✒️:. Ikkz Ikbal
The recent internet disruption in Kashmir, triggered by floods and landslides, once again revealed our fragile dependence on connectivity. At first, the disruption feels like suffocation. In a valley where communication is often a lifeline, the sudden absence of the internet throws us into a fog of unknowing. The familiar green ticks of WhatsApp vanish, news portals refuse to refresh, and the faces of loved ones—scattered across cities and continents—disappear behind a curtain. Banks pause, businesses falter, students stare at blank screens where lessons once flickered. This inconvenience is real and practical. Yet, beyond this discomfort, once the initial tremors of withdrawal subside, a strange calm begins to flow in.
Without the web of constant noise, life unfolds differently. The azaan rings more sharply across the lanes. Children rediscover games in courtyards rather than apps on tablets. Neighbours linger in conversations at shopfronts, unhurried by pings demanding their return. Even the rain—so cruel in its floods—sounds gentler when heard without the interruption of endless notifications. For a moment, Kashmir feels as if it has stepped back in time, into a slower, more intimate rhythm.
This duality—the pain of disconnection and the peace of silence—is the peculiar gift of every internet shutdown. It exposes both our dependence and our hidden yearning. Dependence, because in today’s world the internet is not a luxury but an artery: it carries our economy, our education, our governance, our voices. Yearning, because behind our screens, perhaps many of us still long for the unhurried life—for conversations uncut by a vibrating phone, for evenings spent with our own thoughts rather than scrolling endlessly through others’ lives.
It was this paradox that sparked a thought: why must we wait for disasters or official orders to experience such a pause? Why not gift ourselves one Internet-Free Day every month—deliberately, collectively, joyfully?
The idea may sound eccentric in a world wired to the bone, yet its wisdom lies in simplicity. Just as people observe fasts for the body or retreats for the spirit, a “digital fast” could be the modern practice of reclaiming our humanity. Imagine if, for just twenty-four hours, we put away our Wi-Fi routers, switched off our data, and allowed ourselves to breathe without screens.
Such a day could remind us of forgotten joys: a father telling his child a bedtime story instead of handing him a phone, a mother teaching her daughter an old recipe instead of watching a cooking reel, friends playing a round of carrom, neighbours gathering for evening tea, elders narrating how they survived harsher times without gadgets. These may sound like small acts, yet they are the foundations of intimacy, community, and memory—the very fabric of our culture that constant connectivity is slowly fraying.
The benefits of such a practice are not only cultural but also psychological. Studies worldwide show how digital overuse feeds anxiety, sleeplessness, and a constant sense of inadequacy. An enforced day of disconnection can work as a reset button for the mind. It teaches patience, restores attention span, and returns us to the rhythm of the natural world—the rising of the sun, the falling of rain, the flow of conversations.
Yet the proposal of an Internet-Free Day is not a rejection of modernity. I am not arguing for isolation in an age of integration. The internet remains an indispensable bridge to the world, and Kashmir, more than most places, cannot afford deliberate detachment from opportunities beyond the Pir Panjal. But precisely because it is indispensable, we must learn to hold it lightly—to remind ourselves that we are its masters, not its slaves. Choosing to unplug voluntarily for a single day each month would not weaken us; it would make our relationship with technology healthier, more balanced, more human.
There is, of course, a poetic irony here. In Kashmir, we often lose the internet not by choice but by circumstance—whether due to political calculations or natural disasters. These are forced silences, and they sting. My proposal of an Internet-Free Day is the opposite: a silence chosen freely, not imposed. When silence is chosen, it becomes nourishment rather than punishment.
As I write, communication lines remain shaky. Perhaps by the time these words reach print, signals will be restored, videos will flow again, and the buzz of the digital bazaar will return. We will go back to our habits, our scrolling, our distractions. But maybe, just maybe, this disruption can plant a seed. What if, once every month, we shut the gates of the digital flood—not out of compulsion but conviction? What if we gifted ourselves the luxury of slowness, the honesty of presence, the peace of silence?
Kashmir has always taught the world the art of resilience. We have survived curfews, blackouts, harsh winters, and long silences. Perhaps it is time to transform this survival into a choice—a choice to pause, to reflect, to reconnect with what is real. An Internet-Free Day would not be a loss; it would be a return. A return to the laughter of children echoing in narrow lanes, to the comfort of elders’ stories, to the taste of kahwa shared in company rather than captured on Instagram. It would be a day when Kashmir does not disappear into the noise of the virtual but reappears in the purity of the tangible.
Let the next disruption not come from floods or fear, but from our own willingness to reclaim time. Let us dare, once a month, to log out in order to truly live.
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