KEEPERS OF THE VALE

Kashmir's diverse and centuries-old heritage is being lovingly preserved by its locals, finds Saumya Ancheri.

- Saumya Ancheri.

Flowers overflow across the Beigh F workshop in Alamgari Bazar in Srinagar. Petals and stems entwine on the green hand-knotted Kashmiri carpet and encrust the sozni shawls draped on laps. Master weaver and national award-winner Mehboob Ali Beigh's ancestors were among the hundreds of craftsmen that the scholar and Sufi saint Shah-e-Hamdan brought here from Persia in the 14th century. Needles deftly fly on fingertips, drawing out centuries-old patterns inspired by the landscapes of Persia and Kashmir.

In Kashmir, time seems to move slower. A sozni shawl is two years in the making, shikara boats twirl across the Dal Lake with the meditative calm of whirling dervishes, everything from the deliciously milky vanilla softy from the ice-cream vendor to the Tata mini-buses and Maruti Suzukis on the road breathe of an older time.

The decades-long conflict has left no family untouched, and the piercing gaze of soldiers is a reminder of a fragile peace. There are new hotels and grand plans for development in the Valley. But what sings to me on our week-long road trip from Srinagar to the hill station of Pahalgam, the austere and massive mountainside stone temple complex of Naranag, the picturesque Yusmarg where Jesus apparently retired as a shepherd, and the golden meadow of Sonamarg, is the timeless grace of the ever-hospitable Kashmiris and the efforts to preserve their stupendous, vanishing heritage.

KARIGARS OF KASHMIR

Gulzar Hussain, our guide and the co-founder of Ladakhbased tour company Frozen Himalayas, tells us that if someone returns with an heirloom shawl made by the Beigh family, they will take out the yarns from that era that have aged similarly, to repair the work. Still, the intricacies of sozni embroidery are fading with the older generation as younger weavers find that the low financial returns are no match for the time and effort that it takes to excel in this demanding craft.