...a vision of daring and dainty loveliness, of story of rosy masonry and delicate overhanging balconies and latticed windows, soaring with tier after tier of fanciful architecture in a pyramidal form, a very mountain of airy and audacious beauty , through the thousdnad pierced screens and gilded arches of which the Indian air blows cool over the flt roofs of the very highest house. Alladin’s magician could have called into existence no more marvelous abode.
In the course of the first half of the twentieth century, an entire social season sprang up around Srinagar and Gulmarg...As the landscape becomes further framed into domestic views, there is decreasing room for the urban geography of those areas of Srinagar where tourists, now moored to their increasingly opulent houseboats did not venture. As the bridges, overhanging houses, Mar Canal views and ethnographic portraits receded from albums, increasing prominence was secured by landscapes of the Lake and the social life centered around the clubs of Srinagar and Gulmarg.
Ananya Jahanara Kabir