Argonaut : The Mark of Royalty

Must be wondering what that royalty means....Actually Argonaut was the name of the house boat in which I stayed while my stay in Srinagar. Man... that place is awesome.. a must visit... even if there is a little militant problem over there. Our house boat AKA Argonaut was the most special house boat in the whole Dal lake.It has to be... especially when three of India's Prime Ministers have stayed in it, those are Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajiv Gandhi and Indira Gandhi. The whole Nehru family stayed there in different years, no wonder why the boat was 125 years old. Luckily we had Abdul Gaffar Jogoo,the owner, Gul Hassan Abdul's son and even his son. Three generations living on something that marked the presence of three highly prestigious persons i.e. our prime ministers. Though the roof was closed and we couldn't go there as 125 years old could not hold weight, but the interiors were something that were preserved throughout the three generations. The food we got was very wonderful and also the pride to live where "Mahan" people stayed. Due to the strike we had to shorten our stay there and get out of there missing the special "Shikara" safari but we were able to eat our delicious dinner on the 125 year old dining table!!! I also learned some of chess with the help of my chess champion brother..(though the members of the Honolulu house boat were troubled as we played till 12:30!!). The house belonged to the Honolulu group whose owner were again Abdul Gaffar Jogoo and Gul Hassan. We saw the photographs of Abdul Gaffar Jogoo with Indira Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajiv Gandhi and even Rahul Gandhi(he looked cute with those round spectacles on!!) and even the signed letter from Rajiv Gandhi and Indira Gandhi. I will be posting some of the pics I have of the house boat. The photo above is our house boat with Gul Hassan on it, son of Abdul Gaffar Jogoo.

This is Abdul Gaffar Jogoo. the owner of Argonaut house boat.

















Abdul Gaffar Jogoo and his house boat.














Argonaut as it was 125 years ago.