By evening, while the drama unfolded on the main stage, we lit our own show at the far end of the same ground, leaping through burning rings while two friends breathed fire into the darkening sky. History bears this out again and again, and Kashmir, more than most places, has reason to take the lesson seriously right now. Young people have sustained months-long protests, absorbed hardship without flinching, and shown the power of a generation determined to frame its own future. The valley’s youth possess talent and resolve in abundance. What they lack, too often, is a generation of elders willing to trust them with real responsibility instead of managing them into silence.