Yesterday (17th July), I was in Srinagar along with P.Abhimanyu, GS, BSNLEU for organisational purpose. After the meeting, along with Nisar Ahmed and some other comrades, we walked on the sides of the Jhelum river which flows through the middle of the city and also had a boating in the shikara, the small canoe used for sight-seeing. On both sides of the roads there are the beautiful chinar trees which are more than 200-300 years and give a very good cooling effect to the atmosphere.
The climate was gently warm and felt very good. There were a lot of people, specially tourists in the streets and the various beautiful gardens spread over the centre of the city.
I felt very happy. On earlier occasions when I visited Srinagar, there were very few tourists and once I could not find even a single shikara in the Dal Lake which is famous for boating in the house-boats and shikaras. Though the situation in Kashmir has not returned to normal, there is vast improvement and the tourists are coming back. I wish that let the process continue which will help Kashmir people to grow and develop.