The book has the magical words that work as a mantra in unbolting the hard fastened doors of the nostalgia and taking one down the memory lane. It is an odyssey – a long and wandering journey that makes one to relive agonies and ecstasies of the past.
Shah-ri-Khas, the city of Srinagar, now for its political vibrancy nicknamed as downtown, unfolds like an ancient book full of tales and fables. It cascades gems of wisdom, knowledge, erudition and spiritualism. Its lanes and by- lanes reverberate with songs of chivalry about the people living in this great historical city of yore. Every brick tells a tale and chiseled limestone is scarlet-bearing testimony to sacrifices offered by people to preserve their honour and dignity during centuries of despotic rules. The book opens like a vedio tape and flashes on our mind's eye the passage of the Kashmir carwan through the lanes and the by-lanes of the lost and forgotten cultural heritage of Kashmir which was alive and healthy a few decades back. |
