Oshkhindass: from Barren Land to Oasis Gardens
Description
I am Haji Majnoon Shah from Bagrot Valley. We are now in Oshkhindas Valley whose main population ma-jority came from Bagrot Valley when this place was barren and locally called punar das. At that time there were no signs of life in this area, no single tree either wild or [cultivated such as] fruit trees and therefore this was known as a particularly rough landscape.
It was in 1936 when people of Bagrot Valley arrived and started to cultivate this land although this action raised issues with neighbouring settlements such as Danyore. However, people sat together and after some dialogue they agreed and until now no further issue has been reported given the great character of our forefathers
The people tried to bring water from Bagrot Valley and Rakaphoshi Mountain. However, the terrain was hard and rough, and a lot of hard work was required to complete the water channel. Since they had only their hands for digging and breaking the stones, initially the channel was not able to fulfil all requirements of the people. Therefore the people hired men from the Diamer-Hudoor area and paid them well by offering them cattle as a pay for their labour. The work took almost a year for completion and sadly a few people also lost their lives during the con-struction.
The reason for naming this place Oshkhindas was that in the local Shina language wind is called oshi and as this place is usually very windy, people named it "Place of high velocity winds" , that is Oshkhindas. The people of Bagrot went to meet the ruler of Hunza and requested him for help since they need men to cultivate the land. Upon their request the ruler of Hunza agreed and around 80 families moved to a place locally called Jagir pati where about 1100 kanals of land were allotted them and over time the population grew from 80 to a few thousand.
Wherever the soil was too sandy for the cultivation of food crop, the people would grow special fodder crops such as barrow, local wheat, and qulat, local beans, since they grew well under such soil conditions.
not here
2.4.13.1
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