Mornings Have Changed

This summer, when Kashmir faced an abnormally intense heatwave, schools were closed earlier than scheduled. When they reopened, early morning timings were introduced. This decision triggered mixed responses. While some hailed it as a way to avoid the scorching midday heat; parents, teachers, even students, expressed concern. The debate quickly turned into a face-off between nostalgia and practicality. Some said, “We always woke up early. What is the big deal?” Others muttered, “These children are soft.” But in this noise, one truth remains buried: this is not the same Kashmir, and these are not the same mornings.

Those were the times when the day started with the sky, not a screen. In those idealized mornings of yesteryears, children didn’t go to bed scrolling Instagram reels or watching YouTube shorts under the bedspread glow. There were no smartphones and no doomscrolling until midnight. Families would sleep early, together. The day started with the body’s rhythm, not a buzzing alarm. Those past days it was fables, footsteps, fajr, and today it is scroll, sleep, school.

These days, a child’s night doesn’t end when the power is cut; it extends into the flicker of mobile screens. Parents too are caught in their digital spirals and often, the household sleeps late. To then expect children to rise at 5 a.m., wear uniform with half-shut eyes, and wait for school buses in neighborhoods where stray dogs now prowl more than ever before, is to mistake compliance for well-being.

There is a romantic lens through which we often view Kashmir’s early rising tradition. But what we ignore is how much the landscape, society and rhythms of life have changed. Earlier, homes had shared courtyards and collective care. If one child left for school, five eyes watched from windows. Today, families are nuclear, and children navigate early hours alone.

Earlier, mornings were about work and prayer; now they are about deadlines, notifications and overbooked syllabi. Earlier, people walked together to work or school; today, they wait for unreliable transport or navigate roads with broken pavements and heaps of garbage. It was once said that early morning makes the man. But must the same be said for a child whose only exposure to morning air is anxiety?

Much of the reaction to the school timings has less to do with heat or schedules, and more with how childhood itself has changed. We are trying to fit modern children into an old mould and expecting no cracks.

Yes, waking up early builds discipline. But what kind of discipline are we building when sleep-deprived children sit through six hours of rote learning, only to return home to tuition and more screen exposure? When do they breathe? When do they simply exist?

There is a sadness in admitting that mornings have lost their magic. They were once soft, slow and safe. Today, they are a scramble.

Once, Kashmir woke up to the scent of burning daan and copper samovars hissing like gentle secrets, mingling with the aroma of fresh tchot from the kandur’s shop. Azaan and the temple bells rolled gently, filling the quiet of early morning.

Now, the morning smells of petrol and urgency. Horns jolt the silence where roosters crowing once resounded. The kandur’s fire is dimmed by delivery apps; the daan replaced by induction beeps. Even the Dal blinks with LED reflections. And still, we insist: “This is how it was, this is how it must be.” Nostalgia, while soothing, is not always truthful. It forgets how much the ground beneath us has shifted.

And yet, we continue. Children wake up, parents prepare them, schools open gates. Life does not pause. But somewhere in the insistence on returning to the ‘old ways,’ we forget to ask if those ways still fit the new world. Not everything from the past can be copied and pasted into the present. Certain things must be rewritten.

Perhaps, then, this conversation is not about heat, holidays or school bells. It is about asking whether our mornings, so long idealized, still serve the lives we now live. Whether early light still holds the promise it once did, or whether we are just chasing a silhouette of a Kashmir that only exists in memory.

Until then, children step into the dim morning, sleep still heavy on their eyes, shadows trailing behind. The streets silent, the shops closed and the dogs alert. This is not the morning we once knew. It’s a stranger, and it asks to be understood differently.