Wooing the war hunters

The BJP might be trying to get back to Raisina Hill via Tiger Hill. Since Kargil doesn't sell that well in Jammu and Kashmir, Farooq Abdu...

The BJP might be trying to get back to Raisina Hill via Tiger Hill. Since Kargil doesn8217;t sell that well in Jammu and Kashmir, Farooq Abdullah8217;s government is only looking for modest gains. All that the state8217;s tourism department wants is that the human sacrifice in Kargil should not go waste. The departmental boss has gone on record predicting that war-generated curiosity would fetch more tourists to the Kargil region. And with the government8217;s blessings, a Mumbai travel company has sold a couple of post-Kargil tours to morbidly curious tourists.

But as the now-dead officer said after capturing one peak in Kargil, quot;Yeh dil mange more.quot; More has got to be done, if the tourism people are really serious about selling the war. I realised this on a recent press trip to the region, conducted by the tourism department itself. Nowhere did we see any kiosks selling the usual touristy paraphernalia. Like T-shirts with the quot;My wife went to Kargil and all I got was this lousy T-shirtquot; kind of messages. Or emptyshell casings. Even unexploded Pakistani shells could make good Kargil souvenirs. I am told these things can keep unexploded for years in your drawing room, provided you tell your children to keep off.

The hoteliers must also get their act together. Stopping at Drass, I found the locals had done nothing to make the place more war tourist-friendly. A small hotel in the main bazaar still calls itself Hotel City View, though I guess you get a good view of Tiger Hill itself from there. A bigger place nearby is called plain Hotel Hill View. Surely, repainting the signboards wouldn8217;t be a bad idea.

I however recommend the government8217;s own tourist bungalow in Drass. Not only do you get a clear view of Tiger Hill 8212; and Tololing 8212; from its compound, but it has the distinction of actually being hit by a shell. The debris is yet to be cleared. When the damaged room is re-built and named Shell Suite, I am sure any tourist would be willing to pay extra for the thrill of spending a night in it.

In Kargil town thereare more accommodation options. Like Hotel Siachen and D8217;Zojila, made famous by the media-pack which covered the war. I recall a story, making the rounds during the war, about a shell hitting a bathroom. The reporter occupying the room slept right through it, and guessed something was wrong only when he couldn8217;t push open the bathroom door the next morning. During my own post-war stay in the hotel, I tried to quiz staff-members about the story. Strangely, they denied it. 8220;It was Siachen which was hit,8221; I was told.

If the hotel really wants business from the Kargil Curious, this buck-passing won8217;t do. They should immediately admit to such tales. And they need to re-cast their menu, calling the fare they serve by more war-evocative names. It would be okay for example to call the tough, muscular fowl they serve Tololing Chicken.

But you can8217;t sell Kargil on Tololing Chicken and Batalik Curry alone. The tourists must see some action. Kargil faces enemy shells even in peace-time. But then a tourist mightspend a fortnight here and nothing might happen. One solution are the unexploded shells lying about the countryside. When the Army detonates them, they make a nice, big racket. Just the kind of thing tourists appreciate. But would there be enough shells left for the next tourist season? The Army is blasting them too fast, too soon. It needs to pace itself.

Story continues below this ad

For the real thing, the tourists have Kharbu 8212; a small stretch on the Srinagar-Kargil road which is particularly vulnerable to Pakistani shelling. For quite some time though, no shelling has been reported there. And statistically speaking, the chances of receiving a direct hit have always been low. But you never know when you could get lucky.