Apples Of A Frozen Wrath

Mushtaq Ahmad Malik could barely recognise his orchard.

- Naseer Ganai

A thick blanket of snow covered the apple trees, many of them uprooted. Most lay in tangled heaps, branches twisted by the sheer force of nature. And the apples? They lay scattered, most of them no longer fit for consumption. A night of blizzard on November 8 has laid waste the 58-year-old apple-grower’s month’s of back-breaking labour in the picturesque hamlet of Pahnu, a 30-minute walk from his house in Shopian.