Kashmir loves to call itself the land of rivers, springs and lakes, where water supposedly flows as freely as the poetry written about it.

Srinagar sits close enough to the Jhelum to hear it rush by, but thousands of women have learned that a picture-perfect river buys nobody a bucket of water at home.

A drop to drink, a mile to fetch. 

That might as well be the official slogan of neighbourhoods the city remembers only when tourists arrive.

But since desperate times call for desperate measures, urban pockets have put that punchline straight on the road. 

Women who once stood quietly in queues now stand where traffic cannot pass, holding empty buckets like placards nobody printed for them. 

Horns blare, tempers flare, and for a few charged minutes the street becomes the only office in the city actually listening to a complaint. 

When paperwork falls on deaf ears, the road becomes the last court of appeal.

The scenes in the summer capital are raw and unscripted. A commuter shouts that the road is no........

© Kashmir Observer