Kashmir is tense and angry. It is also slowly turning schizophrenic. In Srinagar, tourists — hordes from Gujarat and West Bengal — mingle with the locals at Dal lake, taking shikara rides, eating bhelpuri (a recent addition to the Kashmiri cuisine) and get happily swindled by the charming Kashmiri vendors.

The hotels are booked for weeks, the houseboats are finally getting business, and if one just travels from a hotel to Dal lake it does seem as if the Valley is bustling. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah appears, at the first glance, to be correct when he says that the media is exaggerating and actually all is well.

But the crowds begin to disappear as one moves out of the Dal lake area. The shops are all shut, as the hartal is total. The separatist leaders are all in jail. The faces, many of them perhaps the same men selling wares at the Dal lake, turn sullen in downtown Srinagar where bouts of stone pelting and clashes with the police are becoming more and more frequent.

The city has two personalities, as have the residents living here. The anger erupts in the tense alleys, and no one has a nice word to say about New Delhi. Or for that matter about Pakistan. Kashmir for the Kashmiris appears to be the new slogan, with the stone pelting youth sending out a message: get out, leave us alone, all of you.

We want to shoot a discussion of different voices. We invite Dukhtaran-e-Millat leader Asiya Andrabi as one of the four panelists. She agrees at first, and then informs us late at night that the police want to arrest her as well and she has gone underground. But even so, she promises to participate.

The next morning we try to get in touch with her but her phone is switched off. We have to begin the shoot at 10 am at a five star hotel in Srinagar. Time is ticking by and we have no time now to get another panelist. Andrabi then calls back saying she will try and come. There is some confusion, and she thinks it is another hotel by a similar name. The police reach that hotel before her and cordon it off. Finally she arrives at the right destination two hours late, and after our shoot has begun. She is accompanied by another woman.

By the time the cops realise that the venue is different, the interview is over and she has long since left. It is a good discussion with Sajjad Lone, Vice Chancellor of Kashmirs Islamic University Professor Siddiq Wahid, and Kashmir Univeristy Professor Sheikh Sahuqat, who is a well-known ideologue. Prof Wahid is a great find, and the discussion is sober and rather interesting.

We also manage to convince the two beautiful wives of Sajjad Lone and Yasin Malik to give us interviews for Straight Talk. Asma Lone, bright and pretty, is also the daughter of JKLF leader in Pakistan Amanullah Khan, and says she is well adjusted to separatist politics. She is the brain and support behind Sajjad, and is mature and reasoned in her responses.

Yasin’s wife is pretty, but very young. And surprises all of us when she declared in the interview that she used to slam down the phone on Yasin. The room is really tiny, and Yasin Malik’s house is in the middle of the most sensitive mohalla of Srinagar. We meet his family, sister, father, all amazing, cultured and polite. We had to initially postpone the shoot, as when we reached, the area was cordoned off because of a clash between stone pelting youth and the security forces. Tear gas shells were being used. We go away and return a couple of hours later, around 10 pm to record the interview.