01The spring that changes colour
In a grove of old chinars among the marshes of Ganderbal lies a seven-sided spring, and in it a small white marble temple. The water shifts colour: pink, green, milky white, blue. Kashmiri Pandits read the colours as signs; black water is feared as a warning, and many recall it turning dark in the months before the exodus of 1990. Devotees pour milk and kheer into the spring and light lamps along its edge. Swami Vivekananda spent days here in 1898 in worship of the Devi.
02Jyeshtha Ashtami
The great mela falls on Jyeshtha Shukla Ashtami, in May or June. Pandit families scattered across Bharat since 1990 come back for that one day, many by special buses from Jammu, and the grove fills with the smell of kheer and the sound of bhajans in Kashmiri. Maharaja Pratap Singh of Jammu and Kashmir built the present marble shrine in the spring in 1912.
The life of this place
- 1898 CESwami Vivekananda worships at the spring.
- 1912 CEMaharaja Pratap Singh builds the marble shrine in the spring.
Tulmul village, Ganderbal, 25 km north-east of Srinagar.
