New Delhi, March 1 -- From February 23 to 26, the meadow-turned-arena in Gulmarg hosted the sixth edition of the Khelo India Winter Games (KIWG), and while the usual heavyweights carved their familiar arcs across the slopes, something else, something quieter but far more electric, was unfolding.

A new generation was arriving. They came with borrowed skis, southern accents, paramilitary grit, and dreams too large to fit inside Kashmir's white silence and by the time the flags were lowered, they had left tracks no snowfall could erase.

If there was a face that talent scouts kept circling back to, it belonged to Jiah Aryan, a 17-year-old from Bengaluru who skis like she was born in the Alps instead of under palm trees. In the Alpine events...