00:00 (Music)
00:04 Well, we're very lucky tonight to have amongst us
00:07 some truly extraordinary people.
00:09 And they're going to be sharing their travel experiences
00:12 and their travel philosophy with all of us.
00:14 Our very first guest,
00:16 who happens to be our chief guest for this evening as well,
00:19 he is definitely a man we've read about, we've seen, we've followed.
00:23 He's a filmmaker extraordinaire, he's a poet, he's an artist.
00:26 Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together
00:29 as I welcome on stage Mr. Muzaffar Ali.
00:33 Welcome, sir.
00:35 (Applause)
00:47 Good evening.
00:49 Well, indeed, it's a great pleasure to be here
00:54 amidst people who are trying to promote travel,
00:58 promote India, promote tourism.
01:01 I've been in this field for a very, very, very long time.
01:04 I started with Air India and Bobby Cooker, who was a legend.
01:09 And, you know, travel is really an exploration of all your interests.
01:17 And I think the more you travel,
01:20 the more interested you get in different aspects of life.
01:25 And for me, craft is a very important form of experiential travel.
01:32 In fact, recently I've done about 12 films on textiles and craft.
01:36 And each place you go to has a whole legend,
01:39 has a whole story, has a history.
01:42 And it's really this which makes travel exciting.
01:45 Otherwise, one can stay at home and do nothing,
01:48 and that's a very nice way of welcoming people,
01:52 also giving your place a kind of an identity, which is Lucknow for me.
01:57 But for me, Kashmir is very special,
02:00 because I had a strange romance with Kashmir when I joined Air India.
02:05 And it was this romance that has driven me through my whole life,
02:10 although I got not much out of it,
02:13 but I got a whole experiential philosophy out of that.
02:17 When I was working with Air India,
02:19 I thought of starting a new division called Congresses and Conventions.
02:23 And I thought of an idea, well, let's set up a conference center in Kashmir.
02:28 And I wrote a letter to the Sheikh Sahab through my bosses,
02:33 and it went to him that Kashmir will go down
02:36 in the history of every field of learning.
02:42 Every conference does go, wherever it's held,
02:45 it's known by the destination.
02:47 And he liked the idea, and so the journey started.
02:50 And the journey went through a lot of interesting explorations.
02:56 I got this chairman of ICCA to come and tell me who should lead me on.
03:02 Then he came and he told me of a person, Donald Helstead,
03:07 that you take him, because he's been working on these kind of destinations.
03:11 And we finally arrived at this thing,
03:13 which is now known as the Centaur Lake View Hotel in the SKICC.
03:18 And I think it's a very interesting product.
03:21 But the interesting thing is that while we were doing this thing,
03:24 I'd never made a film, and I didn't know what,
03:27 I mean I was into films in a different kind of way for Air India,
03:32 but I'd never made a film myself.
03:34 Umrao Jaan and Gaman were still dreams.
03:37 So he said, you know, if you can find a story, a legend,
03:43 which can envelop all the four seasons of this valley,
03:47 your product is sold forever.
03:50 And this thing stuck in my head, you know.
03:52 So I got into films, I made my films,
03:56 then it came to me that today we should make the world look at India as a destination,
04:05 and certain kind of films should come out of India,
04:08 like The Last Emperor and things like that,
04:10 which will draw people to India through films.
04:13 And I'd just done my third film, which was in Vancouver, showing.
04:18 So we got into that, but when I came to Kashmir,
04:22 it was not the same Kashmir that I had idealized, I had dreamt of.
04:27 It was really, there was a lot of turbulence, there was a lot of unrest,
04:32 and there was a lot of beauty, of course.
04:34 And we didn't know what was going to happen the next day.
04:37 Anything could happen. This was in 1989.
04:40 So I told my, I mean, people could read that on my face,
04:45 that I was not as inspired and as happy about being here as I had dreamt.
04:52 But it was, so this friend of mine who was doing the music for me, Mohanlal Ehma,
04:57 he said, you give me a car, and you give me a room,
05:01 and forget me for about 15 days, then I'll get in touch with you.
05:05 So he got lost, and I also kept wondering, where did Mr. Ehma go?
05:09 Anyway, Mr. Ehma was all over the valley.
05:12 He was actually heading All India Radio at that time.
05:17 So after about 15 days, he appeared and he says,
05:21 "Come, we are ready for you."
05:24 So we went to Mr. Ehma's room,
05:27 and that room was at least full of 30, 40 people
05:32 with all kinds of improvised music instruments.
05:37 You know, he had created some kind of a ghala with a rubber tube on it,
05:41 and all kinds of things.
05:43 And then these villagers started singing.
05:46 And when they started singing, I realized that the beauty of the valley
05:50 was in its music, which had gone into a kind of a shell,
05:55 it had become a kind of a, it had gone into a cloister.
06:00 So that's the story I wanted to share with you.
06:03 And then the story of Zuni has been like a turbulent story.
06:08 Every time I've gone there, there have been problems,
06:11 and it's been going on and on.
06:13 So the story of Kashmir, and the story I was trying to realize in Kashmir
06:18 on Habba Khatun, is very interestingly intertwined.
06:22 I think one day it deserves a detailed book on what places have to offer.
06:29 It's not just the slick five-star comfort that you see.
06:35 It's a lot of passion, anguish, heartache, and beauty,
06:40 and particularly through the craft of Kashmir.
06:43 The craft of Kashmir is so sensitive.
06:46 So the craft and the music together, woven into a legend,
06:55 makes indeed a very, very telling story.
07:02 It can pull anybody into a destination forever.
07:07 This is something I wanted to share with you.
07:10 It's not exactly like a story, but it's more than a story.
07:13 It's maybe the unfolding of a book at some time to come.
07:20 [applause]
07:22 [music]
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