Paul is not exactly caught in a time warp. But you realise after a while that the clock that hangs in his shop works against science and logic. It moves anti-clockwise. Repeated questioning brings only a smile from his face. He can read the time perfectly well from his anti-clock. "That day in May when the bomb was set-off all this trouble began. From that day my clock started moving anti-clockwise," Paul says with a smile. The root of the present troubles may or may not have begun with the nuclear test in Pokhran in May last year. But as yet another election is upon them, the people of Jammu, the winter capital of the Jammu & Kashmir state are going about their business daringly stoic and trying not to stare too long at the policemen at every turn.

Elections are not a hot topic of discussion in Jammu or for that matterin Srinagar. Nor is the Kargil conflict. Wars and bomb attacks are recurring nightmares that the people have learnt to live with and forget.

"Nobody here talks about Kargil," said a National Conference worker who was waiting for the party candidate Rajendra Singh Chib to arrive for an election meet. Chib who is pitted against Madan Lal Sharma of the Congress, Vaid Vishnu Dutt of the BJP, and Trilok Singh Bajwa of the People's Democratic Party, is also not talking about the Kargil conflict.

He steers clear of subjects that might not reflect too well on the ruling National Conference. "I have a reputation here and have a 200 per cent chance of winning," he told IANS with predictable hyperbole near Simbal Camp, ten kilometres outside Jammu. Though the National Conference is part of the BJP-led alliance in the Centre, the two parties are contesting against each other in the six constituencies of the state. This double role of the National Conference - supporting the BJP at the centre and attacking it in thestate elections - has all along caused confusion.

BJP is projecting Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the NC too says it supports Vajpayee. Chib is not too worried whether the pro-Vajpayee votes will cut into his support base. "Here people will vote for me instead of the BJP. I have a reputation here. I tell the people here that I will vote for Vajpayee in Parliament and work for the state," Chib says. Chib seems to be aware that there is an anti-incumbency mood in his constituency. Not too many Abdullah pictures adorn party posters. "The vote here will be for Chib not for Farooq. When he was health minister in 1989 he opened a district hospital in RS Pura," says Shakti Kumar, the block president of the NC.

Chib like other candidates in the fray does not have a busy schedule, since there is a restriction on the number of meetings a candidate can address due to security concerns. On this day he has only one meeting to address and a function in the border area of RS Pura where he is being weighed against currencynotes. He has enough time to pay a condolence call to a nearby house where he squats on the floor for a few minutes before he moves on.

Election meetings seem to be the last thing on the minds of the people on crowding the shopping malls of Jammu where overflowing baskets of Kashmiri walnuts on the streetsides and in shops are an omnipresent symbol of prosperity amid all the chaos in the state. Even the wine shops are full of the choicest whiskies and in a gush of pre-winter generosity all shops are offering reduction sales. Business is brisk and a building boom is happening in Jammu. Even the five armoury shops on Residency Road do good business selling an average of 30 0r 40, 12-bore rifles a month. Gleaming new Santro cars line the streets. Amid all this who has the time to bother about policemen behind the barricades. Unlike in Paul's tailoring shop, in the streets of Jammu time indeed does move forward.