I was just a child when I first visited Kashmir on a summer holiday. It was a land so breathtakingly beautiful, so softly surreal, it felt as if I’d crossed into a world where fairytales might just be true.

One afternoon, the mission head of the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) invited our family to lunch. The venue was the garden of what was then called the Oberoi Palace, perched elegantly above the shimmering expanse of Dal Lake. The lake glistened in the sunlight, as still and silent as a held breath.

Midway through lunch, the UN official turned to me with the kind of playful curiosity adults often reserve for children and asked, “Tell me, what’s the place you’ve liked most during your holiday in Kashmir?” I answered without a moment’s hesitation: “Pahalgam”. Not because it looked like something out of a fable, though it easily could have, but because that was where I caught my first trout. I remember standing knee-deep in a freezing, pristine freshwater stream, my small hands nervously gripping a fly-fishing rod, while a local fishing guide held me steady from behind, the way one might brace a young apprentice braving treacherous waters.

Another guide stood right by my side, as added precaution for my age and inexperience. The icy water tugged at my legs, the forest whispered all around us, and when the line finally twitched and sprang to life, I felt a thrill so pure it eclipsed everything else. It was my first unforgettable adventure in the wilderness – and like all firsts, it left a mark that never quite fades.

Decades have passed since that cherished summer, but what I remember most fondly – and most emotionally – is not the childhood adventures or the storybook scenery, but what unfolded when the locals in Pahalgam came to know where we were originally from. At first, our entourage was perceived as American. Our accents, Western clothes, and perhaps the passports we carried – required at checkpoints – seemed to suggest as much, and we were treated with polite, if distant, courtesy. Everything changed though when our accompanying Kashmiri officials began to share that we were of Pakistani origin. That single revelation fundamentally transformed every interaction. The graciousness and civility extended to us deepened into something that felt almost reverential.

At a petrol station just outside town, the attendant’s expression........

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