A Helping Hand in the Valley

Without titles or a clinic, a Kashmiri Samaritan helps people name their pain, reach for help, and believe in healing. In a place where silence often hides suffering, his work is changing lives.

- Gowher Bhat

Zahid Ashraf lives in a modest neighbourhood tucked between the dusty roads of Zafran Colony, Sempora, a short drive from Srinagar. His home doesn't have a signboard, and he doesn't call himself a therapist. Still, people come.

They come with heavy hearts, scattered thoughts, and stories they haven't told anyone else. Zahid listens. That's where it starts.

“I'm not a doctor,” he says, “but I can sit with someone and say: what you're feeling, it’s okay. It has a name. And it can get better.”

Zahid, 29, studied psychology in college but never pursued a clinical license. Instead, he made mental health his way of serving people. He talks to those who are hurting, gives them books, tells them they're not alone. And sometimes, when they're ready, he connects them to a therapist.

One of them was Ubaid Manzoor, a 22-year-old who used to sit in silence for hours, lost in his own head. “I didn't know what was happening to me,” Ubaid says. “I would get angry without reason. I stopped talking to friends. I thought I was broken.”

Zahid noticed him during a neighbourhood gathering. They talked. Then they talked again. “He gave me a book on depression,” Ubaid recalls. “And he said, read just a few pages. I did. That's when it clicked. This is what I've been going through.”

For weeks, Zahid met Ubaid over tea. Sometimes they walked. Sometimes they cooked. Eventually, Zahid helped him book an appointment with a professional. “I was scared,” Ubaid says. “But Zahid bhai went with me the first time. He didn’t have to, but he did. Now, I smile more. | talk. I feel lighter.”