The fountains of the Mugal Gardens facing out onto Dal Lake

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2003-08-06 - Srinagar (Day 113)

Today I took another ride back around Dal Lake to the famous Mugal Gardens, which I'd past on my previous ride. The gardens are built up of terrace upon terrace of gardens spread out facing the lake and which are a popular tourist destination as well as a place to relax for the locals.

The center of the park is a series of fountains and water terrace running from the last terrace to the front of the gardens. It being summer, children stripped down and were playing in the fountains and a group of schoolgirls on picnic were washing their hair under the fountains.

The gardens made for a pleasant walk but like many things I have found in India were nice but not exceptional. There were broken fountains, drooping fences, bare wires sticking out from electric lamps, and other details that spoke to little attention to make things truly wonderful but were ok just at "nice". I've seen the same thing in the arts, homes and monuments where overall things are quite nice, but are perhaps only at 85% but there are always the little details left undone, bulbs that are burnt out, stickers on something otherwise beautiful, etc. that are simply frustrating as its generally small stuff that remains undone but which detracts substantially from the place.

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