Home and hearth in Kashmir

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After the professional lecture, we had a bit of chit chat. We wanted to know much more about Kashmiri cuisine. She told us about multiple dishes that are very popular in Kashmir, such as kulcha, dum olav, and wazwan; plus multiple types of tea. Soon after this, I believe half the students in the class were craving for wazwan and a cup of noon chai

By Shreyashi Chatterjee 

On January 29, 2025, our school had the pleasure of hosting a visit by a young woman journalist from Kashmir. Two representatives joined us, one of whom was a delightful lady named Irat Bhat, and the other, Ruquaya, her friend. Irat was the one with whom we had a long interaction on ‘home and hearth in Kashmir’ and other stories. 

She immediately made a positive impression due to her fun and engaging personality. To break the ice of the interaction, we started off with a fun game, guessing how to pronounce the name ‘Irat’ properly; since it was a unique name and less heard of, it was a bit challenging for some of us. 

After the introductions and small talk, she began sharing her inspirational journey, coming from such a diverse heritage as Jammu and Kashmir. She talked about her profession in journalism and in the new media portal timesheadline.in and Digital Forensics Research and Analytics Centre (DFRAC), a leading fact-checkers media organisation in India. 

She told us about fact checking and how the media around us sets some very crucial stereotypical narratives that shapes our mindset which tends us to believe things that are not even true. Along with that she is also a writer for the times headline. The children were quite eager and indulged into knowing more about her life in Kashmir, how she choose her career, and that how does she manage to do so many things at once. An engaging discussion was beginning to stir up in the air! 

The students of SOSE Dwarka, were quite eager and wanted to know more about her life in Kashmir, how she came to choose her career, and how she manages to do so many things at once. It was an engaging discussion.

Irat and Ruquaya started telling us about the Kashmiri cuisine, they mentioned multiple widely known dishes of Kashmir such as ’kulcha’’,’’ dum olav’’ and ‘’wazwan’’. Then we learned the recipe for ‘noon chai‘ and ‘kahwa’. By the end of the therapeutic food discussion, half of our mouths were watering and the rest were absolutely starving. At least for me, I was craving a bowl of Wazwan… really badly.

We ended the lovely dialogue by listening to a well-known and loved Kashmiri song, Hukus Bukus by an extremely popular Kashmiri singer, Abha Hunjaria and roshe as well. It was an attempt to make Irat and Ruqaya feel more like home and for us to appreciate the beauty of Kashmir and its folk lore. 

Irat and Ruqaya too felt our classroom experience more like home, as we eagerly appreciated the beauty of Kashmir, its food, music, simple way of life, and its beautiful folklore.

The visit and interaction was amusing, enriching and enlightening. It was filled with fun and valuable lessons that fostered motivation and inspiration in all of us. 

Overall the whole visit and interaction was very amusing and enriching, we absolutely loved interacting with Irat and asking our dozens of questions. After the session one of my classmates said, “I loved the way she talks, you know? It felt like she should just keep talking and we would have less to say. I wish I had that level of communication skill.” 

I couldn’t agree more.

Shreyashi Chatterjee is a Class X student of Dr BR Ambedkar School of Specialized Excellence (SOSE), Dwarka, Delhi Board of Secondary Education, Delhi. 

Pictures Courtesy: Radhika and Anuj