Dal Lake’s floating produce market is a Lifeline amid the Unrest in Kashmir

In pre-dawn darkness and near-freezing drizzle, the shikara — a graceful, gondola-like canopied boat — made its way through a series of waterways. It was taking me to the daily wholesale floating produce market that begins at daybreak on Dal Lake in Srinagar, the main city of India’s Jammu and Kashmir state. Kashmir, the region disputed between Pakistan and India and engulfed by unrest for decades, saw renewed fighting in recent weeks. But on this morning on Dal Lake, the only sounds were the steady dipping of my shikara wallah…

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