car trip to kashmir
Car trips to Kashmir
Every summer holiday, starting when we were about 4 until about 12 years, we would take a car trip to Kashmir. We were my mother, father, brother and me, often cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends joined us. It was always exciting to go on a trip, the day before we would go shopping and get lots of tins of baked beans, tuna fish, chips and chocolates, fun stuff that we were not normally allowed to have at home, since it was considered junk food. We packed our sleeping bags, anoraks and books that we wanted to read over the summer holidays. We would wake up very early, before the sun rose and when the traffic getting out of Delhi was not busy. We would pass Dilli gate, and old Delhi, and get on to the Grand Trunk Road. We would then pass Sonepat, Panipat and then Ambala, our father loved to tell us about the first and second battles of Panipat.
We would play games like 20 questions, where you guess a famous person, by asking 20 questions, we would then move on to playing countries names, so America, since it ended with a, we would have to start the next name with a..it would carry on until we couldn’t think of any more, once bored of those game we would start singing songs like singing ayah yipped yippee ay, and down the way, where the nights are gay, and the sun shines daily on the mountain top.
Car trips were fun we would look at the white signs giving the location and distance in km in 3 languages, English, Hindi and Punjabi, when we were in Punjab. Our father would give us history lessons, and that only half got through to us, we would hear about the bravery of the Sikh gurus, and the three Sikhs who were buried alive, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, and then the Panch Piyaras who were taken inside a tent and the others outside thought they were being beheaded, but it was actually a goat that was getting killed. It was a test of their bravery.
We would go from heavily urban traffic snarls to green fields on both sides, and then the slow change in air from the polluted Delhi air to the cool, clean foothills air, and then the crisp chilli air of the Himalayan mountains. We would pass tunnels and make wishes when we crossed under bridges that had trains passing overhead. We didnt have very fancy cars growing up, we used to go up in the Ambassador car, which had large comfortable seats at the back, but was quite noisy and felt like driving a truck.
We would stop en route and eat fresh deep fried jalebis, buy fresh fruit from the street vendors and eat at roadside dhabbas (truck stops) fresh daal, aloo gobi and buttery nans or tandori parathas.
My mother would tell us stories of Sundari Pari’s Garden, which I think were based on our trips to Kashmir. Sundari Pari translates into beautiful fairy. She was a fairy who would welcome us to Pahalgam, our campsite in Kashmir, and protect us from the Budha Baba.(old man) My mother used to create the budha baba image by creating a knocking sound, which would scare us to silence, or sleep or clutch on to her tightly.
Every summer holiday, starting when we were about 4 until about 12 years, we would take a car trip to Kashmir. We were my mother, father, brother and me, often cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends joined us. It was always exciting to go on a trip, the day before we would go shopping and get lots of tins of baked beans, tuna fish, chips and chocolates, fun stuff that we were not normally allowed to have at home, since it was considered junk food. We packed our sleeping bags, anoraks and books that we wanted to read over the summer holidays. We would wake up very early, before the sun rose and when the traffic getting out of Delhi was not busy. We would pass Dilli gate, and old Delhi, and get on to the Grand Trunk Road. We would then pass Sonepat, Panipat and then Ambala, our father loved to tell us about the first and second battles of Panipat.
We would play games like 20 questions, where you guess a famous person, by asking 20 questions, we would then move on to playing countries names, so America, since it ended with a, we would have to start the next name with a..it would carry on until we couldn’t think of any more, once bored of those game we would start singing songs like singing ayah yipped yippee ay, and down the way, where the nights are gay, and the sun shines daily on the mountain top.
Car trips were fun we would look at the white signs giving the location and distance in km in 3 languages, English, Hindi and Punjabi, when we were in Punjab. Our father would give us history lessons, and that only half got through to us, we would hear about the bravery of the Sikh gurus, and the three Sikhs who were buried alive, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, and then the Panch Piyaras who were taken inside a tent and the others outside thought they were being beheaded, but it was actually a goat that was getting killed. It was a test of their bravery.
We would go from heavily urban traffic snarls to green fields on both sides, and then the slow change in air from the polluted Delhi air to the cool, clean foothills air, and then the crisp chilli air of the Himalayan mountains. We would pass tunnels and make wishes when we crossed under bridges that had trains passing overhead. We didnt have very fancy cars growing up, we used to go up in the Ambassador car, which had large comfortable seats at the back, but was quite noisy and felt like driving a truck.
We would stop en route and eat fresh deep fried jalebis, buy fresh fruit from the street vendors and eat at roadside dhabbas (truck stops) fresh daal, aloo gobi and buttery nans or tandori parathas.
My mother would tell us stories of Sundari Pari’s Garden, which I think were based on our trips to Kashmir. Sundari Pari translates into beautiful fairy. She was a fairy who would welcome us to Pahalgam, our campsite in Kashmir, and protect us from the Budha Baba.(old man) My mother used to create the budha baba image by creating a knocking sound, which would scare us to silence, or sleep or clutch on to her tightly.
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