A Window In Kashmir Opened Her World

By Sabreena Bhat

That morning, the sky above Shopian was pale and hushed. Snow clung to rooftops and pear trees, blanketed the narrow path leading to the old wooden gate. Crows had not yet started their chorus. In the room above the kitchen, she pulled the curtain back with fingers still warm from sleep and let in the whiteness.

Outside, children were already at play. One boy in a saffron cap slid down a slope, arms spread wide, while two girls scooped snow to mold a kangri that fell apart before it took shape. Smoke curled up from the neighbour's kitchen. A cluster of elders stood around a crackling fire, the men's noses red from the cold, their breath mixing with the smoke in the air.

She watched it all in silence. Her breath fogged the glass. She didn't smile, not quite. But something in her eyes softened. Something unguarded, a little wild.

Then her mother's voice rang out from the stairwell.“Why are you at the window?”“Draw the curtains.”“What's there to see?”

She stepped back. The warmth vanished.

The curtain closed with a soft swoosh. She returned to her spot in the corner, between the wooden almirah and the wall where her grandfather's prayer beads once hung. It had become hers over the years. The one place no one entered, or asked about. Her own little world, stitched together with forgotten school notebooks, pressed flowers, and an old muffler she hadn't worn in years.

She curled into it like a secret.

Earlier that day, her reflection had caught her by surprise. Hazel eyes lit up. A smile that made her cheeks round and her dimple bloom. She had looked alive. Not joyful, exactly-but full of something tender. Something almost like belonging.

But the questions, always the questions, had sent her back to herself.

That evening, she arrived late. The matador drivers were on strike. She had walked in snow for nearly forty minutes. Her feet were wet. Her hands tingled with cold.

No one asked why she was late.

Only the questions came.“Who gave you permission?”“Do girls from good families come back at this hour?”“What are we raising you for?”

She didn't answer. She climbed the stairs, one hand on the rail, the other clenched in her pocket.

In her room, she pressed her face to the carpet and cried the way she always did-without noise. Her tears ran down into the wool, warm for a second before they disappeared.

That night, she dreamt of walking through an orchard. The sky above her thundered. Trees bowed under wind. But at the bend of the path, she saw it: a patch of gold light spilling between two chinar trunks. It was soft. Waiting.

She awoke before her mother called for breakfast. A friend had once told her about a conference in Pulwama. Something about peace. She had dismissed it then. But now, something inside her stirred.

She boarded a shared cab. Paid the fare with coins saved from lunch money. At the conference, she sat in the back. The speaker, a tall man with a quiet voice, spoke not of treaties or maps, but of what it means to find peace when the world inside you is louder than the one outside.

In the break, he passed by. She didn't mean to speak. But something about the way he stood-still, attentive-made her say it. Just a few words. A corner of her story. A glimpse of the room no one else had ever entered.

He didn't offer advice. He just nodded, and for a moment, she felt seen.

At the end, he stepped up to the mic. Folded his prepared speech into his coat pocket.

“I met someone today,” he said,“who reminded me of who I once was. If my words mean anything, let them give her-just her-a reason to believe.”

She looked down, fingers laced in her lap. She didn't cry. But something cracked, and the light slipped in.

Three years later, she stood in Harvard, wrapped in her mother's old shawl. Her voice-firm, clear-filled the room. She spoke of windows. Of girls who watch from behind curtains. Of corners where dreams go to hide, and where, sometimes, they are born again.

And somewhere in the audience, he was listening.

• The writer is a Srinagar-based HR Manager.

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