BY a quirk of fate or by design, very often, there are always one or two hotels left intact amid the ruins of war from where foreign correspondents cover their story. Beirut, Baghdad and Kabul, as so many more from Yugoslavia to Rwanda, have been reported from these miraculously invincible addresses.

BBC’s Satish Jacob wrote his diary from the early days of the Iraq war, as the title of his absorbing book suggests, from Hotel Palestine in Baghdad. Srinagar in the 1990s had the Ahdoo’s Hotel, which was the only one left intact by Muslim militants who forced the closure of the others and by Indian troops who simply occupied the ones that remained beyond the reach of their quarry. Ahdoo’s was said to be run covertly by keeping both sides happy. The sign behind the receptionist’s desk read “You drink here at your own risk”, reference to a grim possibility should a tippler of a foreign reporter come across, say, a vigilante of the Harkatul Mujahideen variety. They were notorious for delivering instant justice to many a merry offender. At the same time it was not uncommon for a trusting Indian commandant to walk into a correspondent’s room armed not with a pistol or a revolver but with one or two bottles of rum.

The rules were clear. The hooch was never accepted as bribe but remained part of the reward for being equidistant from both sides engaged in the tense standoff. The more conscientious recipients insisted on a straightforward cash nexus that was often accepted.

From my record of those days of strife there was never a raid on Ahdoo’s by any Muslim vigilante group. On the contrary there were instances of a Muslim fighter leaving a reporter’s room after giving his account of a story, followed by a waiting BSF commandant who had lined up to deliver his version of an event together, when required, with those somethings wrapped in yesterday’s newspapers. Now that cosmopolitan hotels like Broadway and Oberoi have resumed business in Srinagar, Ahdoo’s too has removed the receptionist’s chilling alert.

But to my knowledge it still remains an essentially non-tippler hotel though still popular with old-timers. Since I was among the first correspondents to set up a sat phone in Srinagar, memories of that technological breakthrough in the middle of a war zone still continue to fetch me a rebate at the hotel that has a lovely view of the Jhelum.

There are two approaches, as I learnt from experience in Kabul, Kashmir, Jaffna, Beirut et al, to a correspondent’s world view in a war zone. The first is what we can call the Bertrand Russell approach. The English philosopher-sage, it is said, once fell into the Sea of Japan from a hovercraft. After he was plucked out from the freezing waters, and he had revived, his friends asked how he felt about his brush with death. “Oh, I just said: well, well, well,” Russell replied. True or false, that’s one approach.

The other is to follow the detailed evasive measures prescribed by an overly cautious chief correspondent of the news agency I worked with in Delhi. This Englishman ordered a medical kit, which included an AIDS-test mechanism, of all the things, together with flack jackets as mandatory for all personnel visiting Kashmir. The idea was dropped after the editors were convinced that this was more likely to annoy other fellow correspondents who had been covering Kashmir with ordinary jackets and pullovers than would save precious lives. For me personally, there is always a greater romance about the batsmen who faced Wesley Hall unprotected than those who wore a helmet against Imran Khan.

Andrew Whitehead reported from Kashmir for the BBC in the 1990s. He has now come out with a nicely researched book, A Mission in Kashmir, which is about the very start of the conflict in 1947 – the Pathan tribal invasion and its aftermath. It is a seminal book about the complex skein of politics, nationalist fervour and communal zealotry laced with a wider global dimension of the brewing mess, which dogged the early days of the Kashmir dispute.

Very little, it seems, has changed in 60 years, not even the journalists who made their brownie points by covering the conflict and who all too often accurately predicted its all embracing impact on policies in far away capitals. The book deserves a proper separate review. But what caught my eye for the present purposes is the description of journalists who flitted around the region looking for scoops and fame. The redoubtable James Cameron made an appearance in the burning Kashmir saga as a second correspondent to support the legendary Sidney Smith of the Daily Express.

Whitehead gives a glimpse of the famous watering hole in Srinagar of that period when almost all foreign correspondents would assemble or stay at Hotel Nedou’s. Once the rage of Kashmir at the scenic Dal Gate, the hotel was the equivalent of Ahdoo’s in the '90s minus of course the drinking restrictions of its latter day cousin. Tragically enough Nedou’s is today crumbling with neglect under the occupation of Indian paramilitary units.

The other option for journalists was to hire a houseboat, though not always for work. Like Margaret Parton of the Herald Tribune who had chosen Kashmir not only for a rest, but also for ‘an illicit vacation’ with her new lover and future husband Eric Britter, says Whitehead. They discovered that Sidney Smith and his wife Pat were in the neighbouring houseboat. “These parallel trysts were soon disturbed by the tribesmen’s invasion. When Parton and Britter sought to leave Kashmir as scheduled, by bus to Rawalpindi, they were told that invading tribesmen had turned the previous day’s bus back. While Sidney Smith made for the frontline, Margaret Parton and her partner moved into Nedou’s hotel and got to work.”

One-upmanship is part of journalist’s routine diet, a fact reflected in what Margaret Parton wrote to her mother from Nedou’s in the middle of the conflict. “This has been really a wonderful news break for Eric and me – particularly if they’re playing our stories as I think they must be. Here we are — the only foreign correspondents in Kashmir, and 150 newsmen in Delhi panting to get here and completely frustrated.”

The excitement ended soon when Parton found competition. “Two other correspondents have just blown in. Much excitement and noise here in the hotel garden, with people crouching over maps and trying to figure out what is happening. All very confusing.”

Kashmir’s own newspapers were not well placed to report the crisis enveloping them, claims Whitehead. “The local media was still in its infancy.” There were newspapers – including the English language Kashmir Times — shut down for being too critical of the maharajah.” One of Pakistan’s main newspapers Dawn complained that any Kashmir publications which referred to the prospect of accession to Pakistan faced censorship and closure.” In the meantime, The Hindustan Times, miffed at the importance foreign correspondents got, possibly at the expense of their Indian counterparts, retaliated thus: “It is quite impossible for a correspondent based in Nedou’s hotel at Srinagar to know, by establishing his own facts, the truth about the raiders.” Those gloves are still off, though there is an occasional dispute about flak jackets.