Marking time in Kashmir’s beautiful prison

A glossy hoarding board that advertises for Airtel, India's fastest-growing telecom company, currently sits atop Srinagar's Central Telegraph Office, in the busy commercial hub of Lal Chowk. To a great extent, it symbolises the paradox of change in Jammu & Kashmir. On 31 July 1988, Kashmiri militants bombed the Central Telegraph Office (CTO), heralding the start of armed resistance against the Indian military presence in J & K. Nearly everyone still traces the insurgency's start to what is popularly known as the targhar, or telegraph, office blast. Today, despite a nearly four-year-old bonhomie between India and Pakistan, the CTO complex remains heavily guarded, its security precautions engulfing most of the road area.

The central targhar today houses the government telecommunications company, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL). In 2003, state police officers resorted to force to quell a frenzied crowd of mobile-phone-seekers near the CTO, after New Delhi belatedly allowed cellular service to start up in the state. Then- Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed termed the launch the "beginning of peaceful days". Today, BSNL subscribers can be seen queuing up at the CTO building to pay their phone bills, and the combined revenue of BSNL and Airtel in J & K has grown from INR 600 million in 2003 to around INR 2 billion. Nonetheless, a vast spread of sandbags and barbed-wire coils remains around the CTO, and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) officers continue to point their automatic rifles at passers-by.