We leave Srinagar long before sunrise. The fog is thick. On each side of the road, soldiers patrol with metal detectors in hand. Searching for landmines is a daily routine along this stretch between Srinagar, in Indian-controlled Kashmir, and the Line of Control on the border with Pakistan. In 2008, a landmine took the lives of 100 people.
Armed men peer into passing vehicles. They increase in number the nearer we get to Pakistan. We lurch forward, moving under trees that reach to the clouds, past women with piles of branches on their heads and little boys with sticks in their hands and goats as company. Then the road ends. Little over a kilometre away, houses cling fast to the mountainside. Here lies the village of Dardpora. Dard means ‘pain’ and pora ‘place’, and the village is a place where the war has left deep wounds. Unlike in other Indian villages, women are the majority here. Of the approximately 350 women, 200 are widows.
