Srinagar, July 11 -- Kashmir loves to call itself the land of rivers, springs and lakes, where water supposedly flows as freely as the poetry written about it.

Srinagar sits close enough to the Jhelum to hear it rush by, but thousands of women have learned that a picture-perfect river buys nobody a bucket of water at home.

A drop to drink, a mile to fetch.

That might as well be the official slogan of neighbourhoods the city remembers only when tourists arrive.

But since desperate times call for desperate measures, urban pockets have put that punchline straight on the road.

Women who once stood quietly in queues now stand where traffic cannot pass, holding empty buckets like placards nobody printed for them.

Horns blare, tempers flar...