Conversations That Carry Kashmir

By bringing together artists, influencers, and journalists, the YouTube-driven platform hopes to protect the sanctity of self-expression in Kashmir.

- Fiza Masoodi

On a summer afternoon, the camera opens to a hillside resort in Srinagar. Captain Tanvi Raina, the once youngest pilot from Kashmir, leans forward in conversation. Across from her sit Arsalan Nizami and Fahim Abdullah, the singing sensation whose latest Bollywood ballad has become a big chartbuster.

The talk does not sound like a podcast. It sounds like friends in a living room, unhurried, playful. Laughter tumbles into silence, and silence into reflection. They tease each other, drift into stories of music, and then, almost without noticing, they arrive at something deeper: what it means to sing of home, what it means to belong.

For Kashmir, this kind of conversation feels new. Public talks have often been solemn, politicized, burdened. But here the air is light, the heart unguarded. "It shouldn't feel like an interview," Tanvi says. "It should feel natural. A talk where you forget the camera is even there."

The seed of this project lies in her own childhood. In her father's home, Kashmiri music was always blaring from music systems. Old musical maestros were remembered with affection.

Her father, Captain Kapil Raina, was deeply fond of those sounds. For young Tanvi, it was background then, but background has a way of becoming foundation.