What does Kashmir look like?
” he echoed, a few minutes into our conversation. “Think of Colorado, ten times over. Think of Switzerland. Have you seen Passage to India? The last twenty minutes are Kashmir.” My head full of rapturous descriptions from Indian travel Web sites, as well as the poet’s allusions to the beauties of this region at the foot of the Himalayas, I went after specifics. The “Zero Bridge” that he mentions, for example; is there really a bridge by that name in Srinagar? And floating gardens? “Yes, there really is a Zero Bridge in Srinagar,” he said. “Srinagar is known as the City of Seven Bridges. Or maybe it’s nine. Anyway, when they started building them, they numbered them one, two, and so on. But there was one bridge that had existed before they started building the others, so they renamed it the Zero Bridge.” After we laughed, I had to prod him for more details. And that’s the way the whole conversation went. I asked a question; he gave a good-natured lozenge of an answer. In response to my
