The most militarized what?

So a couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go to Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) [courtesy of the J&K government who was holding an expo for Kashmiri handicrafts and handilooms], India’s northern most state, which borders Pakistan to the west and China to the east. According to a documentary I watched about a month ago on the partition of India, J&K is the most militarized region in the world with over 700,000 Indian troops stationed up there (Remember there are roughly 150,000 American troops in Iraq, a much larger geographical area). Despite the minor presence of soldiers every 50 meters along the road and others standing aimlessly, gun clutched across their chest, in farm fields outside the capitol of Srinagar, Emily and I decided to take the approach that it is never as bad as people say it is.

“Some days, no. Some days, yes. I make no guarantees.”

This was the response by Bashir, our taxi driver, to Emily’s inquiry if he felt safe in Srinagar despite the violence of the 1990’s. We laughed and sarcastically said, “thanks”, quickly agreeing that we would keep that comment to ourselves and not share it with our mothers. It was just too memorable not to share though. Sorry, Mom.
Golmarg (a mountain village two hours outside of Srinagar) is home to the world’s only genetically modified cows.

Now I can’t back up this statement with any fact other than the above picture. But you tell me, someone had to of messed with that cow.

(Emily was clearly not impressed with the asking price for these Kashmiri shawls.)

While walking back across the beautiful Golmarg valley an man in his 50s drove by in front of us in a pick-up with three kids in the bench seat beside him. The truck suddenly braked and backed up so that he was eye to eye with us and then he said:

“Would you like to play golf?”

You inevitably have conversations in India with Indians that surprise you and they often ask you questions that take you by surprise, “How much do you make?” “How much do you pay for your rent?”, however this guy could have posed a thousand different questions to us before I would have guessed he’d invite us to play golf.



“Allah’s Pizza”

Who knew Allah made pizza or set up a shop in Srinagar? And it made me think why have I never seen a “Jesus Christ’s Pizza” place? If there is not, there should be. Terry T, if you are reading, there is my idea to build up your youth group in West Seattle.

Speaking of Allah, Emily and I went to Jammiah Mashid, Kashmir's largest mosque in the heart of old Srinagar. It was completely empty when we visited it and had this amazing light streaming through some of the windows.

My favorite quote of the weekend though was when my hotel doorbell rang at 7 a.m. (before my scheduled wake-up call). At first, I wasn't sure if I had heard it correctly and so I waited to see if there would be a second knock. Sure enough, about 30 seconds later, it came. I threw on the minimum amount of cloths and walked drearily to the door and opened it. Standing in front of me was a nice looking Indian man, wearing normal everyday-type clothes, so it appeared he didn't work at the hotel. He paused for a moment and then asked, "Are you Sandeep?"

After 10 months in India I know I have picked up some Indian mannerisms, but physically speaking, I still look no different than the white bread American boy I've always been. I restrained from bursting out in laughter because I thought the question was so funny, however I kept myself together and told the man I was not, in fact, "Sandeep".