Whenever I am away from Srinagar, I find myself missing downtown. Not just the locality where I live, but the whole downtown. I have never thought of it as separate neighborhoods. To me, it is one home.
I grew up here. As a boy, after school, I would take my bicycle and disappear into the alleys with no destination in mind. I was always discovering new paths, new neighborhoods, and shortcuts. Even today, after spending my whole life here, I still come across alleys I have never been through. Such is their intricacy. One wrong turn and you may find yourself somewhere completely different.
People from outside often get lost in these lanes. Those of us who grew up here learned them slowly, without realizing it. During the years of curfew, when the main roads were blocked and movement was restricted, we had our own routes. While the army barricaded the main roads, we continued moving through the network of alleys. Cars could not enter many of them, but bicycles and motorcycles could. Sometimes what would take much longer by road became a matter of minutes through the narrow passages. To outsiders they look confusing, but to us they are as familiar as the rooms of our own homes.
What I love most about downtown is its closeness. Houses stand so near each other that windows overlook a neighbor’s garden. Wires run from one window to another with clothes hanging in the air. Some doors lead through somebody else’s courtyard. Everyone is everyone else’s neighbor. If you need someone in the middle of the night, you call him and he comes. We could even pass cigarettes to friends by leaning out of the window.
There are things outsiders complain about which I would miss terribly if they disappeared. The noise, the congestion, the endless bustle. Downtown is probably the busiest part of Srinagar. Shops, vendors, cars, motorcycles, mosques, shrines, army vehicles, police, and people everywhere. Yet somehow all of it feels comforting.
It is also famous for its dogs. Street dogs roam everywhere and generations of children have grown up with a healthy fear of them. Even now, walking home late at night sometimes feels like negotiating with an army of dogs who believe the streets belong to them.
Winter has always been my favorite season to observe downtown. Smoke rises from mosque chimneys and hangs over the rooftops in the cold morning air. Men gather outside shops on what we call the Peand, sitting together, drinking tea, discussing everything from family matters to religion and politics. No conversation is too small and no argument too large. Some of these gatherings have probably been taking place for decades.
I have always thought there is something fearless about the people of downtown. Perhaps history made them so. Perhaps life here itself demands it. Children play cricket in the middle of the road while cars squeeze past them. I have seen fielders dive to catch the ball with traffic moving right beside them, completely unconcerned. Nobody seems particularly alarmed. Everybody simply adjusts and carries on.
The Jehlum has accompanied me all my life. I walk along its banks almost every day. It is difficult for me to separate the city from the river. The old bridges, the houses leaning towards the water, the reflections in winter, all of them belong to my earliest memories. Sometimes I think the river made the city beautiful and then the city returned the favor.
The old houses that remain remind me of my childhood. In some strange way they remind me of my mother. There is comfort in them. They remind me of lullabies and of a time when the world seemed permanent. Every season changes the mood of downtown, yet somehow its spirit remains. Spring follows winter, summer follows spring, and the old city adapts itself.
I remember how people from upper Srinagar often avoided downtown on Fridays because they expected protests and stone-pelting. I remember people running through these alleys during the years of conflict. These streets have witnessed grief, fear, sacrifice, and hope. Their history is not written only in buildings but also in memory.
These days many old mud and wooden houses are disappearing. New buildings are replacing them. I know change is inevitable, but I find myself worrying about something larger than architecture. I do not want neighbors to become strangers. I do not want the language of downtown, the way people speak, the noise, the congestion, the intimacy, and the habits of everyday life to disappear. I do not want people to remember downtown only for its old houses and alleys while forgetting the lives lived inside them.
Many old houses in Srinagar are being abandoned or dismantled as few people are wiling to live in them.
Perhaps this is why I carry a camera wherever I go. I rarely have a plan. Sometimes I am only running an errand and suddenly something catches my eye. A person washing his dentures beneath running water. Incense smoke inside a shrine. A woman emptying her kangri. Children crossing old bridges. A face appearing in a window. Laundry hanging above an alleyway. These moments are ordinary. Maybe that is why they matter to me.
Behind him stands the Khanqah-e-Moula shrine, Built in memory of the Sufi saint Mir Sayyid Ali Hamdani.
Even now, after spending my whole life here, I feel there is no end to exploring downtown. I still find myself wandering through unfamiliar lanes, looking into courtyards, standing on bridges, watching people, or simply walking beside the river. Whenever I leave, I miss it. And whenever I return, I do not feel that I am returning to a neighborhood or even a city. I feel that I am returning home.
