{"id":3735,"date":"2018-08-08T23:16:11","date_gmt":"2018-08-08T17:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=3735"},"modified":"2018-08-08T23:16:14","modified_gmt":"2018-08-08T17:46:14","slug":"from-downtown-boy-of-great-kulfiwala-ama-budda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/editors-take\/from-downtown-boy-of-great-kulfiwala-ama-budda\/","title":{"rendered":"From Downtown Boy: Of Great Kulfiwala Ama Budda"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>

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\"\"<\/a>Of Great Kulfiwala Ama Budda<\/span><\/h5>\n
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The taste of yesteryears still makes my mouth water<\/span><\/h5>\n
Nostalgia by ZGM<\/span><\/h5>\n
\"\"<\/a>The room, I opened eyes for the first time,\u00a0 the clay daubed green walls that greeted me with a smile on my first day in this world, the window that allowed\u00a0 golden sun rays to stealthily steal into the room to kiss my rubicund face for the first time are now no more there. The house I was born in has been devoured by the ferocious monster that eats heritage and gulps down the past.\u00a0 They call this monster as development.<\/span><\/h5>\n
This monster eats beauty- my\u00a0\u00a0 garden city that used to be rash with beauty in spring, filled\u00a0\u00a0 with the fragrance of roses and jasmine during summers and drooping with ripeness during autumn was eaten by him years back. Now the behemoth has eaten everything that often reminded me of those golden days- golden days of childhood, whistles resonating from lanes and by lanes, giggles and laughers coming out from behind the half-shut latticed windows, the lone flute playing youth at night lending cheer to the desolate streets, hordes of swallows perching on electric wires, beautiful makeshift markets and eating places.<\/span><\/h5>\n
I never believed in that Maoist saying, \u2018there is no construction without destruction\u2019- I believed old is beautiful \u2013 it needs to be preserved.\u00a0 It provides an edifice for creating something more beautiful- but who could make them understand that\u00a0\u00a0 destruction of heritage is no construction but destruction only\u2026. In the name of monster they have destroyed everything connected with my childhood- they first destroyed the roof gardens, then they vandalized\u00a0 my eternal home by marketing every rhizome that blossomed irises- pink, white and magenta, they chopped the mystic berry-bearing Celtis- the three my peers and I loved, they filled up canopied willow waterways and called it reclaiming of land- now I am left with nothing but tales of yesteryears with traditional intro for all such tales- \u2018Once upon time\u2019\u2026<\/span><\/h5>\n
And on narrating these tales I may sound as strange to my children\u00a0\u00a0 as many travelogues by European writes like E.F. Knight, \u2018Where Three Empires Meet or Francis Younghusband, \u2018Kashmir As It Was\u2019\u00a0 read to me. I did enjoy the thrill and romance of their travels and many years after reading them some of their experiences live with me, but they often looked far from realities to me. So would be my tales one day.<\/span><\/h5>\n
Some sentences in Knight\u2019s travelogue often bother me even today: \u201cA Kashmiri will unresistingly take a blow from anyone, even from a Kashmiri\u2026. they never come to blows by any chance, having attained such cowardice they actually fear one another. I had been a good deal among Mahomedans in other countries and had always associated dignity and courage with the profession of the creed, so was disagreeably surprised to discover this cowardly, cringing, cackling race among the followers of the Prophet\u201d (SAW). So have been the tales about reception accorded to the Maharaja on his arrival in Srinagar, recounted by Young Husband.\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n
\"\"<\/a>I may sound strange to children when I say that once upon a time a canal named as Mar for its serpentine course flowed through my part of the city. The vivisected city was connected by many bridges. The canal was an engineering marvel. It brought everything from fresh garden vegetables to grains to the doorsteps of the people. It worked as the jugular vein for the city\u2019s drainage system and saved it from stinking and sinking. I have written sometime about the grand morning spectacle on the banks of the canal. There used to be a lot of hustle bustle on the Ghats of the canal\u2014many stories mystic as well romantic surround it.<\/span><\/h5>\n
