Vigorous campaign to woo tourists begins in Kashmir

Alarmed by the dismal tourist arrivals in Kashmir this summer, the state tourism department on Saturday announced a vigorous tourist wooing campaign and a concert by famous musician and singer Adnan Sami.

A week after a migrant Pandit artist Aabha Hanjura held her 'Saaz-e-Kashmir' musical concert on the banks of Dal Lake in summer capital Srinagar, tourism department officials said Adnan Sami would hold a concert on the banks of the Dal Lake in Srinagar city on October 8.

Adnan Sami is a craze among the music loving youth of Kashmir and his concert is expected to attract a huge audience.

As part of its campaign, the tourism department held a special function to release a promotional five-minute film in Srinagar.

The film features a honeymooning couple who visits Kashmir. As they come out of their hotel a day after their arrival, the couple mistakenly boards a private vehicle.

The couple mistakes the old driver of the vehicle as 'Mir' -- the driver they had hired.

The old man takes the couple to different places in the Valley, giving them a taste of Kashmiri hospitality.

Towards the end of their stay in the Valley, the couple gets a phone call from Mir who tells them he was not able to meet them outside the hotel on the day they started their tour.

Alarmed, the husband rushes to the old man and asks him who he is, since he is not the taxi driver they had hired.

"I am not Mir, but I am Kashmir. I had left home to buy sugar when you boarded my vehicle. I thought it would be against our traditional hospitality to ask you to get out of my vehicle," the old man tells him.

"I assure intending tourists that they will meet the old man in the film at every nook and corner of Kashmir," Director Tourism, Mehmood Shah told IANS.

--IANS

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