Srinagar, Nov. 22 -- I sit on the porch, tea in hand, and hear the neighbour's five-year-old shout, "Mom, look at my new shoes!"

Mom claps. "So smart!"

Nobody notices Kashmiri has left the room.

The kid will grow up calling our lake "Dal" only on the school map. At home it's just "the lake."

We call it progress. Honestly, it feels more like forgetting.

I walk through Srinagar these days and hear more Ed-Sheeran than native tunes. Coffee shops serve foreign toast. The baker down the road still makes lavas, but the sign is in Helvetica English.

We're waving at the world with one hand and letting our own story slip out of the other.

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