[Leica] Houseboats on Lake Dal, Kashmir

[lluisripollquerol at gmail.com (Lluis Ripoll)]

These are very nice pictures, unfortunately the Region is not the same  
in our days

cheers
Lluis


El 16/05/2011, a las 22:00, Lawrence Zeitlin escribi?:

> In the late 80s I had several lectures to give in Kashmir/Jammu and  
> the
> sponsors were kind enough to put us up in a houseboat on Lake Dal.  
> These
> houseboats are luxury accommodations, elaborately carved and richly
> furnished. Apparently foreigners were not allowed to own property in  
> Kashmir
> so the locals built rental houseboats for the tourist trade. I'm sure
> Jayanand can furnish all the details. Ours was one of a small fleet  
> owned by
> the Wangnoo family. It was built around 1900 and was the one used by
> Theodore Roosevelt when he vacationed in the area.
>
>
> Just about every surface of the houseboat interior is paneled with
> intricately carved  solid walnut. This type of wood is almost  
> unobtainable
> in the US and Western Europe but in Kashmir it was so plentiful in  
> the 1980s
> that it was being burned as fuel. The following photos show both the
> houseboats and the carved interiors in detail. The young lady is my  
> daughter
> Karen who accompanied us on the trip. She enjoyed Kashmir, at least  
> eating
> there, more than the rest of India because she didn't like curry. The
> pictures were taken with a Rollei 35SE and scanned from Fujichrome  
> slides.
>
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Houseboats+on+Lake+Dal+_87.jpg.html
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Houseboat+interior+on+Lake+Dal.jpg.html
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Houseboat+carving 
> +_87.jpg.html
>
>
> Kashmir is one of the most naturally beautiful areas I ever visited. A
> lovely blue lake surrounded by snowy mountain peaks. On the other  
> hand,
> there were thousands of Indian troops stationed in the area to quell  
> social
> unrest and every decade or so there was armed conflict on the border  
> with
> Pakistan. I took plenty of photographs of the area, the people, and  
> the
> boats on the lake - but none of the Wangnoo family. I was politely
> discouraged by Mr. A. R. Wangnoo, the patriarch of the family.  
> because he
> said that it violated Islamic tradition. However the Wangnoos were
> thoroughly modern in every aspect of their life so I suspect that his
> hesitance was based on the fear that the Indian authorities might  
> somehow
> get access to the pictures. The Wangnoo family was very active in  
> the "Free
> Kashmir" movement and strongly lobbied for an independent state of
> Kashmiristan. A quarter of a century later the problems are still
> unresolved.
>
>
> Larry Z
>
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