Srinagar, July 11 -- By Syed Nissar H. Gilani

Centuries ago, Kashmir's rulers picked a capital the way a general picks high ground.

Parihaspora, near Pattan, sat on an elevation close to the Jhelum, a position built for defense and drainage both. Pampore made a similar case later: high enough to escape floods, close enough to the river to move goods and armies.

Both cities had the numbers right, but both eventually lost the argument anyway.

Srinagar won, and its rulers built it around water, threading channels through neighbourhoods, holding the sky in its lakes, running the Jhelum through the middle like a vein carrying blood to a heart.

Geography made Srinagar beautiful, but it took the people to make it a capital worth defending....