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Karnataka tourists bowled over by Kashmiri hospitality

Last Updated 12 September 2014, 18:46 IST

Not all tourists caught in flood-hit Srinagar are carrying horror stories home.A group of vacationers from Karnataka were left impressed with the hospitality of Kashmiri families in the hours of crisis.

Undeterred by the devastation that has brought untold misery, the locals offered them food, water and shelter. Towards the end, they also doubled up as porters, shouldering the tourists’ luggage and wading through water and slush-filled ravines to drop the visitors at the airport.

Narrating her experience, Niveditha Sunkad, a Bangalore-based tourist, was overcome with emotion at the hospitality she received from a Muslim family. Niveditha, of Rajarajeshwarinagar, was safely brought to Delhi by the armed forces on Friday. “In the hour of tragedy, there was total communal harmony as Muslim families hosted several Hindu travellers,” she said. 

This story is different from the loot and scoot incidents coming from the Valley. Recent reports highlighted that some locals heckled tourists and looted them. Sunkad along with five others landed in Srinagar on September 5 to go trekking in the snow-capped Sonmarg hill range. However, soon after landing in Srinagar, they were informed by the organisers that the programme was cancelled.  

“With no option left, we stayed in a hotel on the bank of Dal Lake hoping for the rain to stop. However, on September 6 morning, the hotel’s ground floor got submerged and by noon, the second floor was also engulfed with gushing water”, Sunkad,  techie on a break from her job, said.

Sensing danger, the hotel owners left the place leaving behind some employees to look after property. “As no help was forthcoming we began following other tourists as they were moving towards the upper reaches by walking in knee-deep water. Seeing our plight, a young Muslim boy, Mohammad Yunus Bhat, took all of us to his house in Brein Nishat area...the family members vacated one room for us and said ‘don’t worry, we are here to help you’”, Niveditha recalled.

The Bhat family also accommodated several other tourists. 

From elderly to younger ones all the 10 members of the family joined to help distraught tourists, Niveditha said.    

Even after going towards Raj Bhavan, several Muslim youth helped us by carrying our bags as we had to climb steep hills to reach Raj Bhavan where the Army has set up camp to airlift people to the airport, she said.

In Brein Nishat area, several people opened their houses to tragedy-struck people, be it locals or tourists, and provided food and shelter. Some mosques have opened mass kitchen to feed people day and night.

“They treated us like their family members...Now we have doubt whether they have anything left in their home for eat themselves.We will never forget the hospitality provided by residents of Brein Nishat. They are angels sent by God or we would have been stuck there to die,” Niveditha said.

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(Published 12 September 2014, 18:46 IST)

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