Sunday, March 29, 2009

Towards Kashmir...

For some reason, Kashmir has always been a fantasy. Beautiful and inaccessible.
For my wife, Kashmir is a dream. First choice for a vacation.
Its for her dream that today impossible is becoming a reality. I am waiting to board a flight to Srinagar.
Its a queasy feeling for me. Not easy. Not believable.
Six fellow passengers in Arabic white kurta with the headgear - all looking like yasser arafat to me. Most of the passengers are talking in Kashmiri and that sounds to me like Arabic. For the first time in my life, we have been told to identify our baggages after all the elaborate security checks.
Am I just just imagining an unjustified apprehensive silence or is it actually there?
Perhaps that's the feeling people experience when they travel towards my home state - Assam... O Lord!