My Homecoming: The Baramulla I Left and I Rediscovered
Returning to Baramulla after decades, the author finds a landscape transformed by modernity yet deeply rooted in tradition.
The once expansive orchards have given way to urban sprawl, reflecting a shift from agrarian wealth to economic progress.
Amidst the changes, the essence of Baramulla remains, with its enduring warmth, hospitality, and a community grappling with the balance between progress and preservation.
Home becomes both a place and a feeling, an image minted in time.
Three-and-a-half decades after I returned “home,” I returned not merely to visit but to rediscover.
What met me was at once familiar and foreign, comforting yet unsettling: a microcosm of contemporary India, where progress and loss march arm in arm.
There is something sacred about the first breath one draws upon returning to the Valley.
Author's summary: Rediscovering Baramulla after decades.