Streams Flow, Classrooms Don’t, Bills Arrive Anyway |
When we reached the last junction, the road simply ended. Beyond it was only a narrow path climbing into the mountains. An old, rusted board stood there, its metal eaten by weather, a torn poster still clinging to it that read “Sarinder, Emerging Tourist Destination.” The words felt like a promise that had already begun to fade. Beauty is only skin deep, and in Sarindar the skin is green and photogenic; everything underneath has been left high and dry.Sarindar sits roughly eleven kilometres east of Bandipora town, perched at about 2,155 metres on the lower slopes of the Harmukh range. A stream runs straight through the village, splitting the scattered mud-and-brick houses that cling to the hillside. Beyond the last houses the path simply rises toward the snow-capped ridges; this is where the road, and in many ways the administration, stops.
A few days earlier I had set out from Bandipora with my videographer to shoot a documentary. We kept climbing until we reached this last village. It was autumn, yet the place looked no less than summer: lush green slopes, streams cutting through everything, water everywhere, but of course a chill in the air. I stood and watched Gujjar women washing old torn rugs in those brooks. It was a chilly afternoon and the water was cold; I was surprised they were washing those visibly heavy rugs so calmly. Nature, it seems, still keeps its end of the bargain. The rest of the arrangement is another story.
We began the climb toward the........