The areas on both the sides of the bridges over the canal in my childhood were the busiest marketplace. From wee hours in the morning when scores vegetable and fruit vendors used to put their kiosks in the area too late in the night when appetizing and mouth-watering\u00a0 aroma exhaling out of barbeque stalls filled the air, the marketplaces would be full of life.<\/span><\/h5>\n
Of all the markets around the bridges on the canal Bohri Kadal\u00a0 for its being adjacent to the main trade centers Zaina Kadal and Maharaja Gang where from snuff to shahtoosh everything was sold had earned distinction for emerging as one of the best eating places- what today in fashionable colonies is called the food street.<\/span><\/h5>\n
Looking back, the \u00a0Bohri Kadal was the best food street one could imagine in the city. This\u00a0\u00a0 place would be one of the best examples of medieval period markets with small-time vendors sitting on both the sides of the road leading to the main market. The vegetable sellers sitting in the midst of their\u00a0\u00a0 huge willow vats with fresh vegetables filled to capacity added freshness to the market. There were a couple of\u00a0 Moungegear ( I have no English alternative for the word)\u00a0\u00a0 making different varieties of sizzling food items in flour in their huge boiling oil cauldrons-Nadarmunge ( lotus-reeds-in-flour),\u00a0 Mungegada (fish-in-flour) and Moungegool( water nuts-in-flour), Teli-Kara (peas-in-flour) and there were some local sweetmeat sellers selling sugary items. Some of Moungegear were known for the quality of their preparations. I do not if these food items are indigenous or have some Central Asian connection.<\/span><\/h5>\n
In the nearby lanes, there were some very good eating places known for quality Kashmiri wazwan- but those days having food on these food joints was not looked at as gentlemanly. These eating places were visited by the traders from rural areas who were on a shopping spree in the nearby markets and were famous for their lingos and argots.<\/span><\/h5>\n
Of the entire food item, Bohri Kadal was known for its Kulfi and ice cream. There were a couple of ice cream sellers- at often put their stalls in the afternoon.\u00a0 One of the ice-cream seller or the Kufli-man, I remember had put his kiosk on the corner of the bridge. His name was Ghulam Ahmed- popularly known as Ama Budda . He would squat on a mat amidst huge earthen pots (Nauut). I loved watching him rolling his pots filled with ice and small kulfi containers- I enjoyed watching him taking out kulfi out of the tin containers and then decorously opening it on a plate.<\/span><\/h5>\n
As the sun set the rush at his kiosk would increase\u2026I have seen many leaders stopping at his kiosk for enjoying a Kulfi at his shop- but that was once upon a time.<\/span><\/h5>\n
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zahidgm@greaterkashmir.com<\/a><\/span><\/h5>\n

Publish Date: Mar 21 2010 12:00PM<\/p>\n<\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 
\n 
\nOf Great Kulfiwala Ama Budda<\/p>\n

The taste of yesteryears still makes my mouth water
\nNostalgia by ZGM
\nThe room, I opened eyes for the first time,\u00a0 the clay daubed green walls that greeted me with a smile on my first day in this world, the window that allowed\u00a0 golden sun rays to stealthily steal into the room to kiss my rubicund face for the first time are now no more there. The house I was born in has been devoured by the ferocious monster that eats heritage and gulps down the past.\u00a0 They call this monster as development.
\nThis monster eats beauty- my\u00a0\u00a0 garden city that used to be rash with beauty in spring, filled\u00a0\u00a0 with the fragrance of roses and jasmine during summers and drooping with ripeness during autumn was eaten by him years back. Now the behemoth has eaten everything that often reminded me of those golden days- golden days of childhood, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3736,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editors-take"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3735"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3735"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3739,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3735\/revisions\/3739"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}