Finding Love In A Locked-Down Kashmir

ꦰWhat happens to love amidst an enduring conflict? This was the thought that riddled me about four years ago. It was December 2020 and the world was beginning to understand how to function in a post-COVID-19 lockdown world. I was home in Srinagar and had decided to stay there for an entire winter after many years. The previous year, in August 2019, Article 370 and Article 35A, giving Jammu & Kashmir an autonomous status, had been abrogated by the Union government, along with downgrading and bifurcating the state into two Union territories—Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.

ꦫThe heavy communication and physical blockade lasted for many months in the Kashmir Valley following the ‘Article’—as the event is referred to by Kashmiris ever since. Not only was it impossible to call or communicate with someone, but there were also physical blockades by the army barring civilians from moving around freely. The phone lines only resumed somewhere in October 2019 and 2G internet, with snail-like speeds, restarted in January 2020. The initial internet resumption only allowed some ‘white-listed’ websites for browsing, with several social media sites and apps, as well as news websites blocked. Kashmiris resorted to VPNs to use even WhatsApp (which was also blocked), till full internet access resumed. Just when Kashmiris were coming out of an imposed, political lockdown, they were plunged into a global pandemic. Full 4G internet speeds only returned somewhere during the consequent COVID-19 lockdown.

ꦚFor Kashmiris, the COVID-19 lockdown was just a continuation of what had been going on for months; only this time with means of communication intact. But for the rest of the world, it was quite a different story. Though the features of the two lockdowns are somewhat similar, they are in no way the same. While the post-‘Article’ communication and physical lockdown was a clampdown on the voice of Kashmir and Kashmiri people—so that no one would know what the ground reality was—the lockdown was essential to curb and understand a bizarre virus that the whole world was grappling with. Even though they are not comparable, I would like to make some distinct observations—especially when it comes to love.

♔During the pandemic, I saw couples struggling to meet because of the distance they now had to endure, and the sheer imperativeness to carry out relationships over the internet. It was frustrating, but it was possible. Even those who lived in the same city were in long-distance relationships now. But they had their phones; high-speed internet; and, they could schedule Amazon ‘Watch Parties’ to see movies together or play Ludo online with their friends. Kashmiris in communication lockdowns like the one in 2019 and the ones preceding it had none of these luxuries. They had been carrying out romantic relationships with much less communication for a very, very long time.

𝓰Around the time of the ‘Article’, I had started hearing stories of the ingenious ways in which lovers kept in touch during that jarring and tumultuous period. With no phones or internet, lovers resorted to letter writing—a lost art—and got them across to their beloved in a myriad of different ways. With concertina wires barring roads and army checkpoints proving a basic commute impossible, lovers found narrow alleyways and shortcuts to just catch one glimpse of their other half; while others walked kilometres to meet their significant others. No, the lockdowns weren’t similar at all. Nor was, as I slowly realised, ‘love’ and ‘to love’ in Kashmir.

🍸Lōal—the Kashmiri word for love, affection and longing—was (and is) one of the constants that lovers in Kashmir sought in all the uncertainty around them. They, who had been through waves of conflict, held onto the belief that when the wave would end, their beloveds would be waiting for them on the other side. To have that person in one’s life was priceless for them.

Now in 2020, as I toyed with the idea for Lōal Kashmir, I heard the heartbreaking story of a young man calling his girlfriend, post the withdrawal of the phone ban in 2019, only to find her distraught mother sobbing on the phone—it was his girlfriend’s rasm-e-chaharum♓; she had passed away 40 days ago. I had also heard about a man in Kashmir during the first wave of the covid pandemic who took the place of his girlfriend at the quarantine centre. She had flown into the country from abroad and had to stay there for a mandatory period of 14 days, as prescribed for someone coming from overseas. But he somehow managed to switch places with her, purely out of love. Highly irresponsible, but I guess romantic for sure. Whether these stories were true or just urban legends, there was no way of fact-checking, but this didn’t stop them from flying around like wildfire. However, even if these stories had an inkling of truth in them, I was intrigued. I knew there were innumerable stories from Kashmir just waiting to be heard and preserved, lest they were lost forever.

