The recent storm that swept through Kashmir Valley rattled roofs and windowpanes, bent trees in courtyards and along highways, and moved with the same force through crowded neighbourhoods and quiet outskirts. It did not stop to consider who lived where, who was powerful, who was ordinary. Like most forces of nature, it was vast, impersonal, and indiscriminate.

Then came the snowfall.

Soft, silent, almost hesitant — but selective. One locality woke to white rooftops and hushed streets, while another, just a short distance away, found only frost and expectation. Zaldagar wore winter like a shawl;  Karannagar stood under an empty sky. A snow-clearance machine had to be rushed to Kralpora, while nearby Kakapora did not receive a single flake. The difference between inclusion and exclusion was measured not in miles, but in the invisible movements of drifting clouds.

In purely meteorological terms, this is unremarkable. Snowfall depends on temperature gradients, moisture pockets, wind direction, and altitude variations so subtle they escape daily notice. Weather is governed by physics,........

© Greater Kashmir