The road from the airport to Srinagar unfurls like a half-remembered poem. One that began writing itself forty years ago, the first time I visited Kashmir. That old poem curves threading through the poplar trees, their leaves trembling in autumn’s evening breeze. I arrive on October 10, 2025, stepping into a valley where the air is still sharp with a hint of pine scent as it is with the weight of unspoken stories. The bluish hills, their edges fading in the haze of the Pir Panjal, stand as a quiet backdrop. My restlessness hears them whisper of lands beyond.
Kashmir, like me, is restless. A restless geography, an ancient chessboard square in the Asian landscape that has been flirting with the dreams of empires and carrying the scars of their ambitions. The Kashmir Literature Festival (KLF) 2025, held over two days at the Sher-i-Kashmir International Conference Centre (SKICC), is expected to soothe some of this impatience of the both of us.
Camp 216: Where Men Are Forged
My first night is spent at Army Transit Camp 216, a place where the walls seem to hum with tales of endurance. The Fauji’s adage goes “you’re not a man until Camp 216 has tested you”. It is a nod to the spirit of geography; peace here is a guest that never lingers long.
The room is warm, but the bed unfamiliar and sleep eludes me. I regret the large cup of coffee that I had sipped at KLF25’s Gala Dinner by Dal Lake. There, under a sky pricked with early stars, I had met new India’s voices: historian Chandrachur Ghose, whose words cut like a blade through time; Abhijit Iyer Mitra, sharp and irreverent as ever; Kanchan Gupta, the quiet sage of the old guard; young guns Jai Samota and Haroon Imtiaz; Tehmeema Rizvi and Rouble Nagi. These are people whose words — written and spoken — trace the landscapes of our times. Raja Muneeb and Col Ajay Raina brought the valley’s pulse to the table, their stories mingling with the lake’s gentle ripples. The breeze, carrying the lake’s breath, froze my bones. I should have packed thermals, I think as I toss and turn.
The Chessboard’s Heart
The SKICC, nestles among mulberry and chinar trees. It is a fortress of ideas guarded by layers of security that serve as a reminder that Pakistan’s shadow always plays dirty. Yuvraj Srivastava, a sanyasi with a fire to revive Kashmir’s Shaivite soul, who orchestrated KLF with a band of young Kashmiri student volunteers seems omnipresent, their courtesy as warm as the valley is cold.
The festival’s theme, Kashmir as an Important Square on the Asian Chessboard, echoes the pulse of my book, Contours of the Greater Game, published by BluOne Ink. Speaking at my book launch, I weave a tale of Kashmir’s weight: not just its rivers and routes to Central Asia, but its people, too often pawns in a game of power. Schoolchildren sit in the back, some of their eyes wide with curiosity. I wonder if they sense the truth: Pakistan’s dream is a mirage; its promises crumble like dust like it has in Bangladesh, Baluchistan, Gilgit-Baltistan, or among the Pashtuns. Kashmir’s rivers feed Pakistani Punjab’s fields, its passes link to China’s ambitions. But its people? Expendable, as they have been since the 1990s.
The day unfolds in a slow dance of book launches, panels, and music. Lt. Governor Manoj Sinha speaks of unity through literary pursuits, Col Ajay Raina of valour, Lt. Gen. D.P. Pandey of narrative and strategy, while Rami Desai or Shiv Kunal Verma and others, paint India’s identity in bold, unapologetic strokes. The SKICC’s hanging courtyard, with Dal Lake shimmering below, feels like a perch between worlds where literature met the raw edge of geopolitics, where aspirations for a greater India tries to soothe the valley’s restlessness.
A Nomad’s Day: Podcasts, Temples, and Shikaras
The second day remains softer, like a sigh after a brisk breeze. My only task is a podcast with Jayesh Gangan of Awaara Musaafir, which we record in the same hanging courtyard with the lake as my backdrop. Jayesh’s questions roam like a nomad’s trail. They touch my book, Kashmir’s place in the world, and Pakistan’s fraying edges. Sanchit, his production partner, grins through his lens; he calls the setting “cool.” I smile, less for the camera than for the moment’s ease.
Earlier, I’d climbed the 250 steps to Shankaracharya Temple, where the valley sprawled below, its ridges disappearing into the Pir Panjal’s embrace. Later, with Jai and Haroon, I drifted on a shikara across Dal Lake, the water reflecting the mountains’ majesty. The oars’ silent rhythm, the chatter of my companions, and the muted call of the migratory birds, weaved a fleeting tapestry of peace. It seems like a dream that Kashmir holds close yet rarely takes the time to grasp its essence.
Lal Chowk and the Road Beyond
As KLF closes, Yuvraj’s handshake turns to a hug, formality melting into the warmth of shared purpose. That evening, we wander to Lal Chowk, Srinagar’s beating heart, to fulfil a promise to my wife: a pashmina shawl, to carry back to Kolkata. The market’s bustle felt like a microcosm of the valley. Shadowed by the recent Pahalgam terror attacks yet trying best to remain resilient.
On Monday, October 13, I linger at Camp 216, alone now, the others gone. The camp is silent, save for the wind rustling through the chinars. I gaze north and try to imagine beyond those mountains that blur the vastness of Central Asia. The pilgrim’s mind traces a lazy path beyond the Pir Panjal, through Gilgit’s rugged passes, toward the steppes of Tajikistan or Kyrgyzstan’s high pastures. Which would it be? The question hangs like mist. Kashmir, with its rolling roads and poplar-lined dreams, stirs. The vale’s stories of restlessness would follow me, as would the call of those distant lands, waiting to be wandered.
A Reverie Unfinished
This geography is not a destination; it is a riddle wrapped in beauty, a place where the heart of India beats uneasily. And KLF 2025 remains a moment that prompts you to pause, to listen to that pulse, to weave the truth of those saint, soldiers, and thinkers into the larger fabric of a world in flux. Those mountains, the lakes and the people remain threads in a story that stretches from steppes to Srinagar, and from there to the sea.
I leave with the pashmina, a certificate, and a wanderer’s dream: one that will pull me back into this pilgrimage to perhaps where the mountains meet the sky.
