Between Tea, Wool, and Words

Can Kashmiris hold on to who they are while moving with the world?

- Khushboo Amin Bhat

I sit on the porch, tea in hand, and I hear the neighbour's five-year-old shout, “Mom, look at my new shoes!”

Mom claps. “So smart!”

Nobody notices Kashmiri has left the room.

The kid will grow up calling our lake “Dal” only on the school map. At home it's just “the lake.”

We call it progress. Honestly, it feels more like forgetting.

I walk through Srinagar these days and hear more Ed-Sheeran than native tunes. Coffee shops serve foreign toast. The baker down the road still makes lavas, but the sign is in Helvetica English.