Z the Zumarry

Living in Kashmir: A Year of People, Places and Memories

Z for Zummary

AI generated by NotebookLM - summary of posts

What is a Zummary? Just a summary with a slight slur after a drink or two! 😀

Ask what remains of a year in Kashmir and the answer is small sturdy things. 

Two woollen rugs, still serving after forty-seven years and eleven house moves. 

Two papier mâché bells that come out from the Christmas box every December, glowing in their original colours. 

A silver bangle, still worn. 

Three matching sets of garnet, amethyst, and moonstone bracelets and earrings, each in silver, bought from the silversmith during long winter afternoons in Srinagar's bazaars. 

An olive-green medical kit turned storage box, a quiet relic of another era and some faded and water damaged photos now digitized. 

Some copper and brass trays and these stories, reconstructed from what memory held, and written down at last, they are here. A world that no longer exists as it was, but remembered by the two of us who lived it.

In case you missed a post, or just choose to revisit. 

• A for Accommodation and Arrival
• B for Bazaars, Banks and Baramulla
• C for Carpets, Chilli Chicken and Crossing the Line
• D for Dak Bungalows and Darra
• E for Embroidery and an Elephant
• F for the Fish Market, Fear and Friendship
• G for Golf at Gulmarg and Goats
• H for Houseboats on the Lakes
• I for Inglenook and Indian Republic Day
• J for Jeeps in a Variety of Situations
• K for a Kitchen and the Khyber Pass
• L for Life on the Lakes and Lambrettas
• M for Managing Medical Matters
• N for a Near Miss
• O for the OK Tickets
• P for Papier Mache and People
• Q for Quirky Tales
• S for Supplies and Suffering Moses
• T for Trucks, Trains and Tracks
• U for the Unexpected
• V for the VW and Cricket
• W for Wintering Over
• X for the eXtras
• Y for the Year in Retrospect
• Z for this Zummary

Thanks to all who read my posts, and to those who commented, multiple thanks.

This post first appeared on earlieryears.blogspot.com by CRGalvin

The Year in Retrospect

Living in Kashmir 1979-80: A Year of People, Places and Memories 

Some events throughout that year that influenced our lives

Pre-Posting Events

Long before we set foot on Pakistani soil, the world had already begun to rearrange itself in ways that would strip away our carefully laid plans. We had been rather pleased with ourselves; truth be told. The scheme was elegant, fly to Germany, collect our newly ordered vehicle, and make the overland drive southward, through Iran, across to Pakistan, where we would spend our posting year before shipping the vehicle home to Sydney.

After twelve months back on Australian soil, it could be sold at a tidy profit, having neatly sidestepped the punishing import duties then levied on luxury cars. We were not alone in this thinking; it was a well-worn path among those posted abroad. 

Then history intervened, as it so often does, with indifference to our plans.

• 16 January 1979 – The Shah fled Iran

• 11 February 1979 – Revolutionary forces in Iran took control

• 14 February 1979 – In Kabul, Muslim extremists kidnapped the American ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs, who was killed during a gunfight between his kidnappers and police

The road through Iran became first imprudent, then impossible, and finally unthinkable. The deposit was forfeited. The vehicle was cancelled. The grand drive south existed only as a might-have-been.

AI generated image in NotebookLM

After Arrival

We arrived in Pakistan instead by altogether more conventional means, stepping into a country that was itself poised on a knife's edge.

• 4 April 1979 – Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was executed by hanging

A period of confinement in Flashmans Hotel in Rawalpindi as riots took place in the streets.

• 11 July 1979 – NASA's first orbiting space station, Skylab, began falling back Earth as its orbit decayed after more than six years.

In Srinagar, word spread that Skylab was tumbling from the heavens, and the city shuttered itself for two anxious days, uncertain what, precisely, to expect from a falling space station.

• 4 November 1979 - militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran, beginning a hostage crisis.

• 21 November 1979 – After false radio reports from the Ayatollah Khomeini that the Americans had occupied the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the United States Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan was attacked by a mob and set fire, killing four.

UNMOGIP personnel could no longer visit the US Embassy cinema or bar for entertainment as security there was tightened.

• 28 November 1979– An Air New Zealand DC-10 crashed into Mount Erebus in Antarctica on a sightseeing trip, killing all 257 people on board.

Two months later we were aboard a flight from Delhi to Srinagar when the pilot had aborted a landing on late finals, the aircraft pulling away sharply as the ground rose too close beneath us. The Erebus disaster gave that event a sharper edge than was possibly necessary.

• 24 December 1979 - The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.

The border closed. Kabul which we had imagined visiting, simply ceased to be accessible, sealed away behind the machinery of a new war.

In March of 1980, we departed with considerable relief, making our way home via Hong Kong. On our first night back in Sydney, we sat at Watsons Bay as the evening light softened over the harbour, a feast of seafood spread before us. The sky was clean and blue and startlingly clear. The streets were quiet and free of the particular odours that had become so familiar.

We enjoyed our food, looked out at the water, and we felt the relief of having come through it all. 

Finally, we were home.

AI generated by NotebookLM

This post first appeared on earlieryears.blogspot.com by CRGalvin

The eXtras

Living in Kashmir: A Year of People, Places and Memories

eXtra memories 

These are the memories that slipped between the pages: the small absurdities, the daily disciplines, the moments that made expatriate life what it truly was for me, not merely an adventure, but a lived-in,  complicated existence. A few samples of previously undocumented memories.

1. The only advertisement on Pakistani television at the time and it was repeated over and over “Polka ice cream stick: a tasty pick” I can still hear that voice. That jingle has proved entirely impossible to dislodge from memory.

2. The Indian alternative to Coca-Cola had us amused the first time we saw the bottle -ThumsUp, It was not a spelling mistake but a well-respected brand.

3. The need to remember to keep one’s mouth closed in the shower and not to use any unboiled water for cleaning one’s teeth. Daily habits that had to be rigorously remembered.

4. The scoreboard we kept in the kitchen of the number of rats captured in winter. I once threw a plastic bowl over one running across the floor – it died of fright!

5. The “Bad-Taste” Party where we dressed in ridiculous outfits and fed our international friends Vegemite on chapatis.
 
6. The night we had a variety of local guests, I had catered for Muslim and Hindu tastes and preferences and labelled the food appropriately. Catering across cultures, however, demanded a rather more earnest attention to detail. I was unaware one person was vegan and when asked by her husband what she could eat, all I could suggest was the boiled cauliflower and plain white rice.

7. The visit to the Buddhist Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, Sri Lanka when on a break. The beach in Galle, the train ride along the coast, the friendly people, the good food. A fond memory of a short break there with Australian friends.

Caught on film

Gone fishing, or was he just getting his feet wet?

Fishing in a fabled trout stream near Pahalgam

Finnish Friends were always ready to share food and drinks

Some summer cheer with I.H and P.H

Then at last, in March 1980 there was a farewell at the PX in Rawalpindi. The excitement that we were going home.

This post first appeared on earlieryears.blogspot.com by CRGalvin