Srinigar 1979
March 23rd 2024
This is an edited version of an article my mother wrote in 2021.
I obtained her permission to share it here very shortly before she died in September 2023.
Here she is reflecting on a taxi journey from Chandigarh in Northern India – where my father was serving a visiting professorship – to Srinagar University in Kashmir, a disputed region between India and Pakistan.
Jagat Ram, mentioned in dispatches, was the house keeper and cook employed to look after us during our four month stay in Chandighar. An unenviable task that he undertook beautifully and memorably. He was, and is, more than a friend to our family. When this journey took place I was six years old. As my mum was prone to embellishment I have removed anything from the original text that does not align with my personal recollections of the events. As it was a terrifying journey, and I have the memory of an elephant, this hasn’t involved too much work, unusually.
One more intriguing detail before I let her loose with her, inevitably slightly patrician, version of events. I recently discovered, from a friend, that the Morris Oxford used on this trip, and the Austin Cambridge that they had driven across the USA 14 years earlier, were the same car in all but name. Both apparently slightly crap, but ubiquitous in their day.
Horn Please – Never Mind Pollution
We travelled the three-day journey from Chandigarh to Srinagar in a Morris Oxford Ambassador car.
My husband’s colleagues had recommended a taxi driver to take us, who duly turned up on our doorstep five days before. He was a 60-something Sikh, called Raghbir Singh Bala, and he assured us he was taking delivery of a brand-new car and would be honoured to take us to Kashmir, for one rupee per mile on the flat but one and half in the hills plus twenty a day for lodgings. “Take it” cried our friends, who turned out to have absolutely no idea how far Srinagar was, due to a lack of road maps in India. We had packed a Bartholomews World Travel Map of the Indian Subcontinent, so that’s what we ended up using.
Raghbir arranged he would arrive at 6am and duly arrived at 6.30, drawing up with a flourish and a blast of his horn, beaming with his new Ambassador car. Luggage in, we set off for our first destination, Jammu, with Norman in the front and Jagat sitting in the back with Alex and myself. Jammu is the gateway to the Indian part of Kashmir, and we had been assured it was a day’s drive. We crossed the Punjab and arrived at the border of the State of Jammu and Kashmir at Pathankot by 11am. We had only stopped once and that was at a rail crossing where the barrier was down, so our driver had no option. We had previously come to red traffic lights in two major towns we had crossed, but Raghbir didn’t think they applied to us and kept going with horn in full use. While we waited for the train to pass Ragbhir turned off his engine, jumped out and shot across the other side of the road. Not to be outdone Norman nipped out of the front and told Jagat to change places as he wanted to be with his family if we were all going to be killed. Looking for our driver, we saw he was making himself comfortable by relieving himself on the grass verge over the road and for the rest of that trip there was one biological law for him and another for us. Frankly, by Panthankot, all four of us were total wrecks, not only the risk of losing our hearing by the horn, but the tyres weren’t going to get the chance of wearing out as they never seemed to touch the road, and as for the clutch, once the car was in fourth gear there it stayed. The brakes would never wear out, they were more in danger of seizing up from lack of use. It really doesn’t help in India, where trucks are the major road users, that in amongst all the decorations and pictures they are adorned with, on the back is “HORN PLEASE”. In every place we passed through he just glued his hand to that pesky horn. This highway was the main route down from Kashmir, plus we were quite close to the Pakistan border so there was a major increase of military trucks in both directions, often a convoy of 50. We tried cajoling Rashbir to ease off his horn but also not overtake when it was obvious we were going to end as a sandwich filling between trucks. He just laughed and asked why he would want to shorten his own life, unfortunately, he didn’t seem aware that pedestrians and cyclists had the same feeling. We lost count of the number of times they had to jump out of his way when he suddenly had to swerve over to avoid a head-on collision with trucks.
Arriving in Pathankot, Raghbir was directed by a border official to park his car and tell his passengers to report to the Information Office immediately. This turned into filling in application forms, in triplicate, pay an entry tax to allow us into Kashmir and handing over our passports. Norman looked aghast at these last requests, as he had already paid Raghbir for a taxi permit to drive us through Kashmir, and why didn’t he also know that we would require passports. Luckily, I always carry them on me whenever we are out of the UK. We still had to spend 30mins more justifying why we needed to go into Kashmir, to a very friendly official. By the time we got our permit stamped he had practically heard all our life-history. Later we found that they get so bored at these border posts that anyone who arrives and speaks English, they just keep questioning you to pass away the time of day until someone else turns up.
Sixty miles later we arrived in Jammu, hungry, thirsty and petrified, in no particular order, having not eaten since 5am, only to find that Ragbhir had eaten whilst we were trying to get our permit, but Jaghat had stayed with us. Our driver was convinced that if we let him keep driving we could arrive in Srinagar that night. We found a hotel, then an outdoor restaurant, where Jagat thought the food looked good and the kitchen clean.
