How did you go to school?

For two years in mid-1970s Srinagar, I'd walk down the lane where we lived, cross Maulana Azad Road and traverse the Polo Ground, a vast expanse to my 7 year-old self. Then, crossing Residency Road, I'd make my way down the Bund to Grindlays Ghat, named after the eponymous British bank and housed in a colonial era white building with dark exposed wooden cross-beams.

Nazir Mohammad, our shikara wala, would be waiting for the clutch of children who crossed the Jhelum with him everyday. We would pile on to the raised wooden plank seats in the bow and stern, with adults seated on the floral stuffed upholstery seats in the covered mid-section.

He would hand one lucky kid a small heart-shaped wooden paddle, or chappu, as an invitation to be his assistant. If selected, you would sit in the narrow, tapering bow of the shikara, bracing your feet against wooden strips nailed horizontally across the floor. The image of the deep grain in the wood of the floor boards, smooth and soft with age and use, is as clear today as it was almost 50 years ago.

Nazir Mohammad would push off the floor of the river with a barge pole. Then, switching to a paddle, he would row upriver, calling out words of encouragement to his young helper. Once three-quarters of the way across, he would change the shikara's direction and allow it to coast downriver, navigating skilfully to the jetty on the other side. I recall a small but satisfying sense of achievement at my little contribution.

Once on the far bank, I would jump out of the shikara and dash up the opposite embankment. Then, across another road and into the school compound.

That's how I went to school.