Srinagar, Kashmir managed by India - Hajira, 62, wrapped a cotton scarf and designed a brown Paisley design on her shoulder on a dense block on the sloped embankment of the Jhelum River in Srinagar on Saturday morning.

Her face was tense, her upper lip was sweating, and she sat on the concrete floor of a government-run cereal shop.

"Can you hurry?" she called the people who were doing the store.

Hajira comes to the store every month and submits her biometric details as required by the government to ensure her monthly subsidized cereal quota is released, which her family of four relies on.

But this time it's different. In the past few days, India has managed Kashmir residents unprecedented. The drone lingers overhead, the airport is closed, explosions are heard, and people are killed in cross-border fires, and the region is ready for the possibility of a full-scale war.

"He put me in the queue," she said. She retreated from knee pain, referring to the store operator. "But there is uncertainty around. I just want the share of rice so I can return quickly. The war is coming."

Then, on Saturday night, Hajira breathed a sigh of relief. U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he successfully mediated a ceasefire between India and Pakistan.

"I thank Allah," Hajira said with a smile. "Maybe he knows I don't have the means to endure financial difficulties like a war situation."

On Sunday morning, Trump took a step forward, saying in a post on his Truth Social Platform that he would try to work with India and Pakistan to resolve their long-standing dispute over Kashmir, a region controlled by one of the two countries, but each of them claimed that the other part was managed by another.

Political analyst Zafar Choudhary, located in the city of Jamur, managed in southern India, told Al Jazeera that New Delhi was not satisfied with Trump's statement. India has long believed that Pakistan-sponsored "terrorism" is the main reason for tensions among nuclear-weapon neighbors.

But, “Trump’s proposal highlights the fact that Kashmir remains at the heart of the Indian-Pakistan confrontation.”

For Kashmiris, the hope for a fragile pause in the fight between India and Pakistan and Trump’s proposal to mediate negotiations in Kashmir is due to doubts about decades of desperate waiting for peace.

“Never been more scared”

Thousands of Kashmiris have stood in the direct line of fire between India and Pakistan in recent days.

As neighbors fire missiles and drones at each other, the fact-trading deal with Pakistan’s Indian-managed Kashmir community near the border also witnessed cross-border shellings that had not been seen in decades, triggering an outflow of exodus journalists.

The shadow of the conflict has tangled their lives for nearly forty years since the first armed insurgency against the Indian government in the late 1980s. Then, in 2019, the government canceled the semi-autonomous status of Indian-managed Kashmir under a huge security crackdown - thousands of people were imprisoned.

On April 22, a brutal attack on tourists from the gunmen on Pahalgam killed 26 civilians, breaking the normal critics accused India of projecting in controversial areas.

Since then, the Indian government has intensified its crackdown on Indian-managed Kashmir in addition to diplomatic tits and missile exchanges with Pakistan.

It demolished the homes of insurgents accused of being linked to the Pahalgam attack, attacked other homes in the area, and detained about 2,800 people, 90 of whom were booked under the Public Safety Act, a severe preventive detention law. The police also called many journalists and detained at least one “promoting separatist ideology.”

By Sunday, while a joyful feeling swept the area over the ceasefire, many remained cautious and questionable whether the Trump-driven truce would take place.

Hours after the two countries announced the cessation of hostilities, a loud explosion occurred in the center of the major urban center of India-managed Kashmir, and a group of Kamikaz drones in Pakistan swept across the airspace.

Many residents ran to the terraces of their apartments and houses to capture videos of the drone knocked down by the Indian defense system, a group of bright red dots floating in the night sky and then exploded in the air.

The authorities shut down the power supply as part of the emergency agreement. Worried that the drone's debris would fall on them, residents ran away for safety. The surge of drones in the night sky also touched the sirens, causing fear.

“I don’t think I’ve been scared before,” said Hasnain Shabir, a 24-year-old business graduate in Srinagar. "The streets were taken away for a lifetime. If the prelude of war looked like this, I had no idea what war would be like."

A fragile ceasefire

The ceasefire was announced hours after India accused Pakistan of violating a truce by shelling the border area. Residents of major Kashmir towns once again took their toes after the drone reappeared in the sky.

