{"id":1637,"date":"2022-12-13T23:54:33","date_gmt":"2022-12-13T18:24:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/?p=1637"},"modified":"2026-06-08T07:48:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T02:18:34","slug":"kashmir-by-gordon-duff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/?p=1637","title":{"rendered":"Kashmir by Gordon Duff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In my younger days I spent many a late summer wandering the lofty wildernesses that ring the Kashmir Valley on all sides. The outbreak of militancy at the end of the eighties put paid to those adventures, never to be resumed. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/ju-harnag.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>During those glorious years my mother would ask me why I wanted to be &#8216;<em>paharon pe darbadar<\/em>&#8216; on my birthday (Mid-August). I wish I had known about <strong>Gordon Duff<\/strong> then so I could explain my desire in his words:<\/p>\n<p>here among the great mountains<br \/>\nnothing but the grandeur of the world remains.<br \/>\nheaven may not be &#8216;up there&#8217; but there is no doubt<br \/>\nthat here one is in touch with the infinite.<br \/>\none has only to reach out to touch the great beyond.<br \/>\nthe smallness of men&#8217;s minds is forgotten,<br \/>\nthe shallowness of their ways,<br \/>\nthe pettiness of so much that surrounds them.<br \/>\nthere is nothing tawdry in the world of the high peaks.<\/p>\n<p><em>dekhna taqreer ki lazzat ki jo us ne kaha,<br \/>\nmain ne ye jaana ki goya ye bhi mere dil mein hai<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Well better late than never. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/duff-1.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><strong>Gordon Duff (1921-2001)<\/strong> was born in 1921 in Glasgow, Scotland. During the Second World War he served with the 31 RAF Squadron in India from 1943-1945. In the post war years he returned to Glasgow and got married, and later immigrated to New Zealand in 1953.<\/p>\n<p>Gordon Duff kept detailed diaries and took many photos of his time overseas (India, Burma, Indonesia and Singapore) which were hidden till he passed away &#8211; probably because people wanted to forget the war when they got home. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/duff-0.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>His daughter <strong>Marjory Lewis<\/strong> has generously shared his unseen photographs of Kashmir as it was in 1944, some of which are posted here for your viewing pleasure:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/duff-2.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/duff-3.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/duff-4.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/duff-5.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/duff-6.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Let us raise a toast to the photography of Gordon Duff and the generosity of Marjory Lewis.<br \/>\nNoon chai is the strongest spirit that I imbibe, so here goes.<\/p>\n<p>Three cheers for Gordon Duff.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/sign.jpg\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In my younger days I spent many a late summer wandering the lofty wildernesses that ring the Kashmir Valley on all sides. The outbreak of militancy at the end of the eighties put paid to those adventures, never to be resumed. During those glorious years my mother would ask me why I wanted to be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,4,8,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-halcyon-days","category-kashmir","category-photography","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1637"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1951,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1637\/revisions\/1951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}