“Every morning, I push my small wooden cart to the gardens, hoping the day will be kinder than the last,” says Aminul Gul, a kehwa seller from Srinagar.

“For years, I was not earning enough to even feed my family. This year was the worst. After the Pahalgam attack in April, tourists left Kashmir overnight. Tourism collapsed, and with it, my only source of income. I remember standing outside the Mughal Gardens, selling Kashmiri Kesar Kehwa, but for an entire week I didn’t sell even a single cup. I would stand there all day and go home empty-handed.”

He adds, “I am the only earning member of my family. How was I supposed to feed them? April is our bahar, the season of life and tourism in Kashmir, but that month, everything died for us.”

“In winter, no one comes to Kashmir because the temperature goes below zero. Summer and spring are all we depend on. But this year, there was nothing. No earning, no profit, no hope.”

Everything shifted, he says, when the Government opened Bagh-e-Gul-e-Dawood in autumn (harud), just when the tourism season usually ends.

“When Kashmir was struggling, this garden became a hope for me. The day it opened, tourists slowly started coming again. I moved my cart outside the entrance, thinking maybe someone might stop by. I never expected such a change.”

He smiles at the memory of that turning point. “From the day the Chrysanthemum Garden opened, people started pouring in. They began drinking kehwa and kulcha brewed in the Kashmiri samawar, and after just one sip, I could hear them go ‘wah’,” he says. “For the first time in years, I felt my work was giving something back.”

His story reflects what many in Kashmir felt this season — a sudden shift from silence to revival. And that revival began with a garden unlike any seen before.

As autumn drapes Kashmir in its golden........

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