WHENEVER I would hear and read about Kashmir's Sopore, a very pristine and green picture would spontaneously unfurl in my head. In the year 2018, I was fortunate to get to work there. However, the first impression that I got there was of polluted air: endless dust swirling around vehicles, with women, men, children and all walking like silhouettes in near darkness. Roadsides devoid of sidewalks were powdered with dust, and probably because of that, people would walk and vehicles would ply side by side on the same although macadamized but narrow worn out road, making short traffic jams almost a daily ritual. The inner streets of newer colonies remained squalid in the winter, so much so that the jeans that one wore for the day would become too dirty to take off in your room.