Srinagar, July 20 -- By Dr. Akhtar Purvez

Sugar, in the Kashmir of my childhood, was treated less like an ingredient than a sacrament.

My grandmother's house in Anantnag, known locally as Islamabad, filled every winter with cousins and cousins of cousins until fifteen or twenty children slept, ate, and argued under one roof.

Feeding that many hungry mouths took planning, not sentiment, and my grandmother answered the problem by locking sugar, dried fruit, milk, cream, and cheese inside a small pantry.

We understood the lock as a fact rather than a punishment.

Open cupboards would have emptied within days, while closed ones kept the household running through the season.

That guarded pot of sugar left its shelf only for kahwa or for t...