Kashmir – from Nageen Lake

The view across the lake is idyllic, coloured houseboats, chinar trees, shimmering willows, vivid blue kingfishers, grebes, calm water with just a ripple from the breeze. Misty clouds and beyond to the mountains, even the sun is trying to get through. But something is wrong.

There are shrill agitated anxious voices and a baby cries from across the water. Small buildings that were fixed yesterday have gone. An elegant canoe passes silently but the woman with her spade paddle is not smiling and the boat is laden with huge knotted bundles of clothes, no lotus flowers today.

Now Kashmir is flooded. Five days and nights of continuous rain have run into the Jhelum River, a cloudburst way upstream has run into Sindh River; the pressure is relieved by sluices that flow into Dal and Nageen lakes. The clay stratum that contains the lakes now stops natural drainage; there is no natural outfall.

Our delightful Kashmiri hosts have had to leave their house, two more feet of water since midnight, some possessions salvaged, no electricity not even the generator, cell phone and Wi-Fi networks cut off, no mains water, and storage tanks empty. The children have long since been moved to cousins, no school of course. Laughter, another canoe goes by and our friend tells us that the cook who yesterday was still working up to his knees in water has been bitten by ants; “God must be really angry with him”.

The rain, the worst for 27 years, has stopped.

Kashmir, 8 September 2014