Mumbai graphic designer Dhwani Shah, evokes a quirky, calm Kashmir

Dhwani Shah believes her sketches to be accidental heroes. In June this year, Shah, a Vasai-based graphic designer and illustrator, made a two-week visit to Kashmir. It was one of those routine trips to the Valley and its go-to vistas. Shah made visual records of the everyday lives and conversations she encountered during her stay. A graduate from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, and a compulsive doodler, Shah went equipped with journal pages laid out with empty panels as part of her baggage to Kashmir.

When she returned home on July 2 - excited about the quaint cafes, sky-mirroring lakes and the pleasantness of Kashmiri hospitality - little did she know that Kashmir was going to be on the boil a few days hence. On July 8, Hizbul Mujahideen commander from South Kashmir's Tral area, Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter with the Indian Army. Following this, street protests and mob-led destruction have led to several killings and injuries, followed by a government-enforced information blackout.

"The situation turned so sour that I was in two minds about posting photographs of a picturesque Kashmir online," says Shah, when we meet her at an Andheri café. "It seemed wrong to post happy pictures of our stay," she continues, adding that between photos and sketches, the latter is what comes to her more naturally.

The hesitation is still obvious today in Shah, who went on to share her visual records. Unpredictably, the virtual community was delighted. "Ever since the conflict, our news and social media feeds have been filled with gory images of the territorial conflict in Kashmir. I suppose viewers found my sketches to be a different narrative and a break from many of the hateful comments," muses Shah.

Shah's work is in the manner of wordless comics, a silent observation of Kashmiri life and many of its cultural facets and rather than a sequential narrative, it collects memories into panels. These stories come in the line of Shah's interest in non-fiction, which led her to create a story on Goa's mining issue for a graphic anthology titled First Hand.

In detailed black and white drawings, Shah's sketches also offer a welcome relief from the two kinds of imagery that Kashmir creates - paradise and pandemonium. However, Shah is quick to warn us that none of this was intentional. "I was just doodling," she clarifies. In the aftermath, however, random doodles have led to a more conscious understanding of conflict, as she says, "Someone observed that we often tend to focus on the issue and not enough on individual lives."
As we chat on, Shah fishes out a graphic novel by Srinagar-born Malik Sajad, titled Munnu: A Boy from Kashmir, a work that was published last year and offers an alternative history to Indian administered Kashmir. Like many of her viewers, Shah found it to be a lighter, more human approach than the disturbing accounts found in Curfewed Night, a memoir of Kashmir's conflicts by journalist Basharat Peer, who went on to write the screenplay for Haider. She says she finds it easier to ask her friends to first read Munnu and then Curfewed Night as a way of easing them into Kashmir's politics.

"Back here in the city, we have an option of switching off from things happening up north, but that is not so for Kashmiris," she says, as we prepare to pay for our coffees.

Chai Jaai, Shrinagar
27 June 2016
"I frequented this newly opened tea centre in Srinagar. I was only hoping for a comfortable corner table with a plug point, and the beautiful interiors that I found myself in were totally unexpected. The cafe included an exhibit of old Kashmiri photographs and the walls filled with intricately detailed floral patterns were hand painted by a local artist, who I was glad to find was given due credit in the space. I had the grandest and tastiest cup of Kahwa served in an exquisite looking samovar - hot golden chai with badam, kesar, elaichi and gulkand. The place holds my memories for two random conversations that led to some wonderful discoveries: My casual chat with the girl at the next table led to me knowing about her personal Kashmir Photo Archive project and an old lady who spotted me sketching the cafe suggested I visit the Shahi Hamdan mosque, if I liked meeting Muzaffar chacha."

Shahi Hamdan, Srinagar
28 June 2016
"As I stood sketching this intricate window at the Shahi Hamdan mosque, the priest came up to chat with me. Why are you alone in this part of the city, he asked. Oh no, not another moral police, I thought in my head, recalling the old lady who shoved me out of the ladies praying room because of my half-sleeved kurta. But, I was wrong, and glad to be, because Muzaffar chacha turned out to be the friendliest person I ever met. He not only gave me a quick tour of all the popular sites in the old city on his scooter, but he welcomed me into his home and showed his wife's vegetable garden and fed me despite fasting himself and then got me into a bus to get back to my home stay and also insisted on paying the bus fare, all the time asking me to come back some day with my family. One of those serendipitous happenstances that teach you that, sometimes, it is okay to trust a total stranger."

Jamia Masjid, Downtown Srinagar
30 June 2016
"As I sat down against a wall and pulled out my book to sketch a few women in the prayer hall, a small girl walked up to me…She stopped at a recent photo of me with my friends and advised, with a solemn look on her face, "Aap na, ladko se dosti mat karo" and returned to doodling in my book. It is hard to get offended by a kid, especially someone with big, sparkling eyes, and I laughed it off. I learnt her name was Riddha, she even wrote it down for me in Urdu in my book. She wanted to keep my sketchbook but settled for a pen and hajmola. After chatting for a while, we decided to step out of the prayer hall to take a walk around and click some pictures. She promptly posed for me, in a stylish crossed legged manner, with eyebrows lifted high and lips in an almost pout. I burst out laughing! The selfie culture had not escaped my conservative little friend!"