Wednesday, January 28, 2009

My home town

"AGAR FIRDOUS BA-ROIA ZAMAIN AST
HAMEIN ASTO HAMEIN ASTO
HAMEIN AST" (Words of JAHANGIR on getting a glimpse of Gulmarg)

My home town is situated on the banks of river “JEHLUM” (as significant as THAMES) sandwiched between two of the most natural beauties in this part of the world. On one side there is the world famous hill resort "GULMARG" and on the other side Asia's largest sweet water lake , "WULAR". Both of these world famous tourist attractions have their own legends so has my home town "SOPORE".

My home town has been named after one of the most eminent engineer that my home land "KASHMIR" has ever seen. His name was "SOYAA", he belonged to a lower cast Hindu family. He was not allowed to study with other kids at the school initially but after much persuasion and request from her mother, the high cast teacher allowed him to come to his classroom, the teacher was shocked to find out that what ever he taught or was going to teach his students, Soyaa new that already. "SOYAA" represents never giving up, always surprising by doing what nobody expects from you, exceeding the expectation; so does this town and its inhabitants named after him.

Kashmir in olden times had a very big problem of frequent and devastating floods. So one day while pondering over how to stop the frequent flooding, the king asked for SOYAA's help. SOYAA came with a completely out of box suggestion, he asked the king to give him two boats filled with gold coins and promised that the problem would be solved. With two gold filled boats , SOYAA went to the bottle neck of the river "JEHLUM" that was causing the flooding . He threw all the gold coins in the river and announced that who ever brings the coins out of the river can have them, but with one condition that the stone or rock under which the coins are has also be brought out also.

He had just completed saying these words and every tom, dick and harry was in the river trying to grab as much as possible. With in no time the whole river bed was cleared of the obstruction causing floods.

From old past now let me come to the recent past. After my hometown was named in honor of the great engineer, it has been since then been called and known by various nicknames as well. The most well known nicknames include "CHOTA LONDON" or "LITTLE LONDON" and "APPLE TOWN" . The first name was bestowed because of the amount of the business that was done here and the amount of money that used to change hands . The second nickname comes due to the reason that my home town was responsible for the production of the 90% of the apples. Apples EVEN NOW are responsible for the generation 60% income for the whole state when there are now various other options aswell. The business was so big in my home town that it led to the birth of such a big business man who used to lend money to the county's govt,(when they needed the funds desperately), his name was SAMAD PANDITH (his legend some other time). With all these things in mind what do you expect the central square, where the milestone reads ZERO, will be harboring..……. (r u imagining some sort of Trafalgar square)….to know what it actually harbors wait for the next update

5 comments:

  1. Beautiful!!!That's a brilliant description that can only come from someone who has been associated with the place!! :) loved reading it...

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  2. I am waiting for another one...a beautiful and most importantly, true description of the place! :)

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  3. Stories frm back Home !! I liked it :)
    Waiting for the next one .

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  4. nostalgia gets the best remembrances out of a person...nice one...loved reading it.waiting for the next update....:)

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  5. Dear Apple of my eye :)

    Small anecdotes, little wonderful details.. I loved it! I want to know the legend of Samanth Pandit too. When will that be here? And ofcourse the continuation of this..

    Keep it coming!

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