By Dr. Fiaz Maqbool Fazili

Language in Kashmir carries everything we’ve lived through: loss, laughter, love, fear, and endurance.

But hidden in our everyday speech is one word we toss around without thinking, even though it can wound deeply.

That word is “pagal.”

It echoes in markets when a shopkeeper scolds an apprentice. It appears in classrooms when children repeat what they hear at home. It surfaces at kitchen tables when a parent talks about a child who has become withdrawn.

Every time it is used, it turns someone’s struggle into an insult.

“Pagal” does not describe an illness. It judges. It reaches a man carrying years of trauma, and a student struggling under pressure.

The word flattens every form of emotional pain into one dismissive category.

It tells a person their str

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