Look at the picture above — carefully.
A young woman, her knees buckled and bent, sits frozen beside her husband’s bullet-riddled body. Helpless. Shattered. Inconsolably bowed by the weight of sudden misfortune.
Himanshi Narwal — her name now etched into the heart of a mourning nation — had been married barely six days. Together with her husband, Lieutenant Vinay Narwal of the Indian Navy, she had journeyed to the serene valley of Kashmir for their honeymoon. No grand European visa, no exotic tour — only the raw, pristine beauty of their homeland.
On Monday, they checked into a hotel in Pahalgam. By Tuesday, Vinay was dead.
Himanshi, a new bride, was left alone in an alien valley, cradled by indifferent mountains and merciless skies.
The scene was macabre in its stillness: Vinay’s lifeless form lay beside a battered tourist bag, indistinguishable now in their shared silence. Himanshi, the only sign of lingering breath, sat motionless, a living monument to grief. Time itself seemed to collapse in that moment; the clock's hands paralysed alongside her.
Around her, the valley remained cruelly indifferent — rows of towering pines, patches of sun-scorched land, red fibre chairs toppled in panic, abandoned slippers, and yellow tents trembling in the breeze. Children’s curious faces peeked from a distance; mountains stood silent witness under a heartless, brilliant sun.
Seeing today's Pahalgam brought back memories of another Pahalgam from 32 years ago.
In 1993, amid the bloodstained days of Kashmir’s insurgency, the threats from Lashkar-e-Taiba and Harkat-ul-Ansar echoed menacingly as pilgrims trudged towards Amarnath under the shadow of death.
Even then, the Indian state was determined to project an illusion of normalcy. The ‘yatras’ must continue, they said, as if the sheer force of will could erase the violence hovering over the Valley. Amid fear and gunpowder, a Kashmir was gasping to live: pilgrims chanting “Har Har Mahadev” even as army bunkers grew like tumours across the landscape. Mules stumbled nervously through cries and gunfire; soldiers strained to spot death emerging from mountain crevices.
That Kashmir bore scars it could not hide. Srinagar’s once-bustling Lal Chowk became a ghost town, its shutters clamped in fear, its people hollow-eyed, its economy in tatters.
Tourism — the valley’s lifeline — was murdered not once but countless times by militancy. Houseboats rotted empty on Dal Lake. Auto drivers plastered desperate posters on their vehicles, offering free rides just to lure a trickle of visitors.
Yet Kashmir's spirit stubbornly clung to life, even amid death.
Today, after the Pahalgam massacre, we are thrust once more into that dark, familiar abyss.
The nation has exploded in outrage — visa cancellations, diplomatic expulsions, burning of Pakistani flags, clamouring for war in drawing rooms and social media battlegrounds.
Every street, every mohalla hums the same fevered question: "When is the war?"
But lost in the cacophony is a quieter, more haunting question: How?
How did four or five heavily armed terrorists infiltrate a heavily secured area like Pahalgam in the so-called "Doval era"?
How did they, equipped with sophisticated weaponry and body cameras, walk into a honeymooner’s paradise and slaughter 26 innocents — including 25 tourists — without resistance, and then disappear into thin air?
Even now, security agencies grope in the dark. Photos of the attackers circulate; their whereabouts remain a mystery. Three suspected militants' houses have been demolished in Pulwama, Kulgam, and Shopian. Yet certainty remains elusive, buried under assumptions and public fury.
At an all-party meeting, the Central government, with the grim expression of a tree soaked in bitter Neem, accepted intelligence failure. But acceptance without accountability offers cold comfort to grieving families.
Meanwhile, ordinary Kashmiris — those who cling to life and dignity amid relentless crossfire — weep silently.
An auto driver’s broken voice echoes: "Tourists are our life. Tourists are our pride. If needed, we would have stood between the gun and the tourists! Those who killed them are not human. They are not even Muslims."
Yet, in the rising tide of anger, these pleas risk being swept away like chaff in a storm. We forget that the common Kashmiri, too, has been bled dry by this endless conflict. We forget that liberty and rage both come with responsibility. We forget that when freedom becomes reckless, it builds not nations, but ruins.
Look again at the picture.
See Himanshi Narwal — kneeling, broken — not just beside her husband’s corpse, but beside the battered spirit of an entire nation. Kneeling not in submission, but in a stunned, desperate reminder: We are a country brought to its knees — again — by terror. And unless we answer how with as much urgency as we answer when, we may find ourselves trapped in this cycle of grief forever.
By Pranab Mondal
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