its famous emerald sheen to the blanket of snow in winter. The green huts of the golf club, amid rolling grassy slopes, are framed in a photograph overhead in Gulmarg’s Lala restaurant as we sit hunched in our parkas, slurping soupy noodles. Kevin Binu, drummer of rock band Hundred Octane, picks out the cluster of huts and exclaims, “Guys, check out the picture. D’ya recognise the place?” His bandmates take a minute to realise that the huts in the picture are the same ones, their pitched roofs now topped with snow, that stand a few metres from Lala, at the foot of one of Gulmarg’s busiest ski slopes, dotted with skiers and snowboarders.

A gaggle of folk, rock, indie and fusion bands gathered last month to play at the Gulmarg Winter Festival, organised by adventure company Synapses Adventures and artiste managers Soul Curators. Envisioned as an adventure and music festival, the event saw the adventure component – the Gondola Cup ski race, organised jointly with the J&K State Cable Car Corporation – being held a week earlier. The festival, supported by J&K Tourism, brought musicians and a small audience to Gulmarg, which has enjoyed a glorious revival of tourism since the return of peace to Kashmir after 2003.

Rewind to the past

Later, in the crewel-curtained lobby of Hotel Zahgeer, local resident Rashid turns from the flatscreen TV to me as I recall Gulmarg 13 years ago. “There were no TVs and no electric blankets in Gulmarg then. I’m enjoying them this time,” I add. Gulmarg has 25 hotels, totalling 1,200 beds, with seven of them catering to high-end tourists and five to a middle-grade clientele while the rest constitute budget accommodation.

The 85-room Khyber Mountain Resort and Spa is slated to open at the end of 2012 and, as Rashid rattles off the amenities it will provide (swimming pool, gym, club, et al), my mind goes back 13 years to extreme skier Sylvain Saudan of France explaining why he stopped bringing foreign tourists for heli-skiing. “Not because of the militancy but because there are no good hotels in Srinagar,” he had said. I knew what he meant. In 1996, I had found only two hotels open in Srinagar. And, at Hotel Ahdoos, dinner had to be wrapped up by 7.30 pm so that the staff could go home safely.

The tide turns

But those days are over for Kashmir and locals say Saudan is back, firming up plans to bring in well-heeled tourists next season. For now, Gulmarg is looking ahead to a verdant summer, as enthralling as its magical snowscape. The tourist flow is heaviest from April to June, though the season lasts until September. A large segment is golf tourists, with the government renovating the golf course and throwing open the spanking new greens in 2010.

Tourism officials put the number of daily visitors to Gulmarg variously at 3,000-8,000. But everyone agrees that the past winter was “Gulmarg’s best tourist season since peace returned.” Kashmir’s chillaikalan season – the 40 days from December 21 – always brings tourists to Gulmarg despite the –15 degrees Celsius temperature. Gulmarg is a popular New Year’s Eve venue and last December saw a record flow of Indian tourists. For the first time in years, the government did not offer a free lunch to draw New Year revellers to Gulmarg.

Gondola in Gulmarg

Beyond the seasonal golf and skiing, it is the gondola – at 3,747m, Asia’s highest ropeway – that is Gulmarg’s supremely popular attraction all year round, earning close to Rs 20 crore last year.

But local skiers and snowboarders need it to access the most challenging slopes for practice runs and many, like SAF Games snowboarding silver medallist Zahoor Ahmed Sheikh, whose father is a labourer, cannot afford the fare. The next day, I meet J&K Winter Games Association Secretary Shabir Ahmed Wani, who says he has persuaded Parviaz Talat, MD of the J&K State Cable Car Corporation, to provide two passes for local skiers next winter.

It is Rashid who tells me the story of how Wani – national skiing champion in the 1980s – kept the sport alive in Gulmarg during the period of turmoil. “He and his brother went to people’s houses and literally snatched the children and taught them skiing,” he says. “It kept them out of trouble and today some of them are the best skiing guides in Gulmarg.” Later, I learn that the pheran-clad men on Gulmarg’s streets who earn a living as sled-pullers and drivers are all expert skiers. As I leave, I am suffused by a sense of poignancy at what Gulmarg has weathered to get to its place in the sun today.

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