Between Heaven’s Beauty and Winter’s Hardships

We live here in the valley of Kashmir, a beautiful valley covered with high mountains with snow caps all around the year, making it a picturesque view and presenting beauty throughout the year, making it a happy place to live in. The valley is located at a higher altitude than its surrounding areas, resulting in its moderate climate conditions. Living here is quite a pleasure, and it’s more like heaven on earth, as it’s called by most of the people who come here and experience the beauty of this place.

Life here is simple and peaceful, but not that easy, contrary to what it might look like at first. Here, people not only live but also have to struggle throughout the year to make life happen. There are a number of factors that make life difficult over here. Winter is one of the most significant factors that contribute to making life difficult in the valley. No matter how easy and peaceful life is throughout the summer, once winter arrives, the problems not only make life difficult but also bring some very unfortunate scenes that haunt people.

The temperature goes so low that even going out is tough. Not only does it halt developmental work, but the employment of people also gets affected. People hardly get any livelihood sources or opportunities in these months. Winter here is a six-month-long duration. Everything comes to a halt in these months, and nothing seems to work in favour of the people. The snowfall makes it even worse because, due to that, people need to hoard things for survival. Everyone needs to store food materials for long durations.

For that reason, people need to earn enough money during the other months of the year, but unfortunately, we have very limited livelihood sources or opportunities. Our winters would become easy only if we got good facilities from the government, and that too is possible only by paying for those facilities, which again depends on the financial resources of families. It is impossible for all of us to bear our expenses through these harsh winters.

When it comes to earning a livelihood in the summer months, sometimes the situation prevailing in the valley makes it difficult, like this year when an attack on tourists in the Pahalgam valley created fear, and it was another bad time for the valley because tourists stopped coming in, who otherwise brought a lot of revenue. Unfortunately for all of us, some unknown elements created a scene that had a long-lasting impact on our economy.

People are going through tough times, and now the winter has arrived, which not only brings a significant dip in temperature but also questions the sustainability of life by making it difficult in every aspect. The months run from November till the end of March, or maybe up to mid-April, and surviving through these months is always an uphill task. Now that winter has arrived, people have just started making arrangements for it, and the actual sufferings have already begun because those with limited resources and limited livelihood means have to compromise on many things to cater to the needs of surviving through these harsh conditions.

Anyways, we have been fighting hard to make our lives comfortable and sustain ourselves through these harsh times.