Shades of Kashmir- Landscape, Daily Life and People Protest (A Pictorial Book)

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About the Book Shades of Kashmir capture the poignant mood of the Valley when a modicum of normalcy returned to it after two decades of proxy war. Shome's journey in this troubled and bleeding part of the country started at this juncture when he was assigned to cover events in Kashmir.

The image that emerged slowly, however, was of a transient generation, wedged between the militants and the government, and a glint of its inner unrest.

Shome's resilient lens was quick to capture this tectonic shift in the Valley, simmering under an apparent calm, followed intermittently by death, gun battles and roaring protests. The many hues of this epic battle and its untold tales, unfolded itself in black and white, making this book a rich repository of contemporary history.

About the Author Shome Basu uses this carnera as a tool to capture unusual stories, which become a window to those who have little scope of discovering them otherwise. Photographing from the age of sixteen, he has been professionally associated with India Today, Outlook Business, Outlook Money, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Outlook Traveler, Open, Wall Street Journal, Yale Journal of International Affairs along with Amnesty international and UNICEF, covering a variety of assignments from politics to features and business.

He has travelled far and wide, to document life in poverty and conflict. His work on arsenic poisoning at the Indo-Bangladesh border was appreciated internationally. He was also among the first Indian photojournalists to reach Afghanistan post-Taliban. His work on Kashmir got him international acclaim with his profile highlighted in the Asian Photography.

Shome lives in New Delhi with his wife. When he is not clicking away he can be found cooking different cuisines from the many places he visits.

Foreword Professionally and by training lama political scientist and have primary leamed to look at things around me from the lens of politics Where there are no apparent polities, am taught to look below subtle dynamics of politics. However, there are occasions when venture out to understand life in an unstructured manner, through lenses other than those of a political scientist. Those are indeed the occasions. I must confess when I have understood social realities better Kashmir for me has been one of those segments of reality that I often tried to engage in without the structures and strictures imposed by my discipline did not want to merest theories Kashmir. wanted to understand it, for what it really was in its bare essence.

That's precisely what we talked about when met Shome Basu, a year ago at the residence of a French Diplomat, Jeremie Robert, in New Delhi where both of us had been invited to savor some fine French cheese and wine. At first when we started talking about Kashmir, we had seemingly competing narratives: thought his arguments were theoretically unsound and he, am sute, must have thought of my version to be devoid of 'human touch: What can photographs do in telling us about the intricacies and complexities of a decade-long intractable conflict such as the one in Kashmir? How can a photographer look beyond the immediate and appreciate the layers and layers of conflict that has gone into constructing his subject? As we spoke into the night, aided by the uninterrupted supply of French wine and cheese, and Jeremie's courteous and warm company, realised that our versions of Kashmir were not far apart. Our mutual suspicion gave way to mutual admiration for the kind of work that the other has been doing-I realised there was something very significant about the kind of work Shome was engaged in.

Preface At the Delhi Airport am subjected to scornful looks from the security personnel as late as wearing a kafia (the popular chequered Arabic scarf), and am boarding an airplane bound for twenty-odd faces already seated in the plane.

Welcome sir,' said the airhostess and greeted me with stereotypical politeness and a practiced smile looked for my aisle seat, something generally do not prefer-but since had reached the airport rather late, the airline staff had given me to understand had a limited choice for seats. But looking around found most of them still unoccupied.

The flight took off on time. After about thirty-five minutes, when the aircraft turned sharply from Pathankot, could not resist myself anymore-pulling off the seat belt jumped to an empty window seat and was amazed at what saw unfolding The fold mountains spread before my eyes like crumpled bedsheets, with patches of green, brown, black and white prints on them From an altitude of 39,000 ft the Himalayas and the Pir Panjal looked like never-ending coverlets with soft, cotton, pillow like clouds hovering over them. It was heavenly God's own land! I gasped.

Soon the gorges, ridges and the caves disappeared and a pristine valley welcomed me with its green fields and a blue sky and tiny dots of tin-roofed huts We got ready at last, to land at the Srinagar International Airport.

Ar the tarmac, from the windows, one could see men in khakis and olive fatigues, with INSAS and AKS and heavy bulletproof jackets guarding their chests, their eyes, peering out from under their helmets. searching and examining every corner. They would not hesitate to kill anyone who rose against them.

**Contents and Sample Pages**