What No One Tells You About Visiting Kashmir.

Two weeks before we set out for Kashmir, some heartbreaking targeted killings had disrupted peace in the valley. Worried about whether it would be safe to travel, we contemplated cancelling our long-awaited trip.

To help decide, I sent a message to our Airbnb hostess in Srinagar, asking about the situation on the ground. She replied, quite astutely, that there’s trouble everywhere but only in Kashmir is it constantly reported in the media.

Others I reached out to in Kashmir had similar advice. So we decided to take a leap of faith and arrived in Srinagar on a nippy autumn evening.

There are many layers to Kashmir

Together with a local acquaintance, we took a car to the outskirts of Srinagar on our second day in Kashmir. He entered a barren, deserted military installation with barbed wire and no indication of human habitation after turning off the main road onto a by-lane.

While he was parking, I started to hear the faint notes of a guitar coming from a dull barrack in the Stalinist style, which made my heart skip a beat. As it happened, we had reached Irfan-Bilal, a couple of singers who manage one of Kashmir’s sole music academies! Over the course of the following few hours, we heard ladies from remote parts of Kashmir play the guitar to Sufi beats and young, aspiring musicians play the age-old instruments. There is a revival of devotional music in the school.

Fear, not hope, is the dominant emotion

I was well-prepared to anticipate a military and police presence everywhere since I had studied a lot about Kashmir. To put it mildly, it is unsettling to witness armed police personnel stationed in bushes and bunkers across Srinagar and other crowded places, constantly monitoring the streets and frequently stopping young guys riding motorcycles and scooters.

We were on a day excursion from Srinagar when an unanticipated convoy of military vehicles sped by us, forcing us to park our car near to a barrier. Our friend used a little opening between cars to squeeze farther to the left in the hopes of giving them more room. However, a military guard with an armed weapon across the street saw, approached our window, and began berating him severely. He attempted to clarify, but that

Everybody has a tale of how, throughout the previous thirty years, their friends, neighbors, or family were taken away. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that fear is the dominant emotion among the average Kashmiri. I came away from meeting businesspeople, students, artists, farmers, and guides with the impression that fear, not optimism, is the primary emotion influencing their choices.

Nevertheless, as Indian tourists, we were greeted with amazing affection in spite of the depth of feelings that Kashmiris have for their homeland. We were asked home to stay or have a cup of kahwa by a lot of individuals, including Gujjar families and taxi drivers. Friends who were formerly acquaintances went above and above to introduce us to fascinating locals, take us to off-the-beaten-path locations, and feed us delicious vegan food! While I was in Kashmir, a native we met on Dal Lake messaged me every day to inquire about my wellbeing.