When I chose to take part in the project of conservation of manuscripts, I thought I was simply stepping into a world of ink, paper, and preservation. I didn’t know I was stepping into time itself. I didn’t know I would find myself holding documents that breathed, that whispered, that carried the anxieties and imaginations of people long gone.

My love for ancient records has always been deep, almost instinctive—but it was during this project that it truly became a journey. And it was here, among fragile files and brittle pages, that I stumbled upon a document so unusual that I had to pause and read it twice.

It was a file dated 6th April 1912, issued from the Office of the Chief Minister, Jammu & Kashmir State. The heading alone felt like an echo from another era: “Re: Fall of stones from the heavens.” Not a metaphor, not an allegory—an official note implying that stones had literally fallen from the sky. In the Kashmir of 1912, such an occurrence was not dismissed with scientific curiosity. It was seen as a sign. An omen. A disturbance in........

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