Srinagar, May 27 -- Abdul Rashid doesn't cut wood the way he used to. A carpenter from Saida Kadal, he once shaped furniture by eye. Now he stares at the tape, measures twice, sometimes thrice. Still unsure.

"Maybe I'm getting old," he says. But he's only 49. His hands are steady. It's his mind that wavers.

His 16-year-old son says he forgets mid-sentence. "The words come, then vanish," he says, glancing at the floor.

Neither of them knows what to call it. But science does. Brain fog.

They're not the only ones. In Kashmir, memory slips, scattered focus, and mental fatigue have become worryingly common, especially after COVID.

A 2024 global study in Clinical Neurology and Neurosurgery found over 20% of long COVID patients experience c...