When Echoes Turn to Gunfire : Remembering Pahalgam, Reckoning With Yesterday
The dates have been looping through my mind like beads on arosary :9 June 2 0204 to 14 th June - the week I stayed in Kashmir, the week I thought I finally inderstood the word " trianquility ".A3rd d then 23rd April -2025 - yesterday -when tranquility shattered into headlinws and the echo of gungfire crept into every happy memory in had stitched togetther. Morning in Kashmir10th June 2024 The air smelled of apple blossoms and wood smoke the morning we landed in Kashmir . . A faint chill still clung to the back of each breath , as though winter had left fingerprints on the valley walls. Next day at 8.30 our day was started with on our way to Dal Lake - or rathe . a glass fragment of it deep inside pahalgam's winding wateways. A solitary ourcrop of sontes jutted into the water , and I stepped ont the fartthest one . Suddenly I was surrounded by liquid mirrors . Every mountain inched into focus , bright enough to make the sky look washed - out . And then came the sound...