Page 64 - Mann Ki Baat January, 2023

A Spring in Kashmir Protected by a Local Festival

Panzath Nag in south community to learn more about
Kashmir’s Anantnag district the community and its efforts.
supplies water for a trout “Panzath is the biggest
fish hatchery, drinking and spring in India, derives its name
irrigation to a number of villages from ‘Paanch Hath’ — Kashmiri
downstream. Hundreds of men numeral for five hundred and
and children from the villages houses a lot of fishes, especially
go fishing in the spring once a trot fish and Kashmiri fish.
year as part of their tradition of Since childhood, we have been
Rohan Posh, a local festival. The hearing that the pond has to be
collective activity rids the spring kept clean, always due to the
of silt and weeds and restores its cultural values attached to it.
water level for the rest of the year. We have fixed a day for that, on
The spring has a mythological that day people from our village
relevance; the cleaning tradition and nearby villages come with
has been in existence since time a basket and take it down to
immemorial. catch fish and to remove the
Our team at Doordarshan dirt that is in it. In this way this
spoke with the residents of the pond is cleaned, which irrigates

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