Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2011/05/16
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]In the late 80s I had several lectures to give in Kashmir/Jammu and the sponsors were kind enough to put us up in a houseboat on Lake Dal. These houseboats are luxury accommodations, elaborately carved and richly furnished. Apparently foreigners were not allowed to own property in Kashmir so the locals built rental houseboats for the tourist trade. I'm sure Jayanand can furnish all the details. Ours was one of a small fleet owned by the Wangnoo family. It was built around 1900 and was the one used by Theodore Roosevelt when he vacationed in the area. Just about every surface of the houseboat interior is paneled with intricately carved solid walnut. This type of wood is almost unobtainable in the US and Western Europe but in Kashmir it was so plentiful in the 1980s that it was being burned as fuel. The following photos show both the houseboats and the carved interiors in detail. The young lady is my daughter Karen who accompanied us on the trip. She enjoyed Kashmir, at least eating there, more than the rest of India because she didn't like curry. The pictures were taken with a Rollei 35SE and scanned from Fujichrome slides. http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Houseboats+on+Lake+Dal+_87.jpg.html http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Houseboat+interior+on+Lake+Dal.jpg.html http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Houseboat+carving+_87.jpg.html Kashmir is one of the most naturally beautiful areas I ever visited. A lovely blue lake surrounded by snowy mountain peaks. On the other hand, there were thousands of Indian troops stationed in the area to quell social unrest and every decade or so there was armed conflict on the border with Pakistan. I took plenty of photographs of the area, the people, and the boats on the lake - but none of the Wangnoo family. I was politely discouraged by Mr. A. R. Wangnoo, the patriarch of the family. because he said that it violated Islamic tradition. However the Wangnoos were thoroughly modern in every aspect of their life so I suspect that his hesitance was based on the fear that the Indian authorities might somehow get access to the pictures. The Wangnoo family was very active in the "Free Kashmir" movement and strongly lobbied for an independent state of Kashmiristan. A quarter of a century later the problems are still unresolved. Larry Z