IT was 7:30 Friday evening when our Photo Editor, Habib Naqash reached back office after clicking some of his latest on the snowfall. But while downloading the pictures, he cautioned us of the bad weather conditions saying it was too slippery on the roads as he had seen many vehicles colliding with each other. Luckily, I had just finished my work so I left for home much before others.

ALL SLIPPERY
 While trying to make a left turn on the Residency Road, I realized that my colleague was right. The steering was simply not controlling my car. The cab slowly skid off to a few meters but stopped just ahead of the footpath. Thanks that there were hardly any vehicles moving around that time.
 I started manoeuvring slowly, the way other some other vehicles, visible, were doing. But, we had moved barely a few furlongs that a convoy of speeding vehicles could be seen rushing towards us for an overtake. It were the tippers, which are often accused of violating no-entry norms while Traffic police’s Srinagar wing has been sleeping over the issue. Thanks that the tipper tyres could well hold the grip otherwise any of us could have been a victim of a hit-and-run case on the slippery road.

BOULDERS EN-ROUTE
 In the meantime, the windscreen was growing scary with the fat going snowballs that slowly splashed on the front screen. While increasing the wiper speed, I called our senior Editor Arshid Hussain to finish the work quickly or they would be in trouble.
 20 minutes on, I had just reached Dr Sir Muhammad Iqbal Park around half a mile away from Lal Chowk. I took a left to buy some medicines. It was all deserted, a total dark in the area. The only thing visible was light coming out from a pharmacist shop. Slowing I started driving towards the shop. But just before reaching the spot something banged my vehicle from beneath. I applied brakes but there were a few more bangs before the vehicle could stop on the slippery road.
 It was queue of boulders camouflaged by snow, which had confronted the movement. Who has kept them in the middle of the road? The very next moment I realized that some traders in the area keep boulders outside their shops while the Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) and other authorities have failed to check the menace.
 Some customers at the shop came to my rescue and we managed to get the car out of the boulders on roads, a reminder of tracks of the primitive times.
 After purchasing the medicines, I started moving ahead. This time more cautiously and slowly than before for obvious reasons. At around 9 PM I reached my Pirbagh home and within minutes the snowfall took a break.

POWER SUCCUMBS AS USUAL
 Some four inches of snow and power still on! Many like me were surprised till around 11 PM when the surprises died as entire City was plunged into darkness.
 As expected the night had to be without power while Geysers, electric blankets and other gadgets vital for life in winter in this region in the Himalayas, lost utility.

MAIN ROAD, BABU COLONIES CLEARED
 Mornings brought more of trouble. People woke to find their colony lanes blocked with snow expect for some posh localities like Co-Operative Colony and Friends Enclave Humhama which got cleared  like most of the main roads in the summer capital.
 In the meantime, my colleague Arif Shafi Wani called me saying some people were trying to clear lanes in the Tourist hub of Dalgate to pave way for stranded vehicles of tourists. But before we could speak further my phone battery exhausted.

‘CONTROL ROOM HOAX’
 Finding no way out till 11 AM, I planned to check the promises made by the Control Rooms in place for public respite. While most of the mobile phones could be heard as switched off, one of them worked. I called an SMC official from landline pretending to be an elderly man whose Mohalla lanes were blocked. The official was courteous enough to promise immediate clearance. But his promise ended with the call. Nobody came for clearance.
 Thanks to the few hours of sunshine, that softened the snow and I managed to test my driving skills on the snow covered road along the canal in our area.

‘DARE DEVILS’
 By noon I could make it see what was happening elsewhere. Besides water logging and snow clad lanes, something different came my way near Bone and Joints Hospital Barzulla where linemen had climbed a tall electric pole while some engineers were monitoring restoration of transmission lines damaged by felling of trees there.
 “When will the power be restored… We have no others means of energy for cooking food,”  a group of locals shouted at the PDD staff adding that they had already been facing shortage of other energy supplies like K-oil and the LPG.
 “We have been out on the roads since 7 AM to rectify the faults,” Bashir Ahmed Baba an Executive Engineer, with PDD could be heard telling the group as he tried to pacify them.

UNDERGROUND CABLING DREAM
 For years, snow has been affecting the power supply. Why doesn’t the government go for underground cabling? This query popped up in my mind only to get a setback from what happened last year in Lal Chowk.
 Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had given over Rs 10 million for beautification of the City centre. Many had said the amount should have been spent on making the historic marketplace as the benchmark for underground cabling. But then a Mantri in-charge of the “beautification” remained reluctant to construct a park in the middle of the busy road than any advancement like underground cabling.
 And the results were obvious, like elsewhere Lal Chowk remained plunged in darkness till the supply was restored Saturday afternoon.

DOUBLE TROUBLE IN OLD CITY
 The Old City of Shahr-e-Khaas had more of trouble. Transmission lines at many places like Nawa Kadal, Nowhatta, and Safa Kadal had fallen from the old decaying wooden poles.
 The supplies to many Shahr-e-Khaas areas wasn’t restored till late in the evening because the snow was still sliding down the houses in the congested area making more lines to collapse.
 There was also a fear of old and uninhabited houses collapsing any moment. At Habba Kadal a few bricks had already fallen from the old cracked house presumably left behind by a migrant. Here people had to tread cautiously on the yet to be cleared narrow lanes for fears more than one: First the snow skidding from rooftops; Second the bricks coming down from the dilapidated houses; And ofcourse the risk of a fall.

WATERLOGGING
 Elsewhere at places like Hamdania Colony Bemina, melting of snow had furthered the colony woes making the area sink in ankle to knee deep waters on the first day of the melting of snow. Here people said they couldn’t even inform over Facebook their friends outside about their plight because the connectivity couldn’t be established.
 At Bagh-e-Mehtab, the other end of the City, driving out vehicles was almost impossible for the residents. Even though the Economic Reconstruction Agency has just laid a drainage network there, the roads are yet to be repaired.

BOTTOMLINE
 The weather forecast technology has reached new heights even when it comes to hourly report for a place like Srinagar.
 But then the weatherman’s office in the City couldn’t escape the show shock.
 The Met officials said despite having a hotline supply, the power was yet to be restored since last night thereby affecting their work.
 Only a few hours of snowfall are enough to rollback the summer capital life to primitive times. But then the then people had access to things like Laish, a torch made of resinous wood, which modern day Srinagarites lack!

Lastupdate on : Sat, 15 Jan 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 15 Jan 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 16 Jan 2011 00:00:00 IST