Iโm writing this anonymously because Iโm afraid my mother will face the repercussions. Should such fear be expected from the educational sector of the government? Is this normal? Only days before the holy month would commence, weddings were being conducted, feasts held, markets flung open without social distancing, and officials at the airport, the ones…
When contagion plagued the previous spring, a young Kashmiri photojournalist became part of the โuntouchableโ crowd inside an isolated ward where he experienced a close death encounter and decided to document his dreadful dungeon. After covering blistering riots in Delhi, I was planning to come home when bogeyman grounded all the flights.ย As someone coming…
โMany people made it, some fell and died while battling. The Covid-19 is the biggest nightmare of any survivor. There are injuries that the past year has inflicted upon humankind and the battle is not over yet.โ Such were the times, recounts Aqib as he arrives to offer prayers for the departed soul of his…
Prominent pulmonologist Naveed Nazirโs tweet about the possibility of a second Covid wave has only shifted focus on Kashmirโs vaccination drive still grappling with misinformation and speculations. Inside his crowded clinic at Sanat Nagar junction in Srinagar, a doctor stands isolated. Attending patients behind a transparent glass wall and addressing them through a mike, he…
The year branded for the so-called โMission 2020โ ended up unleashing another crippling phase in Kashmir. Amid paralysis, the valley stood resilient despite strife bleeding it through a thousand cuts. After surviving sixteen-month-long lockdownโthe phase she mostly fended for herself indoors amid flaring up moods and depressive phasesโZainab Nisar is finally breathing easy in her…
โWhen the guests started pouring in, I saw them all more like examiners, and the big day like an examination which they would evaluate as per some standard which keeps updating its regulations more frequently than UGC which I was piling my fright about.โ Itโs been almost a month now that the wedding of my…
As an undisguised commoner on streets, a Kashmiri girl is keeping the community spirit alive in a pandemic with her kind acts. Novel coronavirus had just returned with vengeance and enforced another lockdown in Kashmir when a young mother admitted in Srinagarโs Gousia Hospital was getting anxious about her newborn. Shortage of baby food and…
To counter the lockdown-created destitution, one man has taken up the responsibility of 62 neighbourhoods in Kashmir. In a hot and humid summer day in Srinagar, a boy in his early 20sโwearing shabby clothes and holding a paper slipโwas looking for a man whose address he was carrying in his palm. He walked past the…
They collect charity during the day and deliver it at the doorsteps of the needy in the dead of the night. As the invisible enemy behind the โThird World Warโ stormed the valley in the spring of 2020, Maimoona grew fretful. Mindful of her dried-up ration stock, hungry kids, and no scope of work in…