It was a simple story about a man who worked at a walnut orchard in the foothills of the lofty Himalayas. Each year, in the months leading up to spring, it was his job to make sure the land was properly irrigated. This was followed by the backbreaking task of plucking walnuts from individual branches. From morning till afternoon, he would take a pole and shake thousands of mature walnuts off the trees. After his lunch break, he’d take a quick nap in the shade before returning to pick the walnuts off the ground. One such afternoon, he was awakened from his nap by a tinkling sound. He followed it deep into the orchard, only to come face to face with the most beautiful girl he had ever laid his eyes on – a flawless Kashmiri beauty with eyes as large as, well, walnuts. He asked if she was lost, to which she coyly replied no, but told him that she was in search of water. The man offered her water from his own reserves, and they spent the next hour talking about everything under the sun. She belonged to a village across the mountains, she explained, and loved going for walks alone. The following months were blissful as the man would work in the orchard all day and spend his lunch break with the woman who had enchanted him. She would show up every afternoon like clockwork, and they would pick up their conversation from where they had left off.

One sunny afternoon, the man was late for his rendezvous, and the woman waited for him anxiously for over an hour. Finally, when he arrived, exhausted from shaking a bunch of stubborn trees, he lay down next to her and fell asleep mid-conversation. Feeling insulted, she rebuffed the orchard worker and prepared to leave early for the day. He apologized profusely, lamenting that the rigours of his work were too much to handle, but the woman still left.

The next day, the man arrived at the farm, forlorn, ready for another gruelling day of work. To his astonishment, he found every ripe walnut from the orchard neatly lying on the ground, ready to be picked up. The trees had been shaken dry. He looked around and saw the Kashmiri beauty smiling at him. ‘Now will you spend more time with me?’ she asked. The man ran to her and locked her in a passionate embrace. Puzzled by how this delicate-looking woman could achieve the astonishing feat, he pressed her for an explanation. She tried her best to evade the question, but the man insisted he know. He cupped her face and begged her to tell him, but noticed that his walnut-stained hands had left a deep orange smudge on her cheek.