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September 2019 Kashmir is under siege. That sounds positively mediaeval and it sure felt like it when I finally got there to attend a wedding. 900,000 soldiers, one for every ten Kashmiris, armed to the teeth, riding in tanks back and forth like heavily armoured jousting knights. So how does one continue celebrating weddings under siege? My hosts said they had seen it all before, though this time was indeed the worst it had ever been with the shutting down of access to the Internet and mobile phone networks. Local government representatives had been arrested and locked away in one central location. Ironically, this was on the shores of Dal Lake, the majestic focal point of leisure activities in Srinagar. Kashmiris believe they will survive and rise again as they have for the 70-some years of the grandparents I met at the festivities. Travel into the region, by any means, was apparently closed to foreigners but I managed to slip by with my Irish passport not even required by the airline check-in agent in Delhi. He must have assumed my citizenship based on my appearance rather than place of birth. Or he was just too flustered after explaining to the two ahead of me that large flat-screened televisions could not be accepted as hand luggage. Once having landed in Srinagar, I roamed across the arrivals parking lot not knowing who would be there to pick me up. I had not been able to contact my friend to tell him that I managed to board. Someone I had never met must have recognised me since I was soon engulfed in an embrace. I was to stay at my friend’s long-deceased grandparents’ house about 800 metres away from his home. I had Uncle Bashir, an older hunchback from a mountain village in service to the family since his teens, to take care of me. He did so with amazing tenderness, even praying verses of the Holy Quran over me when I had a shattering migraine, which miraculously flew away soon after he blew on my face three times. Sangeet night was full of song and dance in cadence to the rhythmic chants of the locally famous mezzo-soprano inter-sex Hijra, taken up in chorus by the older women of the family. Mehendi night was fragrant with the wafting scent of henna in the air; I had my hands done. On Bharat night, I woke up from yet another migraine-imposed nap past the 7 p.m. curfew. I could not call anyone and needed to find a way to join the groom’s motorcade travelling to the Wedding Hall where we would pick up the bride. I ventured out onto the darkened road. As you would have it, a huge tank stopped by and a soldier popped out his head asking me where I was going. I was grateful they were driving in the opposite direction as long-dormant words of Urdu erupted in my brain and flowed out my mouth: “My friend’s wedding”. I kept walking!