Since 2010, a creative storm got unleashed in Kashmir that witnessed new means of expressions and professions. While many young Kashmiris became rappers, bards, storytellers, entrepreneurs and restaurateurs, others tried to break the shackles of social and political barriers with different means of creative enterprise By Mir Seeneen At 16, when most of […]
‘The travel dispelled many myths. Though Kashmir witnesses conflicts and natural disasters, people show hospitality and kindness to travellers like me’ Photos and text: Sharada Balasubramanian I received a phone call from my friend in Srinagar, and he said, “There is curfew here, and it may not be advisable […]
By Bilal Handoo As he fell on the afternoon of 8 July 2016, a 20-something girl exploded in ire, confronting the army soldiers with stones. It was the first protest of that smouldering summer, erupting hours before the passage would send the entire Valley in mass mourning, and in cycle of rage. The dissenting girl […]
By Aasif Sultan The most effective way to destroy people,” says George Orwell, “is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” When the authorities decided to cage the Valley after Mohammad Afzal Guru was hanged in Tihar jail on 9 February 2013, the Kashmir University authorities, it appears, had decided to obliterate […]
Fayaz Ahmad Latha, a video journalist, saw death up close when he was caught in the crossfire between the army and militants in Badami Bagh cantonment in 1999 in the first fidayeen attack in Srinagar. Seventeen years down the line, he narrates his story Journalism is always a tough job. It becomes tougher in a […]
Ninety years is a long time. Long enough for memory to be shredded into pieces. What then remains is the memory of memories. Fragments that you stick together to recreate the past. But the memory of one particular day remains etched on this 90-year-old’s mind — fresh as yesterday. October 1947. It was another day […]
Lonesomeness. You need only that one word to describe the atmosphere inside the largest government-built Pandit colony at Shiekhpora, Budgam. What adds to the solitude of this outpost is a wall of separation so high that even birds will ram into it. And if birds fall, what of humans — those trying to walk in […]
A powerful artistic expression isn’t what you would normally associate with someone who comes across as a recluse. But at 18, Momin Fayaz is already an art prodigy. Looking at his prolific sketches and pencil portraits, I reckon Momin must have been through years of training at some art school. Like his drawings, he surprises me […]
A shopfront is usually a pretty gossipy spot. Here the risqué and polite and the political and personal repartees are woven into each other with surprising effortlessness. But the mood outside this Budgam town shop, where I was standing, suddenly changed on this sunny late afternoon of 8 July 2016. The news was too big. Too […]
The story of a Nepali boy in Kashmir who sides with the oppressed to fight the oppressor with the weapon of David: the hurled stone It is 6pm. Time for soldiers to retreat after a tough day. From the narrow lanes, rebel youth keep a close watch. They whistle to each other — a secret […]