“Didi, are there rivers big like this in your country? Have you ever seen water like what is here below? I have, in Bihar. And in Bangladesh. Once the river got so big that the water came down and took houses and buffaloes away with it. All of a sudden, in the blink of an eye.”

Alekh was whispering in the half-light. There was a small group of us who were huddling, unable to sleep, in the back of the school bus. It was just before dawn, and we are perched on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway, about 100 feet before the tunnel leading into Kashmir, after nearly 50 hours on the road and about as many adventures. Immobile in the darkness, nested within a line of trucks and buses waiting for the road to open, it had been a rough night.

“Of course not, rivers all have plastic railings in the US,” put in Deepak, about 18, muscular in his cut T-shirt, the wide-brimmed bowler hat shared on a rotation basis with two other boys perched cockily on his head even at this hour. Vivek, his signature collared shirt unbuttoned slightly in the stuffiness of the bus, elbowed him in the ribs. “Oh come on, not even Americans have enough tax money for that!”

I look down towards the grey snake of water I can hear rushing below and ask, “When did you see that, before your coming to Delhi?” Shaking his head, Alekh gave me a quizzical smile, “In between maybe. This was one of the settlements we stopped at for a while—on a break from riding the trains.”

Alekh or Sanjay, depending on how he chooses to introduce himself to you, is short and lithe. His narrow wrists and small hands and feet whisper of malnutrition in his younger days, but the hard muscled bulk put on in recent years speaks clearly of a quiet confidence—he is not to be messed with unless mess is what you are looking for.

I had known Alekh for the last year and a half, since I had started working with the boys of his group, and since Alekh had decided that he should be adding English to his list of subjects, that it was one of the tools he needed to get a job, make money, buy a car, travel where he liked, in any class, with a ticket purchased himself, from money he himself had made. One of those prerequisites to being able to do what he pleased without having to worry about someone in a brown uniform tapping his shoulder and making sure he was not doing something he shouldn’t, with money that wasn’t his.

Aged somewhere between 17 and 22, Alekh used to be a “rider”— one of many boys from all over the country who land up at New Delhi railway station and ride the rails — rag picking and bottle collecting between stations, and using the cars as clandestine transport to new job opportunities, new identities, new chances at bread and a bed. Born in a village outside of Siliguri in West Bengal, Alekh came to Delhi by train when he was about 8 years old. In seven years, he has been to as many states and to two other countries, detraining and staying at a place sometimes for a week, other times for as long as a year. A water-buffalo herdsman, domestic helper, construction worker, restaurant cook, casual day laborer, prize fighter, professional hitch-hiker, and now high school student, he is a man of multiple personas, a Renaissance Man, a speaker of many foreign tongues.

And now he is one of 120 children and youth who used to live on the street, in the stations, on the mosque and temple steps, who are now on a school trip to Kashmir. For the past several months, the political climate has been quiet here, this troubled territory where they have travelled to on a summer holiday to see the valley as Indian citizens, as do students from normative schools with normative families, and just like the characters they have seen in films no doubt dozens of times.

“I am surprised that we’re stuck here and no one has come to ask for a bribe yet,” remarked Deepak as we picked our way past early morning bathers to a roadside chai stall — the sleeping school bus still a quiet behemoth of a vehicle behind us. “This place is rough, no work except at this time of year, even in Jammu. Everything worse because of the violence earlier — at least that’s what I read in Hindustan Times.

“What would you think about Kashmir before coming up here? What kind of image does it conjure up in your mind?”

“I’m not sure what I thought. I thought about mountains and snow for sure, like everyone does. Maybe I thought about Kareem Bhaiya [the boys’ home coordinator, who grew up outside of Srinagar] and how he feels that this area belongs to his community, how he doesn’t like how the main government acts here. I’m not sure what I think about that. But one thing is clear—here, like everywhere else, paisa kamate hain aur karch karte hain — people make money, and they spend it. And then they need more to spend even more.”

“All right, but how does that connect to being here?”

“There is no money here, and people need money to spend, to live. Police, with their bribe taking, at least have something to live on, even if it is the money of others. There is so much trouble with the government, but then being part of the police allows little people to be big people. Which is significant because people here are made by the government to feel little, and the little people never have the power. Now suddenly, [when they are in these kinds of positions] they have a little bit more.”

