Sheena Peto Peto: When our seasons followed a rhythm! |
There was a time in Kashmir when weather did not demand interpretation. It unfolded with a quiet certainty, as if the land itself knew what the sky would do next. Summers warmed gradually, winters arrived with patience, and rain followed heat with such regularity that it became part of everyday anticipation rather than surprise. In those years, when afternoon temperatures climbed beyond comfort, the air above flooded paddy fields would begin to tremble, and by evening clouds would gather almost on cue. Snow, too, arrived without negotiation, falling softly and staying long enough to matter. Sheena peto peto, people said, not to describe an event but to acknowledge a rhythm that felt permanent.
Yet permanence, as it turns out, was an illusion sustained by balance. What felt natural was, in fact, the outcome of a delicately maintained system, one that Kashmir had inherited and preserved through restraint rather than intervention. Long before Western Disturbances were spoken of in daily conversation, the Valley relied primarily on its own internal processes to generate precipitation. Weather here did not merely pass through; it emerged from within, shaped by land use, water retention, vegetation, and remarkably low atmospheric disturbance. Understanding this is essential, because what Kashmir has lost is not just snow, but the very capacity to produce it.
To grasp how that capacity once existed, it helps to return to the Valley floor as it used to be. For centuries, Kashmir was defined by a continuous spread of wetlands and paddy fields that functioned as climatic regulators rather than passive landscapes. During summer, standing water in rice fields absorbed solar energy and released it slowly, while simultaneously feeding moisture into the lower atmosphere through evapotranspiration. As a result, surface temperatures remained moderated, humidity accumulated near the ground, and convection developed........