Pashmina, Tombstones have names & Witness by Sayen Aich

  There have been evenings When my grandmother would weave stories, from the pashmina threads of memory. That still kept her going. With such delicate threads one had to be careful. A little lie here, a little too much effort And a castle of stories would crumble down. She would … Read more →

To a half disappearance & If wishes were horses by Zabirah Fazili

Back home we laughed merry laughs, tears streaming down our eyes, a defiant smile on the face offsets familiar aches felt by us. we lost him in our strength and frailty yet we hugged and held each other back home to shelve our shrieks we smiled at our helplessness. we … Read more →

This Is How Kashmiri Women Are Risking Their Lives

April 6, 2017, 4:30 PM ET Republished transcript of an Interview with Arooja (name changed) a Kashmiri woman  on NPR’s All Things Considered JULIE MCCARTHY Some residents of the Indian-administered Kashmir Valley are using more aggressive tactics to thwart Indian security forces: Women are placing themselves, literally, between militants and soldiers. KELLY … Read more →

Enforced Disappearance of a young Kashmiri woman

Raqib Hameed Naik Doda (Jammu and Kashmir): Inside the dilapidated single story mud house with wood and polyethene sheets covering the roof, Ghulam Mohammad Butt, 88 opens his steel trunk and brings out an old, torn newspaper. Flipping all the pages, he stops at the last and keeps gazing at the … Read more →

Behold, I Shine: Narratives of Kashmir’s Women and Children

Freny Manecksha Book Excerpt: Chapter “I Can Save Myself: Dissent and Feminism in a New Millenium”   The challenging male diktats on morality is extended to conversations around religion. In a lengthy conversation, Essar remarked how men simply assume they are the thekedars of what is right or wrong and she was … Read more →

Jaffna Street: Tales of Life, Death, Betrayal and Survival in Kashmir

Excerpt from “The Saint of Shalimar” With these armies comprising Pathans, Poonchis and Mirpuris knocking at his gates, the story—making the rounds of Srinagar street—goes that the Dogra monarch sought an audience with Meerak Shah so as to seek some divine intervention to ward off the looming cataclysmic scenario awaiting … Read more →