Next day we set off at 8am and from then the road started climbing into the foothills of the Himalayas and we had 150 miles of a steep, very winding mountain road, that had clearly been surfaced quite a few years before. Ragbhir had never driven up a mountain before and had reached 4th gear when the road got steeper but the gear stayed put, until finally we ended giving him instructions on how to change down in gear before he burnt his new gear box out. He had never changed a gear down before, so it was an entirely new concept for him to learn whilst he insisted on keeping his foot on the accelerator and swerving round every bend. It didn’t help him much with Jagat in the front laughing fit to burst and Alex in the back asking ‘Santa’ why there were bunches of flowers, photos and things on the roadside at practically every bend. Eventually, we reached 2nd gear and even though 1st gear would have been good sometimes, we gave up until he needed go into 3rd for a short run. Most of that day was taken up with us taking it in turns to call out which gear he should be in. I gave up trying to get him to watch his speedometer for him to change into the correct gear. He finally saw the funny side of what was happening, so we had two sitting in front laughing.
With all the military trucks around Jagat explained that a younger brother of his had joined the army as soon as he was old enough. This was required in most families as parents couldn’t feed all their children as they got older, and the sons who went into the army sent money back home.
At 6pm it came dark, which is dangerous on those roads, and finally around 7pm we reached the Banihal Pass, 9,000ft elevation and were delighted to find it closes at night as it is a tunnel now. Jagat saw the Tourist Bungalow, had the driver pull in and before we knew it we were surrounded by teenage boys who were in charge. Nearly every room was empty, all with bathrooms and insisted they showed us everyone and the number of boys grew by the minute. We got the impression they hadn’t seen many, if any, Westerners – most had more sense and flew to Kashmir. We took a large family room and let Jagat choose his own. Within 30 mins those same boys had made us a very good hot vegetarian meal, with plenty of dishes, which Jagat found out they had cooked over one wood fire.
What we hadn’t been told was that our bedroom came with its own live-in mouse, that kept running over our beds and Alex’s face. Norman was kicking up such a noise trying to catch it that Jagat came to say the houseboys and himself were trying to sleep as it was very late, 9pm.
Raghbir had found out that the Banihal Tunnel opened at 9am so it was wise to get to the front of the queue because of the fumes that build up inside. We were ready at 8am but the car wouldn’t start and by 8.30 the trucks were beginning to queue up. We suggested letting the car run down the slope from the tourist bungalow, so with Alex and I in the back Raghbir got out to remove the rocks he had parked under the wheels overnight – the car moved alright – straight for a stone wall with us in the back and no driver in front. Just as I leapt forward out of my seat to try and grab the steering wheel our very agile driver jumped in and slammed his foot on the brake. He forgot to mention his handbrake didn’t work. Even going downhill, the car wouldn’t start and over the next 30 mins Norman and I cleaned plugs, distributor cap, battery leads and numerous other checks, whilst he and Jagat looked on in amazement. Our driver hadn’t a clue about how a car worked, and that was usual, according to Jagat. Finally, he went off looking for a mechanic as it was now 9.30am and Norman knew he was lecturing that same afternoon. Three of them, plus a soldier, ended pushing it uphill at this high elevation whilst I steered the car to the garage in the village, where the mechanic took over and looked at everything we had checked. He then said something quietly to the driver who immediately clapped his hand over his eyes, shot into the car, and under the dashboard flicked a switch and started the car immediately. He had forgotten about the anti-theft switch which came with his new car, which he had activated the night before!
There was now a queue of about 50 trucks waiting to pay the toll for the tunnel, with engines running and toxic air covering this mountain village and us. By the time we went through this 2.5 mile tunnel we had scarves covering our faces and Raghbir was struggling to see. He had to stay behind the truck in front as no extra lane for overtaking. That must be the longest time we ever had to hold our breaths as the fumes came into the car even with the windows closed and seeped through our scarves. We had certainly wished we could have found our way over the old 13,000ft pass rather than be inhaling those toxic fumes. Pollution was everywhere and not just in big cities.
Coming out on the other end the view was spectacular with the Vale of Kashmir below us and the high Himalayas (Karakoram Range) facing us. Within 20 mins we had started the descent into the valley, which is at 3,000ft. We were being told by Raghbir that when the police kept stopping us it was for more taxes or bribes. However, Jahat realised he was being fined for speeding. The temperature was much higher than we had expected, about 29C. By 12.30pm we reached the university and Norman found out he was lecturing at 3pm.
On our arrival we were shown to a log cabin that was to be our home for the next few days and, along with this home, came a guard. A Pathan tribesman with a black beard – and a rifle across his lap! Employed by the university to keep us safe. One evening we came back from dinner, thinking we had left Alex asleep, to find her sitting next to him on his step having a chat. No mean feat as he didn’t speak English and she didn’t speak Pashto. During our time there we found the Kashmiri people kind and gentle and the children, unlike Indian children, who are quite cheeky, very quiet and shy. Alex was never in fear of having her blonde hair pulled to see if it was real or her cheeks pinched.
In August 2021, after ten years of construction, a new tunnel has opened. Reported in the Times of India:
“The existing road tunnel below the Banihal Pass often witnessed traffic congestion that affected movement on the highway due to its elevation of 2,194 metres and limited traffic capacity. The new tunnel’s average elevation is 1,790 metres making it less prone to avalanches”
The new tunnel is twice as long but at least they can breathe in it. We went to Kashmir 42 years too soon, but we wouldn’t have missed any of it!
Maureen Logan
1936 – 2023
