#M I Jehangir

Srinagar | The Almond Alcove in Srinagar, locally known as 'Badam-Waer', is teeming with visitors, both tourists and locals, as the light pink flowers in full bloom in the verdant greenery signal the end of a long winter in Kashmir.

Almond trees are the first ones to flower as if it were the nature's way to tell the peasantry to prepare for the new farming season, after three inactive winter months.

The mesmerizing beauty of Badam-Waer inside Srinagar's old walled city at 'Kalai Andar' in the Rainawari area might have a different effect on the visitors.

"Kashmir has four different seasons and the winter almost shuts down everything due to snow and cold. This almond blossom is the indication of arrival of spring," Tajamul Islam, a local resident, said.

Aquib Ahmad, another local visitor, is so enamoured by the beauty of almond bloom that he feels every visit is like his first.

"We experience this beauty every year. I have visited it so many times but every time I feel like it is my first visit. In Kashmiri, we have an adage 'sheen galeh, wandeh zhaleh baye yee su bahaar' (the snow will melt, the winter will go and the spring will be on us again). So this is the sign that the spring has arrived," he added.

The fame of the Almond Alcove has now reached beyond the mountains of Kashmir to the plains of India as tourists visit it in large numbers.

Ankit, who hails from Chandigarh, said it was a great experience for him at the alcove. PTI

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