Has Kashmir’s Appetite for Luxury Outpaced its Reality? By Rafiq Dar In Kashmir, there is an old saying that cuts to the bone of the valley’s current economic temper: “If one rides a horse, the other one climbs the wall.” It is a proverb about envy, about the desperate need to match a neighbor’s stride, […]
Opinion
The Cold Season’s Silent Emergency
Kashmir’s harsh winter is more than a seasonal inconvenience; it is a serious public health challenge that quietly but steadily claims lives each year. As temperatures plunge and daily routines slow down, another invisible crisis intensifies inside hospital emergency rooms: a sharp rise in cardiac emergencies. The recent winter heart health advisory issued by doctors […]
The Canopy of Common Ground
When a towering newcomer threatens to uproot centuries of peace in the Kingdom of the Talking Trees, the inhabitants must choose between ego and empathy. This modern allegory explores how a community’s greatest strength lies not in its tallest members, but in the invisible roots that bind them together. By Aubaid Akhoon Deep in the […]
A Son’s Letter to His Mother
A son revisits the morning that changed his life forever, tracing grief, memory, and a mother’s love that refuses to fade. By Mool Raj Every time I left home for Jammu University to pursue my M.Sc. in Environmental Science, I wrote letters to my beloved mother, Smt. Nant Devi. Between 1997 and 1999, I entrusted […]
The Longest Chill
In the heart of the Himalayas, the arrival of Chillai Kalan on December 21 marks more than just a date on the calendar; it signals the commencement of a forty-day trial of spirit and survival that defines the Kashmiri identity. This period of “Major Cold,” stretching until the end of January, is characterized by a […]
In a World of Endless Copies, Original Thought Is Fading
We are living in what can best be called the age of the photocopy. Like a page copied again and again from an already fading original, our ideas, words and expressions are losing sharpness By Abid Hussain Rather We like to believe that we are living in the smartest age humanity has ever known. We […]
The Universal Language
From the ancient epics of Mesopotamia to the modern classroom, poetry has always been the language of the human soul. By Sahil Sharifdin Bhat Every sane person carries a verse in their heart. Whether it is a fragment of a nursery rhyme, a line from a sacred text, or a couplet from a film song, […]
Healing Old Wounds
For decades, the silence in Kashmir was often loudest in the homes of terror victims. These were families who, after losing loved ones to the brutality of terrorism, were forced into a shadow existence—marginalized by a system that seemed paralyzed by fear or, worse, indifference. However, the recent ceremony at Lok Bhavan in Srinagar, where […]
The Two-Rupee Note and the White Fiat
From the gleam of the Principal’s white Fiat to the taste of a two-rupee samosa: A personal journey back to Greenland High School and the gentle, unhurried rhythm of 1980s Srinagar By Syed Majid Gilani To understand what we have lost, we must sometimes travel back. Not just across the years, but into a different […]
Kashmir’s Winter Smog
As winter deepens across Kashmir, a silent but potent threat is tightening its grip on the Valley: worsening air pollution. What was once considered a seasonal inconvenience has now emerged as a full-blown public health crisis, driven by a dangerous cocktail of prolonged dry weather, traffic congestion, biomass burning, and unchecked construction dust. Across urban […]