Opinion | Kupwara: A district of heritage and kashmiriyat

A district known for its position on the map deserves to be known for its people

Ask most people in Srinagar what they know about Kupwara and the answer comes quickly: the border. It is a fair reply, but a thin one. The district in the far northwest of the Valley, with the Line of Control running along its edge, carries a far bigger story than maps and news bulletins allow. It is a place of walnut trees older than the roads that reach them, of meadows where shepherds still read the weather in the clouds, and of people whose hospitality has outlasted some very hard seasons.

Take the road towards Lolab and the mood of the journey changes. The traffic thins, the hills close in, and the air smells of wet earth and pine. Lolab is a green bowl ringed by forested slopes, with paddy fields, willows and clear streams stitched through it. Visitors who arrive expecting a postcard often find something gentler. This is a working valley. Farmers bend over their fields at dawn, children walk home from school along narrow lanes, and an old man on a verandah will wave you in for tea before he asks your name. Lolab does not stage its beauty for anyone. Perhaps that is why it stays with people.

Higher up lies Bangus, a wide meadow above Trehgam that opened its doors to tourists only in recent years. Standing there in early summer, with grass moving like water and fir forests holding the horizon, you understand why locals guarded it quietly for so long. Bangus has the kind of silence that most of us have forgotten we need. It also carries a warning. A place that has stayed unspoiled because few people reached it can be changed within a few seasons if visitors arrive without care.

Further along, towards Machil, Keran, Tangdhar and Karnah, the road becomes slower and the mountains steeper. These border areas have long been described in the language of security, and that language has its reasons. But the people who live here do not think of their villages as outposts. They think of them as home. They have kept goats and cows, raised children, buried parents and celebrated weddings within sight of a line that others only see on paper. When the Kishanganga river runs past Keran, loud and cold and fast, it reminds you how little nature cares for the borders we draw.

Ask a family in Kupwara what keeps them going and many will point to the orchards. Walnuts and apples are the quiet backbone of the local economy. In autumn the walnut harvest brings whole households outdoors. Men knock the nuts down with long poles, women and children gather them from the grass, and the husks stain everyone’s hands a deep brown that takes days to fade. The nuts are then dried on rooftops and in courtyards, and sold in markets far from the valley. Behind every packed sack is a year of patient work, and behind that is a family hoping the weather, the roads and the market will all be kind at once.

The land also holds a spiritual memory. Like much of Kashmir, Kupwara has been shaped by Sufi teachers whose message of humility and service still lives in shrines, in village customs and in the way elders speak. People visit these places to pray, to ask for a sick relative’s recovery or simply to sit in silence for a while. Local stories add another layer. The caves of Kalaroos, for example, are wrapped in legends that grandparents pass to grandchildren on long winter evenings, each telling slightly different from the last. Whether every tale is literally true matters less than what they say about a community that values memory.

Winter in Kupwara is not a postcard season for those who live through it. Snow can close mountain roads for days. Families stock rice, dry vegetables and firewood well before the first flakes fall, and the kangri stays tucked under the pheran from morning till night. A patient who needs a hospital may have to wait for a road to be cleared. A teacher may walk much farther than usual to reach a school. Yet people speak of these months without drama. They share what they have, check on neighbours, and wait for spring with a patience that city dwellers might struggle to imagine.

Life so close to the Line of Control has also meant a particular relationship between civilians and the armed forces. Many villagers have lived through tense years, and memory of those times has not faded. At the same time, soldiers and residents share the same narrow roads, the same snowfall and the same dependence on each other when emergencies strike. Small acts, like a vehicle offered to a sick villager or a path cleared after a storm, do more to build trust than any official statement. Where that trust holds, it is worth protecting, and where it is thin, it needs patient and honest effort from both sides.

None of this means Kupwara has everything it needs. Many families still want better roads, stronger hospitals and schools that keep their best teachers. Young people, in particular, ask a simple question. Where will the jobs be? Tourism can help answer it, but only if it is built with the district rather than imposed upon it. That means homestays run by local families, guides trained from nearby villages, waste managed properly and forests left alone to do what forests do. A meadow like Bangus cannot be rebuilt once it is trampled.

There is also the matter of how the rest of the country and the world speak about Kupwara. For too long the district has appeared in headlines as a coordinate, a sector or a date. The farmer in Lolab and the orchard owner near Handwara rarely feature in those stories. Writers, journalists and travellers carry a responsibility here. If we only look at the border, we will keep missing the people who live beside it.

So what is Kupwara famous for? The honest answer has many parts. It is famous for its walnuts and its apples, for the green hush of Lolab and the open sky of Bangus, for its mountain villages and the rivers that ignore every boundary. But above all it is known, by those who take the time to visit, for the warmth of its people. A cup of noon chai offered by a stranger says more about this district than any map ever will. The next time you hear the name, try to picture the courtyard and the walnut tree before you picture the line. That small change in the mind might be the first step towards seeing Kupwara as it deserves to be seen.

Author can be reached at Email id: Umeedrashid697@gmail.com