For hard-bred Mumbaikars like us, it may come as a bit of a surprise that Kashmir’s pristine mountain town Gulmarg is one of the most internationally sought-after destinations for winter sports
Snowboarder Arun Shashni, a Manali resident and DJ, who heads to Gulmargu00c3u00a2u00c2u0080u00c2u0099s slopes every winter.
For hard-bred Mumbaikars like us, it may come as a bit of a surprise that Kashmir’s pristine mountain town Gulmarg is one of the most internationally sought-after destinations for winter sports. The quality of its powder — that’s what skiers and snowboarders call freshly fallen snow — is what draws this community to its adrenalin-pumped slopes. It’s no Engelberg for sure, but that’s precisely what’s so great about it — it’s as local as it can get.
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Snowboarder Arun Shashni, a Manali resident and DJ, who heads to Gulmarg’s slopes every winter. Pics/The Vibe
“Despite its popularity, it is strange that no one has documented this fringe culture,” says Asad Abid, founder of ‘online video content lead experience facilitator’, The Vibe and executive producer for Curry Pow, the first Indian film on Gulmarg’s homegrown skier community. By this time, it should be obvious that Pow refers to ‘powder’, and curry — well, what’s more desi than that, right?
A production still from Curry Pow featuring skier Tashi Dorje (right)
Picture perfect
Curry Pow, which will be screened at antiSocial in Khar today at 5 PM, has postcard-perfect winter-scapes which are only offset by the rush of racing down a slope. Directed by Rohan Thakur, who has also provided its background score, the 32-minute film wants you to do one thing: pack your bags and give Gulmarg’s slopes a shot. Forget those travel packages and dot-coms to book your holiday in Kashmir.
It is something that Thakur, Manali-born and working out of The Vibe, based in Mumbai and Hyderabad, is familiar with, right from the time he was a child. “We were taught to ski at school as part of the winter curriculum, and, even while I was at boarding school away from Manali, I would return home to ski. It was not about competition or about going to the Olympics, but more the lifestyle of people out there,” he says.
Abid, on the other hand, found filming the skiers at Gulmarg a whole new experience. He resorted to safely sledge down its slopes rather than be an intrepid skier. Is Curry Pow just another exotic India? Abid’s answer is somewhere in between. “At first sight, I was flabbergasted by the terrain. But, there are local tour operators who guide you along and provide skis, and open-air BBQs,” he says. But, far from being a luxury ski resort destination, Gulmarg attracts Canadians and Austrians looking for a budget-friendly winter vacation. Imagine this — it costs just R800 to go up on the gondola.
“It is a very close-knit community — just a couple of bars in the area and the same bunch of people visiting every year, exchanging music during their stay here and so on,” says Thakur. As an aside, Abid adds that the boys — local desi boys — out there have Swedish and Russian girlfriends.
If we thought skateboarding was something that the cool kids in town did (yes, we know, they have moved on to hoverboards), then Curry Pow wants to bust that myth. The film follows the path of skier Tashi Dorje and snowboarder Arun Shashni, both 30-something Manali residents who spend their winters romancing Gulmarg’s slopes. Both are self-taught adventurists, and could be among the best in India. Tashi, say Abid and Thakur, is a bit of a wild child who will jump off any cliff — even with a 20-foot drop — when he is not busy managing his home-stay or his “igloo project” back home. Arun, who works at his father’s hardware store and DJs by night in Manali, could come across as the more mature of the two, with his understanding of Gulmarg’s powder and smooth moves. “We were moved by their humility, even while they have path-breaking talent. There are so many people here in urban India with average talent but full of hot air.
And, just because Tashi and Arun cannot speak fluent English, it never stops them from communicating with international skiers who come there. That’s what Gulmarg’s culture is all about,” says Abid.
While the movie was made with a fraction of what extreme-sports films demand (and even includes helicopter shots and a whole heli-skiing sequence), the makers do hint at the lack of infrastructure for skiers at Gulmarg. “There is potential for a major ski resort in Gulmarg,” says Thakur. But, won’t that mean the death of this sub-culture that thrives there? “Never. Take back-country snowboarding, in which people hike up the slopes, off the beaten path. This sport will always attract anyone who loves
the mountains.”
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