Srinagar, July 13 -- By Mohammad Younus

As the bus emerged into Yousmarg's sweeping meadow, seventy-five-year-old Zeba Begum rested her hand on the window, unwilling to miss a single moment of the view.

Decades of searching for her son, who disappeared during the turmoil of the nineties, had worn down her health and narrowed her days.

The septuagenarian had lived barely twenty kilometers from this alpine bowl of grass and cloud her entire life.

This sunday marked the first time she saw it.

She stepped off the bus alongside nearly forty people, most of them older couples from Chadoora in Budgam district.

Money never allowed the trip before, and neither did the private weight many of them held.

Abdul Ahad Waza, seventy four, understo...