Uri, border town on the final frontier

Until the ceasefire of November 2003, Irshad Ahmad Khwaja, 25, rarely slept in his own bed.

Most nights, a bunker tucked away on the precipitous drop to the Jhelum was home, especially after one shell landed inches away when he was heading for safety alerted by his mother's cries. It severed his cousin's body in half.

This is Garkote, a village of less than 200 people that pays for its proximity to the town of Uri, the army garrison town and major power plant, laid out below in the Jhelum valley gorge, within sight of the spectacular snow clad peaks of Pakistan's Haji Pir.

"Our home, which is at the highest point is a sitting target. From 1998 until November 2003 when the ceasefire came into effect we couldn't even sit and eat or talk or listen to the radio," says Irshad's older brother Aftab, 40, father of two, who teaches in a school in Kandi Kallar, an hour's trek away.

"Otherwise more than 70 of us from all the homes here would race for the bunker as the shelling began. The echo of the guns in Dera Haji Pir would reach us just as the shell was released.

"That was the only warning we had. It would go on, back and forth, till two and three in the morning," said the garrulous Irshad.

The Khwajas have lost several close relatives over the years. But the dank, dark hideaway, built at a cost of

Rs20,000, paid for by the government, and one of only three or four in Garkote has brought some respite.

We are finally in Irshad's home. Put one foot wrong and you drop 5,000 feet into the Jhelum, warns our sure-footed guide as we climb the steep stone steps cut into the side of the Pir Panjal mountain range.

It's one of many tracks familiar to local shepherds and the occasional militant who sneaks in, under the nose of the Indian army which occupies all the high points even under ten feet of snow.

This is where we have been forced to spend the night. Soldiers at the army check-point at Pir Panjal Gate that guards the entrance to the sensitive border town, refused to give us permission to drive back to Srinagar after dark.

Irshad, a young man from Garkote, offers us shelter for the night. He doesn't tell us of the narrow, crumbling mountain road, of the forbidding trek to his home in the heights on a moonless night, of the path made infinitely more treacherous by rain.

His home is snug and warm once a fire is lit and the bunsen burner comes on; made of wood and smooth stones from the river bed, corrugated iron sheets on the outside to keep the rain and sleet out.

Even two years ago it would have been impossible to have negotiated these tracks. Any movement, even a small pin-prick of light, invited retribution from the three peaks that ring Uri, says Irshad.

"No one makes a distinction between civilians and the army, we're all targets," he says without rancour.

We've brought two chickens as a peace offering for waking up the household. Irshad's sister Shameem, niece Sanam and I share a room under the eaves after dinner.

The howling winds that send trees crashing, the lightning that streaks across the dark night sky add to the drama of this house on the border.

Never left home

Shameem, 30, and single, runs the household with her mother and two sisters-in-law. She has never left home, not since she finished school. Even the salwar-kameez she lends me is made by a tailor who's never measured her or for that matter, seen her.

If peace holds, a rishta (marriage proposal) could be found across the border. At dawn, the family rises for prayers.

As the sun lights up the snow on Haji Pir, it traces the terraced rice fields, ringed by apple trees and fields of yellow mustard with the occasional burst of pink, cherry trees abloom. Spring is here. A Kashmir spring.

Will it be a false promise, no more than a feint or will there really be peace? Uri town, for years the mandatory night halt for all travellers on the road to Rawalpindi be it on buffalo, horse-drawn cart or turn of the century motor car has a tea house, a bakery, a sweet shop, a studio and several other stores today. But no hotel.

Yet it lives in the hope that it can cash in on the traffic once the bus link between the two parts of Kashmir becomes more regular.

"It should stop in the bazaar in Uri otherwise a bus driving through is going to benefit nobody," says Gulam Rasool, the village chief of adjoining village, Bilalabad.

Rasool is waiting for April 22 when the next bus will bring a brother whom he has not seen since 1963 when he crossed over.

Haji Hakim Gulam Qadir, a delightful 70-year-old who shudders even today at the vandals who rampaged through his town during partition "it cut us into two" wants to see his sister and brother, his daughter, whom he gave away in marriage in 1982 and her children.

Eager to return

Retired schoolmaster Gulam Hassan, a bachelor, has cared for his brother's wife and her two children. His brother slipped across the border in '83 and married again in Karachi.

"He must come back and see his family. I will wait."

Apart from the much hyped reunion of families divided at the time of partition and in the later years, the fate of hundreds of young men who crossed over to Pakistan at the height of the militancy, and now eager to return, hangs in the balance.

Some took up arms, others worked for militant groups as guides. With that avenue drying up, many are clamouring to cash in on the expected tourist and economic boom that the opening points on the Line of Control will bring.

"Pakistan has no problem, it will process their papers, but will the Indian government allow them to come back," asks Irshad, whose native tongue is not Kashmiri but a mix of Pahari and Punjabi. "After all, they crossed the border without permission, they broke the law."

While many heeded the call to take up arms, others crossed over for a better lifestyle.

"Militancy kept us shackled, it kept us from developing to our full potential. They had no problem on that side. We are the ones without electricity, without proper roads, without proper schools, without the best teachers," Irshad explains.

"When the Pandits were frightened away, we lost one of our biggest assets. Now more than ever we want better education and jobs. The idea of peace have sent people's expectations soaring."

Irshad's home at Zero Point is a barometer of the future. If India and Pakistan fail to move forward on the peace process, it could be here in Garkote where the first tremors will be felt.