Kashmir is "the heaven," Chennai is "the hell."

This is a phrase that came up several times while in Bangalore. Surprisingly many Kashmiris live in Bangalore and there are plenty of shops selling goods from Kashmir.
In one shop, my sister was negotiating with the store seller while he was saying prices and I was converting Rupees to dollars for my sister. I was trying to do this faster than he could in the calculator just to show it would be difficult to cheat us by asking for some funny number in rupees. It turned out, we did the bargaining like usual, and in the end everyone was reasonably happy. In the meantime while my sister was deliberating on how much she could justify spending on a bracelet, I asked the guy where his home is. He said, "my home is heaven. Do you know where the heaven is on earth?"
I told him I didn't and he said in a sing-songy voice
"Oh my God, you don't know where the heaven is. It is Kashmir."

I was taken aback by this slightly. I always think of Kashmir as a war torn zone. A region that wants to be free of India and Pakistan, but but powers relentlessly pursue control. I mentioned this, and the guy told me that was politics, and to look at some pictures of his home. I always like people who are proud of their homes. In fact, I don't trust people who disown their homes. So this guy endeared himself to me, even whilst bartering. I saw some pictures, and it looks lovely. But I told him many places are nice like this. In fact, I thought Alaska was prettier. He couldn't quite come back at that one. But he did tell me that if natural beauty is your thing, then Kashmir is the place to be. After all this, he asked me where I live, and I told him I currently live in Chennai.

"Oh my God, Chennai is the hell. If Kashmir is heaven then Chennai is the hell."
He told me he'd been to Chennai a few times, and hated it. Later as we were walking around Bangalore some more we ran into more Kishmiris. In one shop we had a nice chat about Islamic philosophy and why states in which Islam is a state mandated religion are far away from the true purpose of Islam. I was a little out of my league here, but the guy I was talking to was WAY into Islam. He was reading philosophy of Islam and has been for somewhere around 20 years. That was interesting to listen to. He also agreed Kashmir is wonderful and Chennai is awful. His English was strong, so he didn't call Chennai "the hell." In yet a third shop more Kashmiris. Perhaps it's the case that my sister is attracted to those types of goods, but it still seemed like an inordinate number of people from Kashmir... In any case, the third guy started talking about how much he loved Kashmir and also agreed that a person must love his home. Also, he'd been to Chennai only twice and it was miserable for him, too hot, humid, and Chennaites don't treat other Indians well. (To be fair, this is not true of the rest of Tamil Nadu, just Chennai). He too stated, "Chennai is the hell."

I guess there is only one conclusion which we can deduce from these observations...
Kashmir is the heaven; Chennai is the hell.