In Kashmir, the valleys speak. And sometimes, they speak through the radio.
Long before smartphones and high-speed internet, before YouTube and Instagram reels, there was the hum of an old transistor in the corner of the room. Its antenna slightly bent, its knobs worn from countless turns. You’d hear voices come alive through it—clear on some days, crackled and ghostly on others. But always there.
Even today, when everything is fast and flickering, radio holds on. Quietly. Humbly. Like a friend who never left.
For decades, All India Radio Srinagar (AIR) was more than just a station. It was a companion during long winters. A voice that cut through the fog. A storyteller in the dark.
In a place where snow falls for days and nights, where winter stretches longer than the calendar allows, radio is not just sound. It’s an escape. A bridge. A world inside the world. In a land often caught between silence and noise, the radio brought a third thing—imagination.
The Theatre of the Mind
There’s a kind of magic in radio that television and screens never quite managed to replicate. It doesn’t show you the world—it asks you to imagine it.
When you hear the rustle of leaves behind a narrator’s voice, you see the forest. When a woman laughs on air, you picture her eyes crinkling with joy. When an old story plays—a folktale, a Mehjoor poem, or a remembered tragedy—you’re no longer sitting in your room. You’re on a hillside, with pines swaying above you and history breathing in your ear.
Radio is a theatre of the mind. It’s where every listener is a co-creator. And in Kashmir—a land of poets, storytellers, and dreamers—it found fertile ground.
A Canvas for the Mind
A writer from Anantnag once said, “Radio made me a dreamer. I could see things I’d never seen. Just from sound.”
That’s what radio does. It feeds your inner cinema. You make the characters. You build the sets. You fill in the silence with your own color.
In Kashmir, where beauty exists alongside grief, imagination is a kind of resistance. A way to stay whole when the world feels broken. And radio—modest, inexpensive, often overlooked—gives people that tool.
Children growing up in the 1980s and 1990s still remember Zoon Dab—the children’s program that aired every Sunday. It featured stories, riddles, folk songs, and life lessons. It wasn’t just entertainment—it was education wrapped in warmth and wonder. It taught how to listen deeply. How to picture a mountain even if you hadn’t climbed one. How to dream beyond your street, your school, or your struggles.
The Voice of the Valley
During long power cuts and Chillai Kalan—the harshest forty days of winter—when televisions went silent and phones turned into dead weight, the radio stayed alive. Its signal wove through the snowfall and the stillness, bringing with it voices, poems, and news from the outside.
It was there in kitchens, in classrooms, on shop shelves, tucked inside phyerans during cold shifts. A small box of sound, playing in Kashmiri, Urdu, Hindi, and sometimes English.
Radio Kashmir’s programs weren’t polished like the podcasts of today. But they were real. Anchors stumbled, laughed, paused to sip kehwa mid-recording. Their voices cracked sometimes—but the heart never did. Listeners didn’t tune in for glamour. They tuned in for connection.
The local dramas especially—short plays on social issues, culture, and everyday life—left deep marks. These weren’t just performances. They were mirrors. They explored issues like dowry, education, women’s rights, loneliness, migration, and the shifting meaning of “home.”
They also humanised the region’s pain, telling stories of separation, longing, survival. And more importantly, they taught empathy. Imagination grows stronger when we learn to imagine someone else’s shoes. Radio gave that lens to many.
From Solitude to Solidarity
Radio offered not only entertainment but companionship. For a young boy walking home from school in the snow. For an elderly woman weaving a sweater by the window. For the grieving. For the curious. For the unseen.
In regions that sometimes felt cut off from the world, radio offered a thread of continuity. A kind voice that said, “You’re not alone.”
For many Kashmiri households, it wasn’t just about what was playing—it was about the ritual. Turning the dial. Adjusting the antenna. Waiting for the exact hour a beloved program came on. These habits anchored lives, offering comfort in routine.
Still Whispering
Today, things are noisier. Screens have multiplied. Algorithms decide what you see. Everything fights for attention. Loudly.
But radio? It still whispers.
And some still listen.
New voices are rising—young women, storytellers, independent podcasters. They use radio and its new cousins—community stations, online streams, and FM channels—not to shout, but to share.
They read poems. Interview grandparents. Play forgotten folk songs. They talk about mental health, tradition, recipes, and resilience. They use sound to archive memory. And to spark thought.
In a time when facts are debated, and images manipulated, the intimacy of radio remains pure. It’s you. And a voice. Nothing more.
The Storytellers It Created
Radio didn’t just touch listeners. It shaped storytellers.
For Zahoor, a postgraduate student from Anantnag, listening to the radio wasn’t just about staying informed—it was about learning the rhythm of storytelling.
“Radio not only made me knowledgeable,” he says, “but it also nurtured my creativity. I learned to paint pictures with words, to build worlds in my mind. Every story I heard on the radio was like a workout for my imagination. It felt like exercising a muscle that grew stronger with each story.”
