Gulam Rasool Zargar, a resident of Mohalla Jalal Saheb in Baramulla, says he is sorry he cannot call us inside his home.

"I wish you had come in and had tea with us. Better yet, it would have been great if you had spent the night at my home," he says, "but the cement walkway in front of the house is fresh. There is some renovation being done inside the house. We enter and leave the house through the window," he adds.

Zargar is renovating the house in anticipation of the arrival of a very special guest from Muzaffarabad -- brother-in-law Al-haj Mohammed Ashraf Qureshi.

Qureshi will arrive by the Muzaffarabad-Srinagar bus.

"Ashraf Qureshi is the grandson of Master Abdul Aziz, a symbol of Hindu-Muslim unity who was brutally killed," says Zargar. "I feel I am going to meet my long lost son. This will be the revival of our ties."

Zargar, who teaches Urdu and English to Class X students at the Kanispora High School in Baramulla, got married in 1980 in Khwaja Bazaar in Muzaffarabad. His wife, born and brought up in Pakistan, has five brothers. She has not seen them for over 17 years.

"I went there with my son and stayed for around 15 days. None of them [his wife's five brothers] have been here," Zargar says.

His daughter, who studies in Class VIII, is excited she will meet one of her uncles. "I have often spoken to them over the telephone. I have never met them," says Qurat-ul-Ain. "I have kept gifts for them," she adds.

Zargar feels formalities like the ones involved in the bus travel should be done away with. "Our land has become a curse for us. We pray that India and Pakistan come so close that there is no difference between them," the teacher, whose home is in an area said to be full of Jamaat-e-Islami supporters, says. "We were one nation. We are one geographical landmass. We can prosper if there is peace. That is the only way to go forward."

"What has violence brought us? The other day a councilor was shot dead here. Violence will achieve nothing," he adds.