The story of Kashmir is never an easy one to tell or understand. It is a land of exceptional beauty and fraught history. While the heyday of militancy might have passed, it is still a state under siege. Bullet-marked buildings, potholed roads, hands raised in protest, wives waiting for husbands who never returned and parents mourning for teenage sons who were killed — all this remains part of the fabric of the state. Every family has faced a loss of one kind or another.
Despite the unrest, people go about their daily lives as best they can. Children play cricket in the streets, labourers sip ginger tea before work and people shop for DVDs.
By documenting the landscape, daily life, people and protests, Shades of Kashmir provides many lens through which one can perceive the state.
(Shome Basu is a photo-journalist based in Delhi)