The Foreigner !

By Manuwant Choudhary

I am not sure why but I have these photos of Kashmir lying on my bedside table for years from a road trip 20 years ago. I also keep this  laminated photo of my late editor Behram Contractor.

So sometimes I browse through them and wonder how much India has changed. The other day I was chatting with a 28 year old girl from Dehradun who said she is a journalist, a field researcher and an investigative reporter.

But when I told her there are very few journalists in India these days she insisted there are many and the numbers keep growing.

Its only later that she got it, "Oh you mean unbiased reporting. Nobody buys that anymore. Also you must make enough dough to survive. Today we work for corporates and political parties to help them disguise information as the truth."

Amazing.

But I think 20 years ago journalists had some respect I think. The only time someone called it a business was one activist from the Narmada Bachao Andolan who asked me, "Aapka business kaisa chal raha hai?"

I looked at him startled, "Like what business? I am a reporter." (In fact, my newspaper lost some big advertisers because of my reporting)

But I have always been a student of Kashmir so this journey remains among my favourite.

It was a solo trip on a day Kashmir was oberving a Black Day and I took the only Ambassador going from Jammu to Srinagar.

All along the journey I worried about what might happen in the next 5 minutes but the anxiety grew as we reached Srinagar.

I had never been there before and knew no one.

As I got down from the car a man looking like an Afghan receives me and tells me, "You are a journalist. You will be going to Ahdu hotel. But I own a houseboat and if you don't mind I'd like you to stay there. If you don't like it then I will drop you to Ahdu."

I stayed in the houseboat. The next morning I took a bus from Srinagar to Leh.

The houseboat owner booked the bus ticket and a window seat for me.

But when we got onto the bus I saw a foreigner sitting on my seat.

The Kashmiri fought with her for me..no one has ever fought on my behalf as much.

Its only when I told him to let her have the seat that he cooled off. 

I took another seat.

On way there were many checkpoints and Indian soldiers would get on an off checking the bus. One checkpost even had a photograph of Iran's Spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini !

Midway from Srinagar to Kargil some Gurkhas got onto the bus and they asked for IDs from every person on the bus.

And I mean every person.

Until he came to the Swiss girl.

She showed him her Swiss passport.

The Gurkha guard turned his gun towards a gentleman sitting beside her. He shouted, "Passport?"

He replied, No passport."

The Gurkha getting angrier, "Passport..please show.."

Its only when other passengers intervened that the Gurkha laughed out loud, "Oh, sorry you Kashmiri. I think you foreigner. "

I must be the only passenger on the bus who was not asked for an identity card or passport.

I still wonder why.