Vinita Chaitanya, a Bengaluru-based interior designer, shared a video on Instagram wherein she goes for a shikara ride in Dal Lake days after the deadly terror attack in Pahalgam that killed 26 people. She described the ride as a 'Soulful Shikara ride.'
Sharing her experience about the shikara ride, she wrote a long caption which read, "We had booked this Shikara ride before we landed here in Srinagar.. and the past two days, the atmosphere here has been of great loss and depression and an uneasy calm ..
we went for a drive with our local driver yesterday, late afternoon, when the traffic had started moving here ……and felt huge sense of loss amongst the locals .. and much anger and helplessness and heartbreak…
"And last night we decided not to cancel the Shikara booked .. It was a lovely sunrise.. and yes ,there were only a couple of tourist boats out .. and obviously the news amongst the community spread .. and we had some bold and extremely smart vendors stop by ..in their boats .. the flower boats are my favourite.. I land up buying seeds and bulbs with great enthusiasm.. and they see my interest and are soooo smart… and then the kahava tea vendors and the guys with trinkets and leather goods… some cash ( like I said , so smart) and lotsa humour was exchanged ..I think tho’ we gave them a tiny bit of joy .. and hope .. And for us .. smiles and laughter was exchanged and we lost ourself’s in their world for a beautiful hour … "
In the video, Chaitanya can be seen interacting with the local vendors while she takes a shikara ride in Dal Lake.
The video has garnered 55.8 K views since being posted. Several users also took to the comments section to share their views. One of them wrote, "Such an optimistic hopefilled kind post."
Another comment read, "Such a beautiful post." A third comment read, "So hopeful! So optimistic is this post!! So amazing that you are continuing the journey! Also how lovely is the flower selling man! He must have felt so good someone buying flowers from him, even after such a tragic incident that happened! U probably made his day and he made urs!"
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