So in December 2020, as Chillai Kalan—the 40-day period of extreme cold in Kashmir—settled in, so did my resolve to implement my project. The first step was to give it a name. Lōal Kashmir came to me easily and I put out an open project call online—through WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and email—as well as through word of mouth. Along with the open call, I enclosed a Google ไform. If anyone was interested in telling me their story of love during the different periods of unrest in Kashmir, they could fill out the form and I would be able to get in touch with them to take it forward.

📖I knew that for many Kashmiris, opening up about their love lives would be a big taboo, especially to a stranger. So I kept an option for them—if they wished to anonymously share their stories and memories, they could. Only I would know who they were and no one else. I quickly saw the submission numbers on the Google form increasing by the day, and was soon inundated with Kashmiris wanting to open up about their lives to me.

ꦆAs I began speaking to them, what I grasped right away was this: ‘Their love life’ wasn’t something they were asked about often, or was regarded as important in the regular scheme of things. As the Kashmir conflict dominated the news coming out of the Valley, these stories often fell through the cracks. There was an excitement in their voices and a fire in their bellies when they started talking, and I was floored that they had deemed me the person they could be comfortable sharing with. I started speaking to three to four new people each day, listening to them and delving into their inner, vulnerable lives.

💟Talking about one’s romantic dalliances in Kashmir, especially before getting married, wasn’t exactly typical. And that came out in many of these conversations—it was normal for love to be carried out in covert places and spoken about in hushed whispers. This was something many of these people were used to. The ones who were more matter-of-fact about their love stories were often the ones who had crossed over the dating line to become betrothed now; thus also the ones who were comfortable with not being anonymous in their contributions (though this wasn’t always the rule of thumb).

Loving in a place of conflict comes with many layers, variables and caveats. Add to that, coming from a conservative society, the lovers have to get more experimental and innovative while carrying out their love affairs. This is evident in all the stories in Lōal Kashmirꩵ which span chronologically—from the height of the militancy in the 1990s to the 2020s with the ‘Article’. Though the ways in which the couples communicate and court have changed over the years, what I found in all the stories was a sense of urgency—an urgency to hold onto those moments and memories, should they be taken away from them the next day.

It is evident that in the 1990s, when Sagar rode the matador bus with his girlfriend each day—accompanying her to her tui­tion classes—they were doing so just to find some time alone. They also had an intricate system and protocol when there were hartalsꦍ (days when schools and tuitions would be closed) or when there was a grenade blast or an encounter in the areas they frequented. Decades later, when I juxtaposed this with the stories of Iqra and Khawar (both doctors) using the common ambulance chain in their two different hospitals to send letters to each other during the ‘Article’s’ communication lockdown, I could see that not much had changed in terms of the length that lovers must go to simply find love in Kashmir. With all the volatility surrounding them on the outside—though they may be desensitised to a lot of it—within their hearts they were yearning for warmth, for a human connection.

Lōal Kashmirꦉ has stories traversing over time, but they also span religion, age groups, sexual orientation and gender identity in the Valley. They are also not limited to romantic love. Love for a friend, a parent, even for one’s homeland has its place in the book. These real-life stories are a vehicle to talk about Kashmir and how its conflict has shaped lives in one way or the other, all through the lens of love.

While coming up with the project, I chose ‘love’ as the emotion to tell these stories, because I felt it was an easy entry point into this world. Love is a universal emotion, and everyone relates to it in some way, or at the very least is curious about it. A person may pick up the book to read about love stories from Kashmir, but my hope is that as they immerse themselves into the world of Lōal Kashmir✅, they will leave with empathy for the Kashmiri people. Conversely, I want the people of Kashmir to find themselves in the pages of the book, to see that they are not alone in those times of alienation that they’ve felt multiple times.

𝐆The people in these stories have overcome several hurdles, seen and unseen, to communicate their longing to the ones they love. When you try to stop someone from doing just that, when you put a lockdown on love, these lovers will get creative, as they have for decades—they will find a way, as that’s the only way they know. Because Lōal in Kashmir is the greatest form of resistance.

(Views expressed are personal)

(This article appeared in Outlook’s Valentine’s Day 2025 special issue on love and loneliness in the era of technology.)

Mehak Jamal is a filmmaker and writer

(This appeared in the print as 'Unlocking Secrets')