Dr. Ratan Bhattacharjee
With a cup of Kashmiri nun chai (or noon chai) a traditional, savory pink tea from the Kashmir Valley one can enjoy Winter in Kashmir. . Unlike regular chai made with black tea and typically sweetened with sugar, noon chai uses special green tea leaves, a pinch of baking soda, milk, and salt to create its distinctive pink color and creamy, salty flavor. It is also known by several other names, including Sheer Chai, Gulabi Chai, and Kashmiri Tea. Winter arrives in the village not as a season but as a breath held by the mountains. It slips down the ribs of the Himalaya in pale shawls of mist, settles into the hollows of roofs, and teaches the earth to listen. Long before the first snow, the village knows. The pines grow silent, their needles sharpening the air. The river lowers its voice, learning restraint. Smoke begins to speak more often than people do, rising in blue sentences from stone chimneys, writing the grammar of survival against the white page of the sky.
I however like Kahwa more than nun chai prepared in my own style . As dusk folds itself over the Kashmiri winter, a cup of kahwa arrives like a quiet blessing. The samovar hums softly, its copper body glowing in the half-light, as saffron threads bleed their golden secrets into the water. Green tea leaves unfurl slowly, as if waking from centuries of sleep, while crushed cardamom releases a warmth that travels deeper than the cold ever could. Slivers of almond float like small boats on an amber lake, carrying memory and comfort.I mix honey for sweetening it and for fragrance rose petals and saffron. Kahwa in a winter evening is not merely tea. It is hospitality distilled, a pause in time, a gentle resistance to the harshness of cold. It teaches the body to endure and the soul to hope, reminding one that even in the deepest winter, warmth can be brewed slowly, lovingly, and shared.
Outside, snow hushes the world. Chinars stand bare, their branches etched against a violet sky, and the Jhelum moves with measured patience. Inside, hands curl around the cup, drawing warmth not just into the palms but into the heart. The first sip is delicate, fragrant—bitter and sweet in perfect restraint—followed by a lingering aftertaste that feels like an old story retold by firelight. The Kashmiri village clings to a slope like a remembered prayer. Its houses are built of stone gathered patiently from fields and streams, each rock a witness to centuries of footfall. Wooden beams darkened by age lean into one another as if to share warmth. Windows are small, for the cold is a thief of mercy, and doors are low, teaching humility to all who enter. Above the roofs, prayer flags fray themselves into threads, releasing their colours to the wind, each torn edge an offering. When winter comes, the flags stiffen and rattle like bones, yet their faith does not freeze.
Morning in Kashmnir during the winter is a hesitant thing. Dawn does not announce itself; it seeps. The sky pales, then blushes faintly, like a child waking from a dream. Snow lies unbroken, a silence made visible. Footprints appear reluctantly—first those of a dog, then a woman carrying water in a copper pot, its rim kissing the cold. Her breath blooms and vanishes. She walks carefully, as though the earth beneath her is sleeping and must not be disturbed. The well has learned patience; it offers its water slowly, with a groan of rope and pulley, each creak echoing across the valley.I saw 8 inch snow fall in New Jersey or Virginia . But in Kashmir snowfall is exotic, more poetic because of the idyllic beauty. Inside the houses, winter gathers the family into one circle. The hearth becomes the sun. Firewood stacked months ago—cedar, oak, a little pine—crackles with stored summers. Flames lick the soot-blackened kettle, and tea thick with milk and salt warms hands and histories alike. Elders speak sparingly in winter, saving words as one saves grain. When they do speak, their voices carry frost and forgiveness. They tell of winters when snow rose higher than doors, when wolves came close enough to count the stars in their eyes, when the river disappeared entirely, swallowed by its own stillness.
Children measure winter differently. For them, it is a miracle that falls from the sky. They wake early, pressing noses to glass, searching for the night’s gift. Snow makes saints of them, briefly. They forget quarrels, forget hunger, forget the long walk to school that will not happen today. They roll themselves into the cold and rise as new creatures, their laughter ringing like bells struck by an unseen hand. When I see them going to school walking on the roadside while the cars move few and far between , I feel Kashmiri children love education more than many in the country where school going is not such a challenge. Their mittens grow wet, their cheeks burn, but joy is an ancient animal that thrives in thin air. The fields sleep under a white vow. Terraces that once held wheat and barley now hold the moon. Fences vanish, and boundaries soften. The earth’s pulse slows. Beneath the snow, seeds dream of weight and dark. Farmers visit their fields as one visits an elder—without expectation, with respect. They read the snow as others read scripture: depth as promise, hardness as warning, the way wind has combed it into drifts as a sign of what is to come. Winter teaches them to trust what cannot yet be seen.
