16 with a stained dream.

Hello again, 

I hadn't planned on what I wanted to write the next time I wrote. Just mere seconds ago, I ended up reading some of the most disturbing news in depth. 

The killings in Pahalgam, Kashmir, took place on 22nd April, Tuesday, 2025. 

Kashmir has always had a conflicted history with multiple events, such as this one, repeatedly taking place. The population of historic Kashmir is divided into about 10 million people in Indian-administrated Jammu and Kashmir and 4.5 million in Pakistani-administered Kashmir. There are a further 1.8 million people in the Gilgit-Baltistan autonomous territory, which Pakistan created from northern Kashmir (sourced by BBC News). It is quite evident from the information provided that the Himalayan region of Kashmir has been a flashpoint between India and Pakistan for over six decades, making it the most militarised zone in the world today.

Now, as a teenager, a girl, a child, what do I feel myself feeling?

I’m just sixteen.

That’s barely even a full chapter in my life, but I am old enough to dream, to wonder, and to hope. One of those hopes and bucket list items has always been to visit Kashmir. I’ve heard it’s called “Paradise on Earth”— a place for which words always fall short unless you've seen it yourself. 

But today, my bucket list item feels like it's miles away from being close; it feels stained.

I can’t stop thinking about it. About the people who died. About the ones who lost their families. About the silence that must’ve fallen over those valleys, those mountains, and those streets. This silence is nowhere a definition even close to "peace"; it's a heartbreak. 

I didn’t even know what had really happened there until I saw a million posts about it on Instagram, each one only barely trying to mourn the loss that Pahalgam suffered. I didn't realise the depth of the matter until I saw people screaming, mothers holding bloodied shawls, and children with eyes that had seen things no child should ever see. I’m only 16, and even I could feel the pain jabbing me deep in my chest. 

How could something so brutal happen in a place so beautiful?

They called it a terrorist attack. Just two words—so easy to say, so impossible to understand. Innocent tourists. Locals. Families. A bus full of lives turned into blood and ashes in a matter of seconds. And suddenly, Kashmir didn't remain a postcard anymore—it was wounded, yet again. 

It broke me.

I couldn’t stop thinking about some girl who sat in that one seat. Maybe she was my age. Maybe she loved dancing and singing, and laughing too. Sadly, she never will get to do any of that again, because someone decided her life didn’t matter.

But it did matter. Every single life taken in Pahalgam mattered. Whether they were from Kashmir or Kerala, or Kanpur, or from anywhere in the whole wide world—they mattered. And yet, the world keeps scrolling. One more tragedy in a long line of breaking news. 

What scares me most is how we’ve gotten used to it, the tragedy, the violence. Every time something like this happens, people post hashtags, politicians argue on TV, and then... we forget. We move on. Until the next time. But there shouldn’t be a next time.

And the children who survived in Pahalgam—what happens to them? Who will help them sleep again without nightmares? Who will help their mothers smile again? Will they ever go to school again and laugh at stupid jokes, and dream about college?

Beyond the tears and funerals, the impacts are huge. Fear spreads like wildfire. Locals who depend on tourism to earn a living are once again thrown into uncertainty. Hotels sit empty. Taxi drivers wait for passengers who will never come. The economy of the valley, already fragile, gets a fresh bullet every time violence erupts. The aftermath of such events is brutal—families struggling, schools closing, children growing up too fast, with a childhood that is too real to even be called a childhood. Dreams shattered, faith lost, hope lost, yet somehow we move on. 

What kind of world are we building where kids are afraid of mountains? Where, instead of planning a trip to Kashmir, we’re told to “stay safe” and “maybe next year”? It hurts. Because we’re the generation that’s supposed to believe in peace, in change, in a better tomorrow. But how can we do that when today, the now, the present is painted red?

What happened on the 22nd of April is not normal. It should shake us out of the political sympathy given to such heartless, ruthless people. It should break every heart because every time something like this happens anywhere in the world, every country, every soul ends up losing a sliver of hope. 

So here I am—sitting on my chair, suppressing a dream into a box. Just a girl, just sixteen, writing this because I don’t know what else to do.

As ever,

Ambika