The Chinar has watched Kashmir breathe through centuries. Long before we arrived, it stood rooted in this soil; long after we are gone, it will continue whispering the story of a Kashmir that measured its wealth not merely in harvests, but in the shade it left behind.

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Yesterday, while standing beneath the majestic Chinar in the courtyard of the Jamia Masjid of my village, I found myself asking a simple question. I turned to elderly men, worshippers and passers-by: Who planted this Chinar? No one knew. No one could tell its age or the name of the person who had planted it. Generations had come and gone. Thousands had lived, loved, struggled and disappeared into the pages of time. Yet the silent gift of one unknown human being continues to shelter everyone who walks beneath its vast canopy. That unknown planter is no longer alive. But his kindness is.Perhaps that is the purest form of immortality.

A Chinar does not rush through life. It grows........

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