This Muharram, as I drove amidst traffic, a young volunteer handed me a glass of water. It was cold. Simple. Transparent. Ordinary. Yet it felt heavier than its weight. People accepted it with respect. Some held it for a moment before drinking. Others whispered prayers. It was not merely water being distributed. It was remembrance. A symbol of thirst. A tribute to suffering. A reminder of Karbala, where access to water was denied, and humanity was tested. For a few moments, that glass became a story.

Then, as I returned home and settled in to access the day’s news, there were photographs of people standing in long queues beside water tankers. Plastic buckets. Yellow cans. Steel containers. Faces tired from waiting under the summer sun. The same water. The same thirst. A different story.Somewhere between the Muharram procession and the water tanker, I realized that water has become one of the most powerful characters in our lives. We notice it only when it disappears.

For generations, Kashmir never imagined such........

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