Srinagar club dusts attic, cricket history & Raj-era papers stump keepers

SRINAGAR : Nasir Hamid Khan had padded up for a routine sweep when he ordered a clean-up of the attic at Srinagar’s almost century-old Amar Singh Club as secretary but was stumped when the workers found a govt letter from 1930s urging support for cricket bats made by “Kashmir Willows Ltd”.

The letter was part of a treasure trove of over 5,000 documents and records stuffed in grimy gunny bags kept in the attic of the club, set up by Kashmir’s erstwhile ruler Maharaja Hari Singh in 1933 and named after his father Raja Amar Singh.

The finds are in keeping with the legacy of the elite club, housed in a vintage building with a huge parking space and ringed by lush lawns. It is located in the heart of Srinagar on Gupkar Road, near chief minister Omar Abdullah residence. The CM is also the club’s chairman and lieutenant-governor (LG) Manoj Sinha its patron.

In spite of the club’s heritage status, Khan was stunned when the attic clean-up since April this year threw up the cache of rare Maharaja-era papers. These contained several official press releases issued by Hari Singh’s govt on protests that erupted in the 1930s and the police response to them in Srinagar and Anantnag.

Also found was a 1942 poster announcing a yoga demonstration in Srinagar by Vithaldas Parekh , described as a “Yogi of International Fame,” mirroring the city’s cosmopolitan cultural life amid the turbulence of World War II.

Then there was a 1945 report by the forest department detailing afforestation efforts. A letter explains a move by the govt to change the name of the forest department to “Forest and Anti-Erosion Department”, underscoring the then govt’s ecological concerns.

The collection also includes letters, ledgers, registers dating back to 1930s and 1940s - a period marked by intense political change in Kashmir - trade records and even cultural posters.

The finds were not an unmixed blessing, though. Khan found the papers were brittle and crumbling. Determined not to let them slip into oblivion, Khan tapped Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) for help. “We have been working on the documents and could preserve around 60% of them so far,” said Saleem Beg, head of ITACH in J&K.

Some papers are over a century old. “I found an advertisement notice from Token Hotel announcing an auction of its furniture. The hotel doesn’t exist now. But the notice was issued in the name of Mona Tyabji and it shows the hotel was older than (Gulmarg heritage hotel) Nedous,” Beg said.

According to Beg, the preservation involves a three-stage process - surface cleaning to remove layers of dust and dirt, inventory preparation to catalogue each folio, and curative conservation to reinforce damaged material.

Beg emphasised the importance of the effort for INTACH, calling it “not just a conservation task but a cultural recovery”. “These papers are fragments of lived history. Saving them means saving threads of identity that weave Kashmir’s larger story.”