IN THE GARDEN OF LOVE

Conservation architect Abha Narain Lambah on her ongoing tryst with Srinagar's Shalimar Bagh

- Abha Narain Lambah

My memories of Shalimar Bagh are patched into dastarkhwans spread on clover-filled lawns and endless days of love, laughter and abandon. My grandfather was a pioneering botanist of Kashmir and this garden is where my family returned over and over again to admire the blooming nargis, magnolia and iris and feast on our packed lunches of rajma, haak, and rogan josh.

For me, Shalimar Bagh is a lasting symbol of love and of childhood nostalgia. And I often think, what could be more romantic than this otherworldly place? Fed by mountain springs, streams and nahars and set between Dal Lake and the Zabarwan mountains, the garden invoked the concept of paradise in life-of jannat within the physical boundaries of Kashmir. In Shalimar, the Persian garden tradition, transported from Samarqand, Ferghana, Kabul into the Kashmir Valley, achieved a new paradigm. It transcended the confines of the walled enclosure, to embrace the spectacular landscape of Kashmir.

Growing up, I would see couples stealing furtive glances under the shade of the chinars. I read Thomas Moore's poem, The Light of the Harem whose lines described the garden in all its beauty and splendourWho has not heard of the Vale of Cashmere With its roses the brightest that earth ever gave,