Meenakshi Mallik
Pahalgam
This photograph was taken on the first day it snowed last year at Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir.
Pahalgam is a town in Anantnag district in India's northernmost state of Jammu and Kashmir. It is a popular tourist destination located on the banks of river Lidder at an altitude of 7200 feet from sea level. It is the base camp for the pilgrimage to Amarnath.
Like the rest of Kashmir, Pahalgam owes much of its present beauty to immense tectonic upheavals that took place millions of years ago. The crashing plates of upper Gondwanaland, and those of Laurasia created the Himalaya mountains and its sub-systems. Two of these sub-systems are the Pir-Panjal and the Zanskar and in between lies the Kashmir valleys. Later events turned this with an ice cover that gave way to substantial glacial activity. Once the ice retreated leaving behind high glaciers, snow clad peaks, rivers and lakes; and once the trees, grasses and other plants appeared; they softened this forbidden landscape to one of pastoral perfection.
Pahalgam
This photograph was taken on the first day it snowed last year at Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir.
Pahalgam is a town in Anantnag district in India's northernmost state of Jammu and Kashmir. It is a popular tourist destination located on the banks of river Lidder at an altitude of 7200 feet from sea level. It is the base camp for the pilgrimage to Amarnath.
Like the rest of Kashmir, Pahalgam owes much of its present beauty to immense tectonic upheavals that took place millions of years ago. The crashing plates of upper Gondwanaland, and those of Laurasia created the Himalaya mountains and its sub-systems. Two of these sub-systems are the Pir-Panjal and the Zanskar and in between lies the Kashmir valleys. Later events turned this with an ice cover that gave way to substantial glacial activity. Once the ice retreated leaving behind high glaciers, snow clad peaks, rivers and lakes; and once the trees, grasses and other plants appeared; they softened this forbidden landscape to one of pastoral perfection.