Srinagar, July 2016. The entire valley is rife with tension after Burhan Wani's funeral. Curfew has just been declared. My dewy-eyed ass, coming fresh off my first solo trip, lands in Srinagar excited for my first trek. 1/15 https://twitter.com/zigzackly/status/1306246891638673408

The city is hauntingly empty & silent but for the suffocating presence of army personnel every 20 metres.

Now curfew meant - No internet, no mobile network except BSNL postpaid, ATMs are running pretty low on cash all over the city, cabbies charge anywhere from 6x to 10x (2/15)

the normal fares cause lol what else you gonna do, walk???

Our trek group leaves the city under the cover of darkness at 2 a.m., staying awake the whole 3 hour drive to Sonamarg fearing attacks on our jeep. (3/15)

The driver unhelpfully points out all the spots where people were attacked or killed earlier that day, like some kind of morbid safari guide.

Anyway, long story short, we reach our camp just fine, but I fall sick. 3 days into the trek I'm too unwell to continue & decide (4/15)

to return to basecamp. They arrange another shady, nerve wracking ride back to Srinagar in the dead of the night, that I share with 7 other strangers. I get dropped off at some random spot by the Dal Lake. (5/15)

To recap, it's 2 a.m., I'm alone, my hindi is passable at best, I have NO cash after having been ripped off by every cabbie so far in the trip + empty ATMs. And to top it all off, I had nowhere to stay cuz I hadn't planned on returning to Srinagar until a few days later. (6/15)

I'm standing there trying to figure out what to do and just before I descend into a panic attack, a kind old man (KOM) walks up to me & asks if I'm ok. When he finds out I have nowhere to stay, he offers to let me stay at his houseboat for the night. Sensing my wariness, (7/15)

he assures me his family lives right next door & he has grandchildren. I tell him I have no cash and he assures me it's fine and that we can figure it out later. So we get into his tiny shikara and row across the lake in inky darkness. When we reach the houseboat, (8/15)

he shows me my room and I instantly pass out as all the stress and worry finally whacks me in the face.

The next morning he takes me to his house and I sit on his kitchen floor, eating breakfast with his entire family. (9/15)

His wife gives a hot cup of kahwa only to me, saying that her husband mentioned I was sick the previous night. I drink it while trying not to cry from gratitude. He loans me his phone to call the airlines to reschedule my flight. (10/15)

"We'll get you on a flight at the earliest ma'am, don't worry", they say. They very kindly advance my flight to noon that day, at no extra cost.

Now onto the issue of how to pay KOM for letting me stay the night AND afford a cab ride to the airport with no cash on me. (11/15)

KOM offers to drive me to the airport and stop at an ATM on the way. Sounds great I say as he loads my bag into his rickety lil car and we head off across town. My stress levels climb higher with every empty ATM we stop at in town. (12/15)

We reach the airport & I'm still cashless. I tell him I'm going to check the ATMs at the airport. First one, empty. Second one, empty.
KOM sees me running to the other end of the airport to find the third ATM & tells me "Itsokay beta, go catch ur flight. U don't have to pay me."

The third ATM finally had cash & I pay him 3000 for all his troubles. He returns 1000 saying we agreed on 2000 the previous night. No amount of insistence helped in making him accept the extra money. (14/15)

I don't even know KOM's name and he doesn't know mine. But I'll never forget him and his family's kindness & warmth. (15/15)