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I met this man who runs a shop filled with exquisite wares from Kashmir. He has lived in San Francisco for 16 years and I told him I too had lived in San Francisco for 16 years. He said in a few years he would return home and so I asked him about home and told him how I long to travel to India but now that I have a young son, I might wait until he is four or five so he will remember it. The man from Kashmir said that 15,000 to 20,000 people have been killed in Kashmir but you don’t see that written anywhere. He said it is a land that is always in dispute between India and Pakistan and even China has a piece of it. He said it is a wonderful place, green and fecund, and during the blazing heat of the summer in India, it will be 75 degrees in Kashmir and lush.

He also said it is a wealthy land and no one rents, they all own their own houses and the houses are huge. I asked him what a young person leaving their parents’ home would do then, and he said they would live with the parents until they had developed work and stocked up on land and other amenities and could build their own house. He said you live with your parents for a lot longer than here in America. And also that you take care of your parents. He said he was one of six boys and that his mother now lived with one of his brothers but that every day no matter what, each of his other brothers stopped by the house to visit with her.

I told him one day I’d love to visit Kashmir and I hoped to meet others like him. He bid me good luck with my son and said that he hopes I will have a happy life. I said, oh indeed, I already do. Thanks.

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