Textbook blog on Kashmir and Qazigund

 In the passage about Kashmir and Qazigund, the author uses countless different aspects of literature to pull the whole story together and to draw in the reader. The author uses context to bring some background information into the passage. For example, in the second paragraph, the author reveals that he read the ‘West Indian Reader’ which shows that the author has background information about Kashmir. By having it in the second paragraph it shows the author's realization that, what seemed unusual in the book, actually made sense for the location. The author relates back to his past to show, in a way, one of the reasons that he went to Kashmir and the difference from the book he read as a child to what it is like in reality. 

The author wrote this story in first person to have the reader experience what the author experienced. He uses lots of imagery and descriptive words to give the reader an idea of what he actually saw. 

The author starts the first paragraph by using calming and serene words like “the milky blue sky” and “morning mist”. They also use some more tranquil descriptors of Kashmir. The author uses some more simple but deeply meaningful descriptive words like “the yellow mustard fields, the mountains, snow-capped”. The usage of these words make Kashmir seem very beautiful and almost untouched by man. The use of descriptive words like these, causes the first paragraph to give off a more serene feeling, which the author changes in paragraph two. 

In the second paragraph, the author changes up the mood to a darker and grimy feeling. The author changes the mood by using vastly different words like “smell in the cold air of charcoal, tobacco, cooking oil, months-old dirt, and human excrement. The second paragraph changes the serene and perfect seeming Kashmir to a literal wasteland. Even though Qazigund is considered towards the outer area of Kashmir, it is still a part of Kashmir. But the author describes Qazigund as a vastly different place. Almost the opposite of Kashmir. The difference in Qazigund and Kashmir reminds me of the difference between a man made town versus an area where there is little that is man made. Like Marco Island and the Everglades.