Muzamil Bhat

Author

Sarbajaya Bhattacharya

Editor

large_HP-COVER-IMAGE-MB-Waiting for sunny days in the mountains.jpg

medium_HP-COVER-IMAGE-MB-Waiting for sunny days in the mountains.jpg

small_HP-COVER-IMAGE-MB-Waiting for sunny days in the mountains.jpg

thumbnail_HP-COVER-IMAGE-MB-Waiting for sunny days in the mountains.jpg

HP-COVER-IMAGE-MB-Waiting for sunny days in the mountains.jpg

“I go home only to take a shower,” says Mirza Mohammad Khan in a cheeky tone. He is sitting inside Khan Tea Stall in&nbsp;Tragbal, a stop for tourists on their way from Srinagar to Gurez valley. In this sparsely populated corner of Kashmir, the stall and its hoarding are unmissable.&nbsp;“We get 500 liters of water every four days,” the 32-year-old stall owner continues. “I have to use this for making tea, washing utensils and other necessary things. I cannot afford to take a bath here and waste 20-30 liters of water! Every cup counts,” he addsIn Tragbal, with the&nbsp;Razdan mountains serving as a backdrop, Mirza has been running the stall for 12 years, serving tea, coffee, Maggi noodles and other light snacks to tourists. “I call this my second home as I stay here for five days a week from Wednesday to Sunday. I go home on Monday as it’s a working day and we get very few visitors,” says Mirza. His family home is in the&nbsp;Pethkoot area of&nbsp;Bandipore district of north Kashmir, some 30 kilometres away. In Tragbal, Mirza sleeps in the stall, which has a store room and a 3 x 6 feet bedroom.&nbsp;

April to September is the peak season for tourism and Mirza makes around Rs. 15,000 a month, working from nine in the morning to seven at night, serving around 100 customers a day. He is the sole earning member of his family of six – his wife and four children. The journey home in a local taxi costs Rs.300, an expense Mirza cannot afford on a regular basis.&nbsp;Supplies have to be brought up the mountains and Mirza has to pay extra. “Usually, there is a profit of one rupee for a five rupees biscuit packet. But when I have to bring it here from Bandipore I have to pay a hefty cargo fare, which brings down my profit to 50 paisa,” Mirza explains.&nbsp;Mirza had started out with the hope that the influx of tourists will help steady and grow his business, but now feels somewhat stuck. “It is not easy to run this shop here, but I don’t feel like shifting to something else where I have to start again. If the flow of tourists to Gurez valley increases, it will increase our sales as well.”

He keeps a radio in his dhaba to listen to weather updates. It’s an important asset as bad weather spells bad news – a fall in the number of tourists to Gurez. Mirza waits for sunny days!Once the tourist season comes to an end and winter is approaching, Mirza returns to Bandipore in search of other odd jobs as a mason or a carpenter. But work is hard to come by in winter. “I have to sit at home and spend whatever I have saved from my earnings,” Mirza says.&nbsp; &nbsp;

Waiting for sunny days in the mountains

पहाड़ मं घाम के अगोरा 

…म्हणून मी उन्हाळ्याची वाट पाहतो

مرزا کو ہے دھوپ والے دنوں کا انتظار

மலைகளில் வெயில் வர காத்திருத்தல்

ਜਦੋਂ ਪਹਾੜ ਕਰਨ ਖਿੜ੍ਹੇ ਦਿਨਾਂ ਦੀ ਉਡੀਕ

ପାହାଡ଼ରେ ଖରା ଦିନକୁ ଅପେକ୍ଷା

തെളിച്ചമുള്ള ദിനങ്ങൾ കാത്ത് പർവ്വതങ്ങളിൽ

ಬೆಟ್ಟದ ಮೇಲೊಂದು ಚಹಾದಂಗಡಿ ಮಾಡಿ

मिर्ज़ा को है ख़ुशनुमा दिनों का इंतज़ार...

রোদ্দুরের অপেক্ষায় পর্যটকহীন শীতল উপত্যকা 

પર્વતીય વિસ્તારમાં ઉઘાડના દિવસોની, ખુશહાલ દિવસોની રાહમાં

घाम के आस में चाय के एगो ठीया

পাহাৰত এটা ৰ’দঘাই দিনৰ অপেক্ষাত 

Tragbal

medium_MOBILE-COVER-IMAGE-MB-Waiting for sunny days in the mountains.jpg

small_MOBILE-COVER-IMAGE-MB-Waiting for sunny days in the mountains.jpg

thumbnail_MOBILE-COVER-IMAGE-MB-Waiting for sunny days in the mountains.jpg

MOBILE-COVER-IMAGE-MB-Waiting for sunny days in the mountains.jpg

At present, we can only accept donations in Indian rupees by Indian citizens. All donations made to the CounterMedia Trust are eligible for exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Here is a copy of our exemption certificate.


India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

Donate FAQs


Let’s get you acquainted

Welcome to PARI

All our content is, and will forever be free to consume. If you enjoy our work, you can support us by becoming a volunteer or by donating to help fund our work.

Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

Waiting for sunny days in the mountains

Running a tea stall in Kashmir’s Gurez valley is not a leisurely livelihood for Mirza Mohammad Khan

Related stories

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

Living on ravaged land

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

Recycling energy, Godda style

Bhadels of Goa

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

Koli Kadlas

Malnourishment high among children of migrants: study

Wheels of the rural Indian West

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

In Yavatmal, life goes on

Suicides are about the living, not the dead

Death of a carpenter

Hoisa Shigmo!

Women farmers: weaving a life in Anantapur

Defiant in Dhinkia

Spice and all that's nice

Kerala's Green Army

The ‘jugaad’ not-a-mobile

Health as someone else's wealth

Calibrating in a Kudumbashree assembly unit