India, March 24 -- The other day, BK Dhar, who recently retired from the forest department in Bhopal, called me from Srinagar, excitedly sharing how he couldn't find a hotel room. "Everything is booked! Even shikara rides are expensive now. Hard to believe it is the same Kashmir," he told me.

A Kashmiri pandit, he along with many others, had to leave his homeland and his house in the 80s to escape fanatics.

I do remember Kashmir-but not the one he was seeing.

When I landed at Srinagar 27 years back, the Tourist Reception Center near Radio Kashmir center , had only two occupants- me and a Swedish engineer engaged in a hydro power project.

In the late 90s and early 2000s, when I was posted in Kashmir as a journalist, the Valley was drow...