The Lost Songs of Kashmir Villages

From poisoned streams to shrinking farmlands, the story of Kashmir villages is one of beauty slipping into memory.

- Mushtaq Hurra

Kashmir villages bear bewitching and seductive looks when the sizzling summers embrace the mother earth in luxuriantly verdant vestures to tranquilize the jaded hearts and the bleary eyes.

Beauty and villages are almost synonymous, nature reaches the zenith of beauty in villages.

I believe, if God had to choose an abode for Himself on the planet earth, He (SWT) would have chosen villages because villages are purer and simpler, and both of these are the attributes of God.

Away from the pace and ostentatiousness of urban dazzle and glare, villages balm bruised bosoms, bring buds to bloom and calm sweltering hearts.

Villages and hamlets exhibit astounding and prodigious scenes of natural beauty during the summers. Carpets of greenery wrap everything in the velvety lap.

Mesmerizing meadows hypnotize human souls. A burbling brook passing through lush green cedar and pine woods produces symphonic warbles of saccharin melody which soothes the knackered ears.

Raw and unripe fruits, veggies and other crops add volumes of optimism to innocuous peasants who anticipate a bumper crop of their toil and hardwork.

Crooning of unfledged young ones of ring-doves in their nests woven on the bowing branches of pomegranate shrubs laden with scarlet fruits-to-be, mesmerise the peaceful environs of bourgs.

Sight of blood-rich bunches of cherries, hanging from the branches of cone-shaped trees, remove boredom and faineant feelings.

Marsh mellow juicy and fleshy apricots entice hearts and seduce souls to remove yellowish tinge from the faces of ailing people.

Vastly expanding paddy fields annunciate the mercy and benevolence of God because the sun-lit grand farmlands are the guarantors of food for the entire creation of God.

Children taking dips in the shallow canals and sparkling streams containing the cool clear-crystal waters to beat the heat of scorching weather, enthral a tired traveller.