Life on Dal Lake, Kashmir, India

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Early every morning the vegetable market takes place where farmers come to sell their stock, both retail and wholesale.  All stock is brought to the site on these small boats and all transactions and bargaining is carried out in the boats on the lake.  At the height of market time it is phrenetic and busy, people joslling and arguing over prices making for a colourful and chaotic atmosphere.  This man has come to buy his morning lavash, flat bread, for his breakfast.  

Late one evening a flower seller refreshes his blooms for sale the next morning.  A lot of the flowers which are sold in the city and to tourists on the houseboats, are grown on reclaimed land around Nageen lake.  These spring flowers include tulips, pansies, daffodils and some blossom.   

In the wintertime, fish stocks are not plentiful on the Dal Lake, around which the City of Srinagar is built.  Fishermen, who live in the fisherman's colony on the lake, therefore instead fish for nadhroo, a vegetable which grows about a metre below the surface.  It is white and long, a bit tough, and resembles a cross between a stick of rhubarb and a radish.  There can be chopped and fried.  This fisherman is wearing the traditional Kashmiri garment, the Pheran, a loose outer gown. 

This fisherman is taking a break with his hookah pipe during the cold of winter.  The kangri basket by his feet is a traditional way that Kashmiris keep warm in winter.  It is a small portable wicker basket which holds an earthenware firepot filled with hot charcoal.  In winter people carry them around with them, and hte fisherman put them under their Pherans.

What next?

• View more photography of Kashmir
• Learn about the Kashmir Saffron Harvest
• Hear Nick talk about the Mosques and Holy Shrines in Kashmir