House in Jammu, Home in Kashmir |
I went to Jammu this early winter. Not as a visitor. Not as a traveller. But as someone returning to a memory. We met our old Pandit family friends. The moment the door opened, their faces changed. There was excitement, yes. But more than that, there was recognition. A kind of recognition that doesn’t need explanation. They greeted warmly as if time had folded in on itself. As if years had not gone by. As if geography had been a misunderstanding.
One of them smiled and said, “It feels like we are living our golden days again.” Another corrected him gently. “Not living,” he said. “Breathing.”
That word stayed with me. They spoke of Kashmir not as a place. But as a sort of rhythm. Of waking up to familiar sounds. Of seasons that arrived softly, not violently. Of neighbours who did not need invitations. Of lives that were not merely shared, but intertwined. Not just living together, they said. But actually breathing together.
They have their own house in Jammu. They have lived there for more than thirty years now. They have built lives, routines, resilience. Yet one sentence........