The World From Below

Place

India · Indian-administered Kashmir / Bandipora / Gurez

Gurez

A high Himalayan valley near the Line of Control, cut off each winter when Razdan Pass closes — home to Dard-Shin communities and potato fields that once relied on underground khraw pits for seed and food.

Illustrative landscape of Gurez Valley, Bandipora district, Indian-administered Kashmir (Wikimedia Commons / Journo Mohsin). Editorial place card for Gurez — NOT Hajra Begum, NOT her field, NOT a khraw.

Illustrative place identifier: Gurez Valley, Bandipora district (Wikimedia Commons / Journo Mohsin). Used to identify the Gurez place card — NOT the Field Note subject, NOT Chorwan pits, not from The Guardian. · Credit: Journo Mohsin / Wikimedia Commons · Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gurez_Valley_04.jpg

Related forces

Pit & Seed

Stories

The Seed She Will Not Waste

In Chorwan, Gurez, farmer Hajra Begum still sorts potatoes for a straw-lined underground khraw — food for winter, seed for spring — while roads, migration, and drying springs leave fewer families keeping the pits alive.