Growing up in Koonamoochi, near the beach, the Himalayas were a dream I only saw in movies. Coming from a middle-class family, I couldn't just travel—I had to find a way to work my way there.
In 2019, I moved to Jammu and Kashmir to be a chemistry teacher. I didn’t know the language. I saw apple trees for the first time. Back home, an apple was an expensive treat we could maybe afford once a month. In Kashmir, there was an apple tree right outside my apartment. I remember video-calling my family just to show them the fruit.
Then, the world changed. I lived through a "triple lockdown": the political shift of Article 370, the CAA protests, and then COVID-19.
Life was different. There was no internet and no phone network for months, so I couldn’t call my family. But I was surrounded by some of the kindest and most wonderful people I have ever met. I felt like I was part of their family—actually, I was.
This project is not about the "beautiful" postcard images of Kashmir or the "violent" images from the news. My story is different. I wasn’t there as a tourist or a reporter.
