The Kashmir Despatch Before The Internet

On October 31 last year, after many years I waited in the queue to email a news story to The Hindu. The place was a government-designated media centre in Srinagar and it was on the day the State of Jammu and Kashmir was formally reduced to a Union Territory.

Scores of reporters thronged the Information Department’s media centre on Residency Road, hoping that one of the dozen-odd computers would be free. It had almost become a habit given that nearly three months had passed since Internet services had been snapped in the Valley.