Srinagar, Aug. 22 -- By Syed Nissar H Gilani

A woven willow basket, a frightened rooster beneath it, and a sharpened blade once formed an unlikely medical arrangement in Kashmir.

Before hospitals and local anaesthesia became commonplace, the village barber performed circumcision on infants using a method that now sounds almost surreal.

The child rested over a Kani Phout, while a rooster beneath the basket startled and fluttered when the procedure began.

Its cries distracted the child and covered some of the distress.

The bird, along with the basket in some families, became part of the barber's payment, accompanied by a small cash called Nazarana.

The scene tells us something larger than the ingenuity of an old procedure.

The Kashmi...