Letters from the Valley
I am Kashmiri. And perhaps, that one sentence carries more weight than anything else I will write today. To some, it may sound like a simple declaration of identity, the way one might say I am French, or I am American. But for me, for us, saying I am Kashmiri is never just geography, never just culture. It is a whole bundle of emotions — pride, nostalgia, love, grief, resilience, and sometimes, a strange, aching silence.
People often ask me what it feels like to be Kashmiri. Most of the times, the question comes loaded, like they expect me to only talk about violence, protests, or headlines. I understand why — the world has been trained to see Kashmir through the narrow lens of conflict. But my story is larger than that. Our story is larger than that.
Today, I want to tell you what it truly means — not to live in the news clippings, not in the cold analysis of politics, but in the everyday rhythm of being Kashmiri.
The valley of my childhood
When I close my eyes and think home, I do not see barbed wires or soldiers first. I see the chinars. Their copper leaves spread across the ground in autumn like a carpet woven by heaven itself. I see the Dal Lake in early morning when the mist curls over its waters and the shikaras float silently, almost as if they’re gliding in a dream. I see the almond blossoms in spring, their white and pink petals soft against the harshness of the mountains that guard us.
I remember waking up to the call of the muezzin echoing over the valley, mingling with the bells of temples, the rustle of poplar trees, and the chatter of morning birds. In those moments, Kashmir was not divided, not wounded — it was a single breath of beauty, ancient and whole.
My childhood was filled with the small joys only a Kashmiri can truly understand. The taste of noon chai, salty and pink, sipped with girda bread on cold mornings. The warmth of kangris tucked under our pherans as snowflakes fell outside, turning the world into a white silence. The festivals where neighbors brought each other kehwa and rice puddings regardless of faith. The wedding songs echoing in narrow lanes, and the wazas stirring huge copper vessels of meat and spices for the wazwan, our grand feast.
But alongside that beauty was always an undercurrent of something unspoken — an awareness that our land was not like other lands, that our lives were not like other lives.
Baiza Mushtaq, participant GKSC bootcamp, batch 3rd.
