I am already packing a small bag to go to Kashmir and swell the tourism statistics which are extraordinary for the smallish Union Territory, where I expect to sail languorously on the Dal Lake, shop for woolens in Srinagar, go skiing on the slopes of Gulmarg, staying in a five-star hotel which is doing good business and otherwise enjoying myself, without fear of untoward incidents like getting hit by a missile from a stone pelter’s throwing hand, or held up by security forces, or other “minor acts of terrorism”.
In doing so, I will be declaring my belief in the numbers submitted to the Lower House by junior home minister G Kishen Reddy last Tuesday, that the number of stone-pelting incidents had come down but lots and lots of potential pelters were in jail.
He also said 34 lakh tourists had visited J&K over the last six months, 12,934 of them foreigners, and that the earnings through tourism had touched Rs.25 crore during this period.
Must say I am puzzled by the numbers and since I rather like them, I went to my phone calculator and did a little math. Not a lot, just dividing 25 crores by 34 lakh, and once I figured out the zeros, up came this puzzling fact. On an average, each of these 3.4 million tourists pouring into the valley in the past six months spent around Rs.73!
But I am just going to go by faith and belief, since there is a lot of it these days, some of it having reached the Supreme Court as well, and I am going to continue to pack my bags.
I shall be going by air, of course, though it is a bit worrying to think that the Srinagar airport, actually the Sheikh Ul Alam airport (though that may change now, any day, who knows), can only handle around 500 passengers (domestic) at peak time.
They must be handling peak volumes 24x7 and that would account for only half the tourist numbers that I am now determined to swell, but who’s worried!
The other half must be coming by bus or train, or maybe they are determinedly trekking in, now that everything is so safe and normal in Kashmir.
Whatever, the whole state must be rejoicing, seeing nearly 20,000 people have been pouring in, day in and day out, for the last six months. Of course, on average, but those 3.4 million people have to be accounted for, na?
I am also going to ignore the stupid spokesman of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who has been bleating about losses due to the lockdown of Rs.12,000 crore. What does HE know, the spoilsport. And the niggling little fact that last year’s tourism figures were only 8.5 lakh, down by 23 per cent from the previous year. For the whole year.
Now I’ve been figuring (curse you, addictive calculator), that till August 5, things were pretty much as they’ve been for the past several years in the region, tense with the promise of occasional sunshine, so tourist figures couldn’t have seen a sudden rise.
The spike must have appeared AFTER Abrogation of Article 370 and suddenly, the figures for tourists are mind boggling! Faith, Carol, have faith.
So I imagine that, actually, the government is laying a lot of emphasis upon the visit of a particularly important bunch of tourists to Kashmir, 23 Members of the European Parliament who were there to assess for themselves in October that All is truly Well.
We saw the proof – pictures of smiling happy faces on the Dal Lake in a shikara, all perfectly normal, security carefully out of the frames. We may not know exactly what they did, but what the hell, what’s good enough for the MEPs is good enough for me.
And while I know that someone must have spent a pretty penny to ferry them in and ferry them out, and wine and dine them in the capital as well, I know it’s not going to be as expensive for me.
Here’s my Rs.73. Now take me to Kashmir. Choreographers note.
