Dalgate market

Dalgate is named for the nearby Dall Lock that connects Dall Lake to the inner city waterways. The market, the street fronting on Dall Lake, the rows of very expensive houseboats, the shakira loading docks and the bridge over the lock itself were all very heavily guarded by police when we first arrived. I didn't think much about it until my friend in Canada sent me an email saying she hoped I would be O.K. in such a disturbed area. I hadn't seen very much in the way of disturbance since we have got here, lots of police/soldiers with long guns hanging about, sometimes frisking the odd young man up against a truck, nothing more exciting than you would see on any weekend night on Whyte Avenue.

So I wondered if she knew something I didn't. I googled for recent news about Kashmir, and what do you know, big dust up in the big market downtown three days after we got into town, six people injured and one killed when a group attacked a machine gun post. I asked one guy about it and he said that people in that neighborhood were getting very angry about the mess the Indian police were creating in the roadways with their coils of razor wire, garbage and broken brick left lying all over the roadway. Srinagar is not like other cities in India. It's very clean, no garbage at all left lying around on the street. The narrow flagstone side streets are washed everyday by the people in the houses alongside them. The air is wonderful, very little of that stench of human and animal excrement and rotting vegetables in every unused nook and cranny that is such a feature of southern India, nor so much vehicular traffic that car exhaust is noticeable and no plastic bags. About the only place I noticed Indian style garbage tips was over the side of the canal that runs along Dalgate street, beside the little squatter cabins. However, attacking a military type stronghold seems a little extreme protest for civic cleanliness. Couldn't get much info about it though, the Kashmir News Agency website was off line when I tried to access the story.

Anyway, the police must have known what was planned, the security around the tourist section of town was very extensive when we arrived, they have since stood down a bit, not so many guys with guns standing around now. However it's obvious they are looking for someone, we keep encountering groups of them standing around odd corners of otherwise quiet streets prepared and waiting for someone.