Srinagar, July 31 -- In Srinagar's Zaina Kadal, one shop still smells of charcoal, chalk, and cardamom. A family has worked this fire for three generations. Outside, the world has turned fast and weightless. Inside, Mushtaq Ahmed listens to copper: heavy, slow, and stubbornly alive.

He is 63, born above the same copper shop he now runs. The room is gone. The river behind it still flows. His father's anvil still waits by the window.

"This is naqashi," he says, tapping a chisel against a polished surface. The sound is hollow, then firm. "We do it by hand, always have."

His hands bear fine scars, a record of all he's etched, carved, and shaped into permanence. The patterns are not random. They have roots in Persian design, Kashmiri nature...