LITMIR.BIZ

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work for this force of dour students led by Mullah Omar that would soon capture Afghanistan, while another brother was running the Movement’s Bahawalpur recruiting office.

      Master Alvi should have been happy. Most of his family were doing holy work. Apart from Masood. He was desperate to secure the release of his golden child. He travelled to Karachi to see Maulana Khalil, and together they had gone to pay their respects to Brigadier Badam of the ISI. ‘Do what the Afghani did when Langrial was taken,’ the Brigadier told them. ‘Kidnap someone important, preferably foreign. Make it an embarrassment for India. It’s the only sure way to get him back.’ Master Alvi was unsure. What did he know about kidnapping, let alone foreigners? But he was certain of one thing. The Movement owed his son.

       THREE

       The Meadow

      ‘Paradise on Earth’, declared the sign beside the old Jammu and Kashmir tourist reception centre on Residency Road, a short rickshaw ride from Lal Chowk, Srinagar’s main shopping bazaar, with its cake shops and dressmakers, kurta-sellers and papier-mâché emporiums, behind which sprawled alleyways and lanes faced on either side by rickety wooden and stone structures. Plastic-chair depots blended into office supplies, and then came an entire street selling computers shorn of their inner workings, before you reached car parts, bath taps and telephones. Here was a Sikh gurdwara and an Islamic welfare association, hotels selling hot buttered toast, seekh kebabs and Lipton’s tea, while in the lanes below suited businessmen and Kashmiri housewives picked their way around overloaded handcarts.

      But it was the large signboard that attracted Jane and Don’s attention that morning. It might have convinced the increasing number of Indian tourists coming from the cow belt that all was peaceful here, the dark-skinned holidaymakers from the south who were all keen to do their bit to reinforce the government’s writ in Kashmir. But it struck Don and Jane as odd, given what they had seen so far: the occupation of everything by the security forces, including this tourist centre, which was surrounded by razor wire, sentries and bunkers.

      Inside, there were no tourists. The deserted corridors smelled of bleach and someone else’s lunch. Asking for information on trekking routes at reception, Jane and Don were half-heartedly directed to a room where they found two Kashmiri officials sipping tea beneath a whirring fan that agitated the curling edges of posters depicting Kashmir’s many beauty spots. The men seemed delighted and surprised to have visitors. One jumped up, proffered a hand and introduced himself as Naseer Ahmed Jan, ‘of the J&K tourist police’. Immediately he launched into a speech about the dangers of travelling alone in the mountains. It was the first voice of caution Jane and Don had heard since arriving in India, and it immediately grabbed their attention. There was a possibility of thieves, he said, sizing up their reactions, and a real chance of getting lost. They should be clear that the weather up in the mountains was unpredictable. For these reasons – and to ensure that they found the best routes and the right campsite – it was imperative that they take along a recommended guide.

      Jane knew a sales pitch when she heard it. She was not surprised when Mr Jan introduced the colleague sitting by his side as being able to arrange a taxi to Pahalgam, as well as find ponies. ‘He tried to give us many reasons why we shouldn’t go on our own, why we should hire someone to go with us. It was inappropriate,’ said Jane. She and Don got up to leave. Looking perturbed to have lost out on an opportunity, Mr Jan handed them his card. ‘Call me,’ he said weakly as the other man followed them out, still talking silkily: ‘You choose the price. Only pay me what you feel I deserve. The decision is yours …’ Out in the street, Jane and Don concluded wearily that they would only have to go through the same performance with someone else at the trekking station. Why not get it over with? ‘We were persuaded,’ Jane said. ‘The guide then said he would hire the pony-men.’ Without really thinking it through, they had been hustled into committing to the Pahalgam option.

      Seven days earlier, just before midnight on 21 June, Julie and Keith Mangan had lugged their belongings to the Inter State bus stand in New Delhi, where they were to board a coach to Kashmir. After three months in Sri Lanka, the British couple were bronzed, and they had become deaf to the mayhem of the subcontinent, feeling like old Asia hands. As they were settling into their seats on the Srinagar-bound bus Julie spotted two other Westerners, who with their blue-white skin and hassled expressions seemed to be fresh off the plane. Pushing their way through the crowds, with bags and tickets tumbling around them, the young couple were being trailed by a crowd of coolies, children and chai-wallahs who had sniffed out an opportunity. It was Paul Wells and Catherine Moseley, who had survived the experience of staying in the backpacker district of Paharganj and were now heading for Ladakh, having decided to take the cheapest route, by road via Srinagar, after the owner of their guesthouse arranged the tickets for them, taking a healthy commission. ‘Do you need help?’ Julie shouted over the hubbub. The young woman surrounded by beggars whipped around at hearing the English voice, and seeing Julie standing on the steps of the bus waving, burst out laughing. Cath was finding the whole India thing mind-boggling.

      Once they were safely aboard, Julie introduced herself and Keith, and made a gentle jibe about Cath and Paul’s lack of experience. More than twenty-four hours on an Indian bus would see to that, she joked. Had they come prepared, Keith asked, listing the necessary provisions for the trip: toilet roll, Imodium, real mineral water. ‘Test the seals before you buy, or face a lifetime on the shitter’ was the mantra of the travelling Westerner in those days, since so many water bottles were actually filled from the nearest unfiltered tap. Cath told them she and Paul had signed up to another forty-eight hours of travelling beyond Srinagar. As the bus roared out of New Delhi, passing pavements where homeless children slept beneath the fierce glow of halogen lights, Cath and Paul began to relax.

      Despite the age difference, the Mangans chatted easily with the young backpackers. Keith, Julie and Paul discovered that they were all from the north of England, and they swapped stories from home and away. Having been in South Asia for so many weeks, Julie and Keith were familiar with the road trick of building casual relationships with other travellers. Leaving the hot colours of the Indian plains behind, the bus, keeling ominously, headed into the Pir Panjal, a mountain range in the lower Himalayas that separated the Kashmir Valley from the rest of India. By that afternoon, 22 June, they were in the foothills and the two couples knew pretty much everything there was to know about each other.

      That night, as the last light faded, they headed through the dank Banihal Tunnel, the only road route connecting Kashmir to the rest of India. At times of heightened tension this road would be blocked by the army, sealing Kashmiris in, but just now it was open, although at its end an army checkpoint loomed like a giant mousetrap. Welcome to Paradise, the couples thought to themselves as the waiting Indian soldiers waved flashlights in the gloom. The bus came to a halt, and all the passengers were ordered off and made to stand in line with their passports and identity documents to hand. As the only Westerners on board, Keith, Julie, Paul and Cath were taken over to a small cabin that served as the local office of the J&K tourist police. There they were asked seemingly endless questions, their details noted down in longhand in lined ledgers, the pages bookmarked with elastic bands. Keith wondered if anyone ever read them afterwards.

      Most of the other passengers on the bus were Kashmiri, born broke and destined to spend their lives trapped in the valley; or if they could get the papers, compelled to be permanently in transit, travelling the vast subcontinent the cheapest way possible, carrying plastic suitcases full of shawls, business cards and trinkets. It was thirty-four hours to Calcutta from here, and forty-two to Goa. More than two thousand miles lay between Kashmir and Pondicherry, in India’s deep south-east. They were willing to ply even these far corners of the subcontinent, eking out every opportunity to make a small profit. Behind the hut where Paul, Cath, Keith and Julie were being questioned, they glimpsed Indian soldiers trampling on the Kashmiris’ possessions. They were probably checking for contraband, weapons or explosives, someone murmured. After all, a nation had every right to protect itself.

      Half an hour later they were

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