Samar, 25, is in Jammu since October 2019 to keep her Instagram page Ribbons by Samar Shawl running. She arranged a broadband connection there to not lose her customer base that she had built in Kashmir after a lot of struggle.
“Public memory is very short lived,” Samar said. “If you have to survive in business, you have to get noticed.” Now the page gets an order a week or sometimes not even that. “In January, I got only eight orders.”
Samar had managed almost 2900 followers in just one year. “The page was doing good in fact, fetching likes on a daily basis till August last,” says Samar. “I was also getting around 80 orders a month”.
On August 5, central government scrapped the special status of erstwhile J&K state and bifurcated it into two union territories, enforcing a blanket ban on communication including the internet.
Though some restrictions were eased after many months, for Samar, this is not enough to return to Srinagar. “How can I access my page on 2G data,” questions Samar.
In April 2018, Samar had started Gift Hamper Service involving “adorably wrapping the gift items” as desired by clients. Samar did her masters in business administration (MBA) from the Islamic University of Science and Technology (IUST). During studies, Samar thought of having her own business venture and not joining any service. “Had I known that Kashmir would become the gag capital of the world, I would not have even thought of starting my own business.”
In October, after two months of communication gag, Samar realized that there is no chance of resumption of internet here.
“That is where the thought of migration came to my mind,” she said. “Following day she arranged a ticket and left for Jammu”.
This story is from the March 08-14, 2020; UNMASKED; Issue 49 Vol 11 edition of Kashmir Life.
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This story is from the March 08-14, 2020; UNMASKED; Issue 49 Vol 11 edition of Kashmir Life.
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