In 2016, when Kashmir was witnessing street protests for five months in the aftermath of the killing of 21-year-old militant Burhan Wani in a gunfight, three youth from Srinagar, all in their 20s, came up with a novel idea to kindle a ray of hope in the grim situation.
Nihal-ur-Rehman, 25, a civil engineer, along with Fasahat Allaqband, 23, a business management student, and engineer Zaid Qureshi, 24 — all in colleges then — started ‘CaptivatingKashmir’, an Instagram account, to curate postcard pictures from distinct geographical locations in J&K, mainly “bewitching, mood-lifting, rare and exotic frames” of places and people from the otherwise troubled State.
“The situation (in 2016) was such that we were forced to do ground marketing only. There was no Internet. Curfew had halted life. We failed at generating any business to keep the idea afloat that year,” CapitivatingKashmir chief executive officer Rehman said.
The trio started scavenging for pictures posted by locals for fun or as a click bait. The idea was to pick the frame to lift the mood locally and generate queries from prospective tourists.
Keenly followed
Three years on, ‘CaptivatingKashmir’ is followed by over 90,000 travel and photography enthusiasts across the country and overseas.
Mr. Rehman and his co-founders started collaborating with avid trekkers and travel enthusiasts to access images from exotic locations in the State. They photographed daily life, art and culture “to bring authentic Kashmir online, distinct from the stereotypes created over the years.”
Over time, they curated over 4,300 pictures to put the spotlight on little-known aspects. “The idea was to take an intending traveller away from the routine Dal lake ride. We streamed a series of pictures of terraced Great Lakes, 13 of them, all nestled in Mount Haramukh at an altitude of 3,575 m,” said Mr. Rehman. The pictures are attracting tourists as far as the Middle East.
