The unhappy land.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

The sun is setting behind Hari Parbat. The ancient temple at the top of Shankaracharya Hill has disappeared from view. The boats on the Dal lake are reduced to their outlines.

The Delhi Walla is on the heavily-guarded Boulevard in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir.

The lights coming from the houseboats have turned the water intro strips of green, red and white.

As the night chill sets in, a group of Gujarati tourists leaves the lakeside. Most boatmen, too, are seen preparing to head home. But one boat seems to be stranded on the lake. It has no oar and no boatman.

According to a belief in this part of the world, when a man is killed, the sky turns red. This evening the sky was orange before it turned black.

Perhaps nobody died in Kashmir today.

Beauty and machine gun

Dal day

Unhappy man

Melancholy

Empty days

Orange

Stranded