While going on a walk today, I stopped without meaning to. A chinar stood there, the way it always has, and for a moment I wondered how many generations have passed beneath it without realising it was watching.

That thought stayed.

We walk past these trees every day, often without lifting our eyes, forgetting that they have been here longer than our worries, longer than our certainties. The chinar does not demand attention. It waits. And perhaps that is why, when it finally speaks to us, it does so quietly.

This tree has seen people grow from children into adults and from adults into memories. It has watched laughter spill into afternoons and grief arrive unannounced. It has seen weddings move past in colour and funerals move past in silence. It has witnessed moments we celebrate and moments we do not know how to name. Through it all, it has remained. Not untouched, but steady.

We often describe Kashmir as fragile, as if it survives by chance. But standing there, looking up at the chinar, that idea felt incomplete. This land is not fragile. It is patient. It has learned how to stay.

The chinar understands time in a way we do not. For us, time presses forward, constantly reminding us of what we are losing. For the chinar, time settles. It does not........

© Greater Kashmir