A trip to Sri Nagar and Gulmarg

Gulmarg: Photo by sunstone

For months Mom and Dad had travelled and worked in hot and poverty blasted parts of India and then, for a fortnight or so, they came home to write up project reports and the Oxfam Newsletter. They really needed a break.

The discomfort of the heat in New Delhi was compounded by the irritation caused by dust storms which left a fine red powder caked onto the window screens. The grit also got into your hair, your mouth and sometimes your eyes.

The decision was taken to fly to Sri Nagar and then get a ride up to Gulmarg...In fact Sri Nagar climbs up to meet your plane, you hardly descend down to it at all. It's like landing on a shelf.

It is quite cold there and the town smells of woodsmoke. In the shops they sell silver plated hand warmers, which, in fact, are miniature braziers. You place a few live coals inside them and then put the hand warmer in your pocket. We go to carpet factories to admire the tight weave of Kashmiri carpets: 250 stitches to each crimson inch. We listen to a Zither virtuoso and drive through the long avenues of trees until we reach Dal lake. We look at its houseboats. We visit a palace with an ivory throne.

Two days later we have to get up very early at 5 am and drove to Gulmarg. It takes a long time. We arrive at around three p.m. In 1976 the ski resort is rudimentary. All it is, is a set of pine bungalows in the snow and there is no ski lift.

Mom and Dad had kitted us out as best they could. They had bought tailor made one piece overalls made from quilt and fur lined army camouflage jackets. In the end the overalls kept us quite warm, but the jackets got soaked.

When we got to the slopes, dad pointed out discretely that our instructor wore no shoes. His feet were wrapped in cloth. The instructor told us that he was a retired soldier from the Indian army.

The retired soldier helped us into our tight boots and then took us onto the nursery slope. He fitted our skis on and he taught us how to ski.

We had to snow plough first. But soon progressed onto turns:

"Push to the left and you'll slide right," he said. "Push to the right and you'll slide left."

We did and it worked. Then at the bottom of the hill the instructor collected up the skis and carried them to the top. We followed behind, trudging up through the snow.

We got quite deft at skiing this way in a week. Andy did it particularly well.

One year later in the Alpes Maritime, a French ski instructor asked us to demonstrate what we knew before he gave us a lesson. Andy did.

Confidently, expecting praise he pushed and turned and skied to the bottom of the beginners slope. The young man in his yellow designer ski goggles and brightly coloured, close hugging ski suit was repelled, though Andy's movements were graceful movements:

"Where did you learn this? Who taught you to ski like this? It's all wrong. You shift your body weight, you don't push. You use the edge of the skis, you don't slide."


Embarrassed, Andy answered: "We learned to ski in Gulmarg, Kashmir"

And he could have added: "...from a shoeless retired Indian army soldier, who carried our skiis to the top of the slopes."


But of course the French instructor wasn't listening to Andy's reply: "You'll have to start from the beginning." he said. "Follow me." and slid away.