At noon, the sun appears briefly, a shy guest. It gilds the peaks first, then spills downwards, touching the village like a blessing that cannot stay. Icicles answer with a sudden music, dripping time back into motion. The river loosens its tongue and speaks in silver syllables. Women spread woollen blankets and chilies on rooftops to catch what warmth there is. Cats find the one square of light and claim it with imperial certainty. Even the stones seem to lean toward the glow, remembering fire.The path to the village becomes a test written in snow. Travelers arrive rarely now, their faces red and eyes bright with effort. When one appears, the village gathers itself. Doors open wider, bowls are filled more generously. Winter sharpens hospitality into a blade that cuts through loneliness. Stories are traded for shelter; news from the lower valleys is weighed like spice. Someone has brought salt. Someone else has seen the first train of the season. These fragments of elsewhere are warmed by the fire until they fit the room.
Nights are the true measure of winter. Darkness falls early and stays. The sky becomes a deep, star-strewn well, and the village peers into it for courage. Lamps glow like captured moons behind windowpanes. Outside, the cold grows articulate. It speaks in the snap of wood, the whisper of snow sliding from roofs, the distant cough of an owl. Time stretches. The hours lengthen like shadows, and patience is learned by necessity. In one house, a grandmother spins wool by lamplight.Kashmir is known for the hand woven shawls Her hands move with the certainty of habit, drawing thread from cloud. Each turn of the spindle is a memory coaxed into form. She hums a song older than the village, older than the names of the mountains. The tune carries the weight of departures and returns, of births counted by winters survived. The wool grows, pale and strong, ready to become a sweater that will carry warmth forward in time.
In another house, a young man sharpens his tools. He will carve spoons and bowls to sell when the road opens again. His knife sings softly against wood, releasing a scent that recalls green days. He thinks of the woman he will marry after the thaw, of the room they will share, of children whose laughter will one day mark these winters. The future, like the river, runs beneath ice. He trusts its current. The animals know winter’s rules by heart. Yaks move with solemn economy, their breath steaming like small engines of faith. Sheep huddle, turning themselves into a single, breathing wall. Dogs patrol the edges of the village, noses lifted, ears tuned to what the dark carries. Birds arrive and depart as if obeying a secret clock. The raven watches everything, his blackness a punctuation against the white, his call a reminder that winter, too, has a voice.
In Darjeeling or Peiling snowfall is a lucky phenomenon. But in Kashmir , sometimes, the snow falls without pause for days. The world narrows to what can be reached by hand. Paths vanish. Silence thickens. In these times, the village learns the art of waiting. Meals become simpler, conversation deeper. People listen—to the fire, to one another, to the heart’s quieter questions. Faith takes on the texture of bread kneaded slowly, with care. Winter asks for attention, and gives in return a clarity that other seasons cannot.There are moments of fear. A roof groans under weight. A child coughs through the night. A storm presses hard against the doors. But fear here is not a tyrant; it is a teacher. It teaches preparation, community, the courage of small acts. Neighbours shovel together, share medicines, keep vigil. Winter pares life to essentials and reveals how little is needed when much is shared.
On certain nights, the moon rises enormous, a silver bowl tipped over the mountains. Snowfields answer with a glow of their own, and the village seems afloat, a constellation set down upon the earth. In such light, even grief looks different—softer, as if wrapped. Those who have left are felt more keenly then. Names are spoken into the cold, and the cold listens without judgment.As weeks turn, a subtle change occurs. The snow’s language shifts. It grows heavier, wetter, its hold loosening. Drips count the hours. South-facing walls begin to show their bones. Children notice first. They run to tell the elders that the sun has learned to linger. Winter hears this and smiles, a little sadly. It has never meant to stay.
The departure of winter is as quiet as its arrival. It withdraws step by step, leaving gifts behind—full wells, rested fields, stories burnished by darkness. The river finds its voice again, louder now, eager. The village stretches, shakes off white, and breathes differently. Yet something of winter remains, lodged in the way people look at one another, in the patience of their hands, in the reverence they hold for fire and for silence. When spring finally takes the village into its arms, no one forgets winter. The tulips and carnation bloom on all corners . They greet it like an old teacher who has left marks that cannot be erased. In the remote Kashmir village, winter is not merely endured; it is learned. It teaches that beauty can be austere, that warmth is a practice, that community is a craft honed in cold. Above all, it teaches listening—to mountains, to seasons, to the enduring, human heart that keeps time wait and silently listen.
International Tagore Awardee Poet Dr.Ratan Bhattacharjee ,the author of Twilight of Love is a former Affiliate Faculty of English Virginia Commonwealth University and a multilingual columnist.
Dr. Ratan Bhattacharjee , an International Tagore Awardee multilingual writer is a former Affiliate Faculty of English of Virginia Commonwealth University USA and Poet, can be reached at profratanbhattacharjee@gmail.com
