New Delhi, Dec. 13 -- Historically, for the people of Kashmir, there is only one shahr or city, writes Sameer Hamdani in his new book City of Kashmir-Srinagar: A Popular History. Depending on which part of Kashmir you are in, you are either going up (khasun) or down (vasun) to Srinagar.

The common inclination is to look at Srinagar through the prism of militancy, violence and stone-pelting-like a fault line, there's a clear demarcation between before and after 1990's Srinagar. But this is a city older than Delhi and Lahore, shaped over two millennia by Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic cultures. Mongols, Turks, Persians, Dogras, Sikhs, British... all have been here.

It's a city where the old and the new are perpetually colliding, writes Hamda...