Alekh was walking along quietly, listening. Then he laughed suddenly and as we walked, pointed to the naked, blank abyss to our left. “Yeh hamari jannat hai — it is our paradise.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because it is so green, beautiful, exotic, so different from India. But then it is still part of India. There is this idea of land that is ours. Land that seems part of an outside world, but which is still something we have access and entitlement to.”

He paused to take a sip of his chai and gesture to the roadside settlement of Amarnath Yatra pilgrims slowly waking up around us. “Probably for 80% of Indians, this is their favourite place in India even if they have never even been here. Even if there are political problems. We, everyone in India, we love the idea of Kashmir.”

When we head back toward the bus a few minutes later, Vivek, his collar at this point as limp, wrinkled, and tired as we all feel, has his head out the doorway, eyes darting in all directions, straining to catch sight of us. “That’s it, we’re ready to go. The tunnel is open, and the buses can start.”

As engines rumble to life around us, a whisper runs through the bus, and then, as a single, well-oiled machine, sixty-five limbs and nodding heads untangle to find their bodies, and the bodies jump up and sit straight and wired in their seats. A shout rings out, “Are we ready to go? Can we cross? Is the tunnel open?”

The gaping stone mouth closes over our heads, sudden silence reins as 65 breaths are held in anticipation. Then the sight of green and sunlight, and, whoosh, like air let out of a bag, a great cheer erupts, lifting us up and out of the tunnel and into the valley beyond. We made it! We had reached Kashmir! After more than 2 days on a bus, passing through floods in Ludhiana, road blocks in Ambala, a colossal truck accident on the mountainside outside of Jammu, and mammoth, spiritual tourism-spawned traffic jams of Amarnath Yatra goers in the final stretch before the tunnel, we had finally made it to our destination. We had reached Kashmir.

For the next two days, in the pauses between Bollywood songs blasting from archaic bus speakers as we drive through towns and hamlets, or walking along the wide promenade of the Dal and hopped the cobblestones of winding gulleys in Srinagar’s old town, one could hear a constant of hum of whispers and low giggles as the boys around me gazed, pointed, and remarked upon their surroundings.

“The dal here is almost the same as at home, sabzi too! But look, those women’s faces—that’s real Kashimiri for you, bhai, like in the movies!”

“Look, the houses here look so different—the roofs are pointed!”

“Didi, let’s get some dried fruits, please! They are famous here.”

Three days later, on the bus again, we were on our way to Sonmarg to go hiking, ride ponies, and see a bit of the Leh-Srinagar highway. We had left early in the morning, both to get an early start and to comply with the Srinagar traffic laws here which only allow heavyweight vehicles to travel in and out of the city at certain hours of the day. After crossing two police check-points, we passed a large army base lined with mud walls and barbed wire.

Two rows ahead, Deepak was craning his head, stretching his neck to see as far into the compound as he could, his eyes bright. Finally, once the base had faded into the background he turned back to me and asked, “How many police are posted in Kashmir?”

“I really don’t know. What makes you ask?”

“I don’t know. There just seem to be many. And checkpoints disrupt a lot of things. We all have to, you know, plan for the check-points. Fit them into our schedule. I wonder if the police from here feel bad about being “big people” towards folks from their own place. Maybe even to cousins and family.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, well like I said before, everywhere, these things always put someone against someone else, someone big versus someone small. So then, when a man becomes a big person against someone small, but that other person is from the same place as them and they all used to be the same level, that changes something in the place, in the relationship, doesn’t it?

“What do you mean by everywhere?”

“I mean everywhere. Everywhere I know, at least. In West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, UP, Manipur, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, everybody is feeling heavy. They are either feeling weighed on, or that they should weigh on someone else to compete. If the government people want to take any land and property, and they just do it. Then we all fight over what’s left.

“Right, we read about people selling their land to the government and about them selling it much cheaper than they might want to because of pressure.”

“Is selling what they call it now? Why do you think so many people come to Delhi then? Delhi is full of Biharis, UP-ites, people from Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, many more places. Why do they come? Because they lost all they had in those places—land, money, jobs, depending on where. And now they are all looking for work. That’s when I start thinking about the police. People come into the city and live in places where they can afford, to survive, to stay without being disturbed by authorities, and these are usually informal places. Of course, the police love patrolling around once in a while. Most people are not actually allowed to be living there, so they make a lot of money.”

