Srinagar, Sept. 3 -- There is a steady rise in the number of people seeking psychologists in Kashmir today. Rooms with soft chairs and faint light have become shelters, where stories of loss and silence are unwrapped.

The numbers alone are startling. A study says: nearly 1.8 million people in Kashmir live with significant psychological distress.

That means nearly half the valley lives with a burden no eye can see.

The reasons shift depending on whom you ask. Some will tell you about the sudden absence of a beloved voice. Others will recall money that vanished overnight, studies cut short, and dreams dissolving into fog.

Trauma is a shared inheritance here. Each decade seems to deliver its own blow. Families do not forget. Children gro...