Srinagar, Sept. 19 -- Switzerland wraps its glaciers in wool to buy a little more time. Kashmir cuts its chinars, paves its meadows, and blocks its rivers-then asks the sky for rain.

Across the Kashmir Valley, a quiet new faith has taken hold. It operates on a single, ruthless tenet: occupy every gaz of land, and leave no square inch unpaved. The rest follows with depressing efficiency. We cut the chinars in the plains and clear the pines from the slopes. We fence off alpine meadows. We convert fertile paddy fields into concrete commercial corridors and multi-storey complexes. We crowd the banks of every stream until the water has nowhere left to drain.

Then, when summer turns stifling with suspended dust and nightfall brings no relief ...