We were passing villages and stands by the road selling baskets, almonds, and raisins. We paused to look, and then I tapped Deepak on the shoulder again. “If you are saying the police come and extort money from people in informal communities and police do the same to people here in Kashmir, what makes you want to become a policeman?”

The conversation was put on hold when “Sheila ki Jawaani” came on, and the volume was turned up. Eight 15-year-old boys tumbled into the aisle, jumping and gyrating with the music as salty snacks and chai were passed around the bus. The dancers in the aisles seem to soar with the mountain view all around us, the children “oooing” and “aaaahhhing” as the vehicle veered and turned with the windy road, some shrieking with delight as we rounded a corner and a new view rose up before us. The adrenaline of being in a new place coupled with the rebelliousness of illicitly dancing in the aisles blanketed the entire bus with a double dose of the holiday mood irascibly present for the entire trip.

After two more songs and once the chai and snacks were finished, Deepak turned around again, “I don’t know if I want to become a policeman. But it is a job, a steady job, and not one of those kinds of jobs. Policemen have a dignity, you know?

“After being here for a few days, how does this place compare to other places you have been? Do people here have more or less dignity than people from your community in Delhi?”

“Aside from it of course being beautiful, and exotic, I like this place. It feels like things are moving, in some way. Slow, but happening, I think. Things cannot keep going the same way they have been and have everything remain the same. And what I like about the people here is that they just don’t like big people.”

Alekh and Vivek came up to sit beside Deepak, getting some air from the stuffiness in the back of the bus, listening in to our conversation. Deepak continued, “They are not so quiet, the people we meet here so far. Even in the park yesterday, the group of guys we talked with asked us what we hear about the situation back down in “big” India. They tell us straight that there is a lot of tension, and they want to hear how much we know. Sometimes tensions can build up until they…pop. You know?”

“What about the government? Will the government agree to let Kashmir be let things change and have Kashmir become independent?

“I don’t think so. I really don’t know enough though. But why should they, really? Things will just go in circles, like they always do, like always. They will keep things going in circles until it suits them.”

Then Omkara’s Beedi Jalai Le came on, and as an ocean swells, the dancing, singing, and clapping took us all away again.

“This place is unique,” Alekh said later that day once we were off the bus and on the hiking trail. As if elucidating a complex mathematical formula, he clarified, “It tastes different, the culture is different, but it feels as homey to me as other places in India. It feels more like mine than being in Bangladesh or Nepal. You feel that you are in a really different place. Plus it is so far away from everything else, and it takes so long to get here, that once you do, it is a very big deal. One enjoys a huge feeling of success even from just the physical arrival.

“And then people think, wow, this is still part of India, so this is mine too in a way. It is my right to access this, you know? I am not a guest here, no one can tell me to leave. This is still a place where I belong!”

Vivek turned around as he walked, “But do you feel like you belong here? Really?”

Alekh shook his head in annoyance and threw a pine cone at the burlier boy up ahead, “Come on, you know what I mean. It is this strange contradiction between arriving at a longed for and exotically different place, and still feeling a sense of belonging towards this place.”

“What do you think Kashmiris feel about this sense of belonging?”

Passing a group of older women in warm woollen shawls, one woman’s craggy canyon of a face peaking out through the folds, following us with her eyes as we pass, he shook his head ruefully before answering. “Ha, I don’t know. I am sure they don’t like it so much. They would probably not really agree that I have the same entitlement to this place as they do.”

Deepak laughed, “Why would they? To them, you’re just some guy coming up from Delhi for a nice few days. And you’re not even really from Delhi, anyway. Hell, I’m not either, who knows where we’re from?”

It was clear that this question was purely rhetorical for before I could answer, he finished up, “I guess we can only say we’re from India! That just about summarises it doesn’t it?”

Alekh paused for a theatrical sweep of his hand, setting off a flurry of seeds from the tall grasses to his right.

“Ha, maybe that is all part of this idea of jannat, paradise. This thing about little people wanting to be big people too.”

He shook his head, smiling ruefully again, “I do. I want to be big. I hate feeling little. I’m sick of it. That pushes me ahead, that drives me. Maybe jannat, India, Kashmir — none of it is real, none of it means anything. But the competition of it drives us to continue trying to get there. To get somewhere. Somewhere better. Maybe we all need that. But maybe this traveling along the road to jannat drives us against each other too.”