Despite COVID-19 pandemic, life going on as usual in human settlements within Jammu and Kashmir's Dal Lake

At a time when coronavirus pandemic has brought the whole world to halt, life is going on as usual in the human settlements within and along the famous Dal Lake in Srinagar.

There is hustle-and-bustle within the settlement inside the Dal as people come out of their homes and trade from early in the morning like they would do pre-COVID-19 times. There is no disruption caused to the 100-year-old floating gardens that supply vegetables to Srinagar.

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Traders in their canoe, locally known as ‘naav’, gather at the centre of the lake at the break of dawn and finish up before the sun starts to rise from beyond the nearby mountains. During the day, the same vegetable sellers open up their groceries store, many of which have sprouted on the murky water of the Dal Lake.

“Nobody, so far, has been infected (by COVID-19) here. A team of doctors had conducted tests here; they all came out negative. Police don’t come here often to make us observe the lockdown. Allah will protect us,” Ghulam Hassan, a resident of Leat Mohallah in the Dal interiors, said.

He said normal life never gets disturbed in the area. “Be it security clampdown in 2019, 2014 floods or unrest in 2008, 2010 and 2016 when all of Kashmir was locked, we were doing our work as usual,” Hassan said.

The indifference, or call it defiance, to the lockdown, according to him, comes from the years of “built-up immunity” among the people.

Arif Ali, a budding entrepreneur from Okhoon Mohallah, purchased a shop in the area and is now furnishing its interiors. Aware that the lockdown will remain for a long time in other areas, he saw an opportunity to open another shop.

“Life in this area remains unchanged, come what may,” he said. “So, I thought of opening a shop here. I know it will be successful.”

Most of the grocery, vegetable, tailor and fruit shops in Dal interiors remain open as usual. People from nearby localities (under lockdown) visit the place for buying groceries, and for getting hair-cuts.

In the last century, a vast portion of the lake was converted into the land. About eight km of the shoreline has been lost, according to Tariq Ahmad, an activist working for preserving the water body.