When Eyes Meet in Kashmir

In Kashmir, bonds are not written in ink. They are carved in the heartbeats of its people, flowing quietly like the Jhelum, carrying centuries of stories. You may silence voices, you may scatter communities, you may stretch distances across years and mountains, but when a Kashmiri Pandit, a Muslim, and a Sikh meet — even after decades — the heart recognizes what history tried to forget.

It is not politics that greets them, nor the heaviness of disputes. It is a smile. A sudden spark in the eyes. A recognition that says, “You are mine, still. You always were.” And in that moment, the fractures of time lose their power.

I have seen it — the embrace of an old Pandit friend with his Muslim neighbor, their laughter carrying the echoes of childhood. I have seen Sikhs offering their langar with hands wide open, as if feeding their own. These are not mere gestures; they are remnants of an older truth — that we were one family, once, and somewhere deep within, we still are.

Kashmir has always been a garden where many flowers bloomed together. The azaan from the mosque, the bells of the temple, the hymns from the gurudwara — they rose like different notes of the same song. Festivals were never one man’s alone. Eid, Shivratri, Baisakhi — all belonged to everyone, because the joy of one was incomplete without the other.

And even today, when these children of the valley meet after years of separation, the conversation is not about pain but about memory. About the noon chai that warmed shared mornings. About the kehwa poured in small cups, sipped slowly while laughter filled courtyards. About the folk songs sung together during weddings, harvests, and long winter nights. These memories are their inheritance, untouched by time, unspoiled by the noise of division.

Yes, there was hurt. Yes, there was exile. But roots like these cannot be pulled out. They are tangled deep in the soil of Kashmir. They may bend, they may ache, but they do not break.

Perhaps this is the unseen strength of Kashmir: that even when storms tried to erase it, love remained quietly alive, waiting to be found again. When eyes meet, when hands clasp after decades, when a smile breaks across wrinkled faces, the valley whispers its oldest truth — we are more than what tried to divide us.

And maybe that is the greatest hope for tomorrow: that in every quiet reunion, in every remembered song, in every shared cup of chai, Kashmir teaches us that bonds born of love may sleep, but they never die.

Because here, in this valley of silence and song, joy still blooms when a Pandit, a Muslim, and a Sikh smile at each other — and the world, for a moment, feels whole again.

Baiza Mushtaq, participant GKSC Bootcamp