Art of buying winter accessories at Flea Market, Srinagar, Kashmir, India

 

If you are going to Kashmir, these flea markets located in Sri Nagar would be the best place to buy your winter accessories. It is way cheaper and good quality of products you can opt for. First, we went to the Sunday Flea Market and stumbled across the endangered heritage of royal trees of Kashmir - Chinar trees (Plane tree, Platanus orientalis, or Buen and Booyn in the Kashmiri language). 

 

 

From the twigs and barks which have extensive uses in making fabric dyes, timber which is also known as lacewood to make furniture, the leaves, and bark used for the preparation of medicines for several diseases. Right now, Kashmir adapting the Go Green concept by planting as many trees to preserve another type of trees too.  We were searching for good bargains for leather winter gloves, jackets, and shoes and headed to the Sunday Flea Market. Unfortunately, while we were doing our roundings, the sellers need to close their stalls due to instruction from the militaries at that moment in time. 

 

 

We managed to capture some shots of Kashmiri people's daily activities and headed to the regular flea market. There, we managed to get some good items, and honestly speaking, you need to learn some words of Kashmiri to learn the art of bargaining. We tried hard to lower down the price as much as we can but the sellers were really strong-headed! We managed to explore the "thee sathi/firepot/kangri" that is a must during winter. 

 

Most Kashmiri sellers carry it under their robes to heat up while running their business. You can see Selvi trying her new shoes. Our tour guide asks us to have a peek at the Clock Tower at Lal Chowk street (House of the Bell) before heading to the next destination. This clock tower was constructed by Bajaj Electricals in 1980 and gained political significance in 1992, when the then Bharatiya Janata Party president, Murli Manohar Joshi, hoisted the Indian flag on top of the tower on Republic Day.