Kashmir: Updates- as it happens

Let me first and foremost declare- I am not a born Kashmiri- Kashmir is a place where I spent some great times.

One of my last happy vacations with my family was in Kashmir.

One of the first crushes I had was on a Kashmiri guy.

Some of fondest childhood memories included some great Kashmiries- as teachers, as 'massi' (mother's sister) - I know this concept of 'massi' being someone other than mom's natural born sister is somewhat hard to understand.

Some of my friend in School were Government of India scholars from Kashmir.

Some of my current friends are from Kashmir.

I will, by-n-by, get in to the good times. Everyone needs to keep the good times in mind- it just helps keep things in perspective.

I lived through some of the nasty times Punjab went through. Had real close encounters - things I was told never to mention ever. I guess I was too young to understand but as I grew, it made me a bit more open to looking at the big picture and look at things from the flip side.

I was double-minded about letting some of these posts go live. Not all depict my point of view. I don't agree with all of them but then I thought- who am I to decide? What right do I have to keep information away from the world? I have my own somewhat strong opinions about Kashmir and the general unrest in that area. And I will get to those slowly but at present the focus is Kashmir.