For Prof S.M. Wijeyaratne from Sri Lanka, Srinagar is like any other place. He was here for the World Health Congress along with his wife, Prof C.N. Wejaratne. 바카라If there is any news about Kashmir, it is on violence. But I know it is just one incident somewhere,바카라 says Wijeyaratne. 바카라Sri Lanka was worse. We had suicide bombers.바카라
As they say, life never stops. One of the consequences of the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir is a smokescreen especially around the Valley, through which all that is visible is the conflict, subsuming every aspect of everyday life. So what does the raging violence hide about life in Kashmir?
Last Saturday, May 13, there were scores of young men waiting outside Tagore Hall in Jawahar Nagar, an upmarket locality in Srinagar바카라s civil lines, while a few metres away, at Bakshi Stadium, the J&K Police was holding a recruitment rally for women. Two security guards at Tagore Hall바카라s main gate were not letting the young men enter the premises. It wasn바카라t a political event the youngsters, mostly students, were keen to attend, but the Mr Kashmir Body Building Competition. The price of the ticket바카라Rs 300바카라was all that kept them from being inside. And as this is Kashmir, the word 바카라injustice바카라 is what comes to mind first to describe a situation like this. At least that is how Khalid Ali, a 27-year-old bodybuilder who trained at Fit and Fine Gym in Srinagar바카라s Old City and was inside the premises preparing to contest in the 85-kg category, put it: 바카라This is unfair. The price of tickets is too high. It should not have been more than Rs 50. You cannot charge Rs 300 from students. It is injustice.바카라
A regular at bodybuilding competitions, Ali said he would be going to Thailand for another contest next month. 바카라I am proud of what I do,바카라 he said.
Meanwhile, the spectators were jeering and whistling. Making himself heard despite the din, 34-year-old organiser Riyaz Ahmad Bhat told Outlook, 바카라It was much more overcrowded last year. The rush was just too much to handle, so this year we decided to charge Rs 300 per ticket.바카라
The bodybuilders had come from different parts of Jammu and Kashmir. Mohammad Rafiq Bhat, who had come from south Kashmir바카라s Anantnag district, was subjected to some major jeering as his muscles did not look adequately toned. Not one to give up, he said, 바카라I will be Mr Kashmir next year. I will work hard.바카라
Mr Kashmir contest
Four kilometres from Tagore Hall, on Boulevard Road, is Winterfell Cafe. Saqib Mir, the 34-year-old proprietor of La Delice bakery, better known as 바카라French bakery바카라, was talking about his experience of doing business in Srinagar. Listening to him were other young entrepreneurs, academics from Kashmir University, social scientists and government officials, who had assembled to brainstorm on how to generate employment for young Kashmiris.
Mir spoke about the dismal economic scenario in the Valley. 바카라We are doing quite badly on the economic front. There is no professional training in Kashmir. The work culture here is slow. We train people and they leave. That바카라s not efficient at all,바카라 he said. More than the conflict, it is the laidback work culture that seems to worry him. And yet, he admits it was the conflict that had spurred him to leave Srinagar and fly to France when he was 18.
Like many other Kashmiris living abroad, Mir had been yearning to return to the Valley since finishing a diploma in baking from a reputed institute in Paris. It was only in 2014, though, after he had married a French woman and had two children, that he could set foot in Srinagar again, leaving behind the bakery and handicrafts store he owned in France. 바카라I want my children to grow up in Kashmir because of our rich culture. That바카라s the reason we are here,바카라 he said.
Mir found a place with a great view of the Dal lake to set up his bakery. But not long after Le Delice started business, the machines were damaged in the 2014 floods. The bakery was reopened last year, but the long protest strikes called by Hurriyat Conference after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani forced Mir to close down La Delice again. Now it is back in business.
Entrepreneurs meet in a Srinagar cafe
바카라It is true the situation is bad everywhere. But it is only in Kashmir that life stops in many ways because of it. Elsewhere, businesses don바카라t close down and schools remain open,바카라 he said. 바카라The schools were closed for five months last year and I had to go back to France. I cannot educate my children like this. If children stop going to school, what future will they have?바카라
On the same day that Mir was speaking at Winterfell Cafe, London-based Kashmiri writer and academic Nitasha Kaul was talking about her first novel Residue at the Nehru Park bookshop. The main hall was full and the most of the questions were about the Kashmir conflict. And, predictably, as she is a Pandit by birth, she was specifically asked about the jingoistic attitude of many Pandits towards Kashmiri Muslims, often on display these days on news television. 바카라I am many things at one time, one of which is Kashmiri,바카라 replied Kaul. 바카라I don바카라t identify myself in communal terms. I don바카라t speak for a set of people. I speak for the community of people who seek justice and oppose injustice.바카라
Acknowledging the pathetic ignorance about Kashmir among most non-Kashmiris, she said, 바카라In Haryana, I was told Lal Chowk is so named because there is too much blood. I was shocked to hear that. I also heard that grenades are so common in Kashmir, buying one is like buying eggs. There is really a big chasm in the discourse on Kashmir and, therefore, a need for bridges to understand what the reality is.바카라 For decades, Lal Chowk has been a nerve centre of political and economic activities in the Valley. Named after Moscow바카라s Red Square by some communists in Srinagar, who thought of it after the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in 1917, life moves on in Lal Chowk as well.
바카라The tragedy is that people outside Kashmir don바카라t know that Kashmiri society has not broken down or become dysfunctional despite the prolonged insurgency, but has adapted to it rather well,바카라 said Sumantra Bose, professor of international and comparative politics at the London School of Economics, in his lecture at the Central University of Kashmir earlier this month.
Syed Mujtaba Rizvi, 27, who runs Goodfellas Cafe at the Bund바카라a wall between river Jhelum and Residency Road바카라along with two partners, believes that Kashmiri society has remained functional through a creative engagement with conflict. 바카라Why do Palestinians have a film festival on the rubble of homes destroyed by Israel in Gaza? While Cannes is happening, there is a film festival in Gaza too. Why do they do it?바카라 asks Rizvi, a postgraduate in 바카라management of innovation and fine arts extension바카라 from Goldsmiths, University of London. 바카라It is part of everyday resistance. Our lives, our smiles, our business바카라that바카라s our resistance and our resilience.바카라
By Naseer Ganai in srinagar
