Rainy Day Picnic: A Unique Experience of Enjoyment and

Expenditure
By:
Dr. Showkeen Bilal Gul

Faculty Member, Department of Education, South Campus, University of Kashmir

Part I
It was 4th June 2015, the day we decided to have picnic from South
Campus, Kashmir University to Pelhgam (land of heavens on earth). The
day before picnic all the students were eager and busy in preparations, it was
same as I was feeling and doing my school and college days during picnics.
On the day of picnic when at morning I woke up, it was a cold, breezy and
cloudy day; the weather pinches me a little as it was a day we decided to
have a picnic. After that I did phones calls to my colleagues to enquire about
the programme of picnic and I came to know that all students were ready to
have a picnic on rainy day. Our journey to picnic starts from womens
college Anantanag, we all get on to the university bus and seated
comfortably. When I looked towards my students, there was a mixed type of
feelings; on their beautiful and innocent faces I noticed the feelings of
sadness because of rain fall. But some students were also excited to have
first experience of picnic on a rainy day. In this way we started our journey
towards pelhgam, on the way students started having little fun, singing
songs, making and passing joking and also dedicated songs to teachers. So it
was 11:30 when we reached at pelhgam bus stand and we decided to have
tea in order to refresh our body and mood. Having a small budget we
decided to search a cheap hotel, after 10 minutes enquiry about rate of tea.
My colleagues informed me that here one cup of tea having rate of Rs 40,
after a while we became successful in managing a cheap hotel to take tea.
When we started to having tea in hotel, I observed some students were
feeling uncomfortable because our hotel was not so much hygienic. My
senior fellow motivated them by jokes and experience, after a little they all
started enjoying sips of tea with kashmiri rooti. After all tea was very
delicious like the famous tea of Chungi of Aligarh Muslim University. after
taking tea, we decided to visit Baitawb Valley, it was 12:30 we reached
there, when we get off from the bus rain was pouring down continuously.
The gigantic threes round the hills of pelhgam were looking charming and
the smell was so pleasing that I kept on breathing for quite some time. The
students were exited they started approaching towards Baitawb Valley,
reached at gate they came to know that there is entry fee of 100 per student.
What happened inside the valley read part II.
Part II will be uploaded soon