Today, one of the most affected places in Kashmir is Uri, which is a picturesque pear orchard and walnut woods close to the competitive border between India and Pakistan.

The village is surrounded by majestic mountains, through which the Yarum River passes. This is the last border of the hills to Indian management, paving the way to Pakistan-managed Kashmir.

Part of the URI saw strong shelling, forcing residents to leave their homes and seek safety. On May 8, officials told Al Jazeera that a woman, Nargis Bashir, was killed in her car as she tried to escape shrapnel bolts like thousands of others. Three of her family members were injured.

Muhammad Naseer Khan, 60, was a former Army soldier when Pakistani artillery fires hit a nearby military post and squeezed into his room, metal shrapnel debris exploded on the walls of his house. "The explosion damaged one side of my house," Khan said.

"I don't know if this place is livable," he said. His bright blue eyes betrayed a sense of fear.

Despite the ceasefire, his two daughters and many others in his family left their relatives’ houses, away from the controversial borders, and were skeptical about the return. "My kids refused to return. They can't guarantee that the guns won't roar again," he said.

Suleman Sheikh, a 28-year-old Uri resident, recalls his childhood when his grandfather talked about small artillery guns stationed in the military garrison in the nearby village of Mohra.

"He told us that the last roar of the gun was in 1999, when India and Pakistan clashed on the icy peaks of Kargir. It was a traditional belief that if the gun roared again, things would be too bad," he said.

This is what happened at 2 a.m. on May 8. Sheikh felt the ground shaking under him as Mohra's Bofors Gun was about to fire into the mountains and hit Pakistan. An hour and a half later, the shells fired on the other side hit a nearby Indian paramilitary device, making a long hissing sound during the sensation.

Another Shell landed at his home hours after Sheikh made this report with Al Jazeera. According to the video he shared with Al Jazeera, the porch of the room and house collapsed.

Although his family was willing to join them, he refused to leave the house. "I'm here to protect our livestock," Sheikh said. "I don't want them alone."

Unlike other parts of the Kashmir Valley, apple farming brings millions of dollars in revenue to the region, with a relatively poor URI. The villagers mostly worked for the Indian army, where they maintained large garrisons or farms walnuts and pears. Livestock feeding has become a popular profession for many in the town.

"We have seen first-hand experience of the feeling of war. The ceasefire has happened. But I don't know if it will hold it," Sheikh said. "I pray to do so."

“How long does this have to last?”

Back in Srinagar, residents are slowly returning to the pace of their daily lives. Schools and colleges continue to remain closed and people avoid unnecessary travel.

The scene of racing in the sky and the accompanying explosion was burned to public memory. "Only at night, we can know if the ceasefire has been there," said Muskaan Wani, a medical student at the Srinagar Government Medical College School of Medicine.

It does indeed do so overnight, but there is constant tension.

Political experts attribute the widespread suspicion about the ceasefire to unresolved political problems in the region – a point that was responded to in Trump’s statement on Sunday, who referred to a possible “resolution on Kashmir.”

"The problem that started was political alienation (Kashmirians),” said Noor Ahmad Baba, former professor and chair of the political science department at Kashmir University.

“The people in Kashmir are humiliated by what has happened in the past few years and have not had any great efforts to win them.

Others in Kashmir's administration expressed anger at the destruction of their lives between the two countries.

"I suspect we are even important as Kashmiris," said Furqan, a software engineer in Srinagar. "Two times the nuclear forces caused damage and casualties on the border, making their respective countries worthy of attention, achieving their goals, and then they stopped the war.

"But the question is, who suffers the greatest pain? It's us. To the world, we are just collateral damage."

Furqan said his friends were skeptical of the ceasefire when the two countries resumed shelling on the evening of May 10.

"We're all thinking, 'It won't last,' and we heard the explosion again," he said.

Muneeb Mehraj, a 26-year-old resident of Srinagar, studied administrators in Punjab, northern India, and he responded to Furqan.

"For others, the war may have ended. A ceasefire has been announced. But again, the Kashmiris paid the price - deadly, houses were destroyed, peace collapsed." "How long must this cycle last?"

“We’re exhausted,” Mehraj continued. "We don't want to pause another one. We want a lasting, permanent solution."