Zahid Ashraf, a postgraduate from Srinagar, found in radio a path to his own narrative voice.
“It helped me master the art of storytelling,” he shares. “The way those voices unfolded stories, how they breathed life into characters and events—it inspired me to capture attention, to stir emotions, and to tell my own stories with depth and passion.”
Many writers, poets, teachers, and journalists in the valley trace their earliest creative stirrings to a radio program or a specific voice they heard as children. A single phrase, a dramatic pause, a melody—they lingered, and they grew roots.
Echoes in the Classroom, and Beyond
Radio’s impact also reached schools. Teachers often played plays or educational segments in class. In places where books were scarce or libraries far, radio became an educator. It taught pronunciation. It brought in voices from Delhi, Mumbai, Uttar pradesh. It expanded horizons.
Some government initiatives like Gyan Vani and EDUSAT later followed this tradition, using audio broadcasts to support learning in remote areas. But the seeds were planted much earlier—by AIR Srinagar and Radio Kashmir.
In the End
In a world where distractions pull us in every direction, imagination is what keeps us grounded. And radio, with its quiet yet powerful presence, continues to nurture creativity and connection.
Whether it’s a child listening under the quilt, a woman stitching near the stove, a shepherd with a pocket radio, or a teacher playing a drama for her students—radio still speaks in a way that invites us to imagine, to reflect, and to create.
In a time when visuals dominate and speed is celebrated, it’s the simplicity of sound that calls us to pause, to dream, and to embrace the stories that shape us. Radio doesn’t just fill the silence; it breathes life into it—leaving us with worlds to explore and minds to nourish.
In Kashmir, where every breeze whispers of heritage, radio quietly keeps the rhythm of its past alive.
Gowher Majeed Bhat is a creative writer and educator based in Kashmir. He writes on society, education, and culture.
In Kashmir, the valleys speak. And sometimes, they speak through the radio.
Long before smartphones and high-speed internet, before YouTube and Instagram reels, there was the hum of an old transistor in the corner of the room. Its antenna slightly bent, its knobs worn from countless turns. You’d hear voices come alive through it—clear on some days, crackled and ghostly on others. But always there.
Even today, when everything is fast and flickering, radio holds on. Quietly. Humbly. Like a friend who never left.
For decades, All India Radio Srinagar (AIR) was more than just a station. It was a companion during long winters. A voice that cut through the fog. A storyteller in the dark.
In a place where snow falls for days and nights, where winter stretches longer than the calendar allows, radio is not just sound. It’s an escape. A bridge. A world inside the world. In a land often caught between silence and noise, the radio brought a third thing—imagination.
The Theatre of the Mind
There’s a kind of magic in radio that television and screens never quite managed to replicate. It doesn’t show you the world—it asks you to imagine it.
When you hear the rustle of leaves behind a narrator’s voice, you see the forest. When a woman laughs on air, you picture her eyes crinkling with joy. When an old story plays—a folktale, a Mehjoor poem, or a remembered tragedy—you’re no longer sitting in your room. You’re on a hillside, with pines swaying above you and history breathing in your ear.
Radio is a theatre of the mind. It’s where every listener is a co-creator. And in Kashmir—a land of poets, storytellers, and dreamers—it found fertile ground.
A Canvas for the Mind
A writer from Anantnag once said, “Radio made me a dreamer. I could see things I’d never seen. Just from sound.”
That’s what radio does. It feeds your inner cinema. You make the characters. You build the sets. You fill in the silence with your own color.
In Kashmir, where beauty exists alongside grief, imagination is a kind of resistance. A way to stay whole when the world feels broken. And radio—modest, inexpensive, often overlooked—gives people that tool.
Children growing up in the 1980s and 1990s still remember Zoon Dab—the children’s program that aired every Sunday. It featured stories, riddles, folk songs, and life lessons. It wasn’t just entertainment—it was education wrapped in warmth and wonder. It taught how to listen deeply. How to picture a mountain even if you hadn’t climbed one. How to dream beyond your street, your school, or your struggles.
The Voice of the Valley
During long power cuts and Chillai Kalan—the harshest forty days of winter—when televisions went silent and phones turned into dead weight, the radio stayed alive. Its signal wove through the snowfall and the stillness, bringing with it voices, poems, and news from the outside.
It was there in kitchens, in classrooms, on shop shelves, tucked inside phyerans during cold shifts. A small box of sound, playing in Kashmiri, Urdu, Hindi, and sometimes English.
Radio Kashmir’s programs weren’t polished like the podcasts of today. But they were real. Anchors stumbled, laughed, paused to sip kehwa mid-recording. Their voices cracked sometimes—but the heart never did. Listeners didn’t tune in for glamour. They tuned in for connection.
The local dramas especially—short plays on social issues, culture, and everyday life—left deep marks. These weren’t just performances. They were mirrors. They explored issues like dowry, education, women’s rights, loneliness, migration, and the shifting meaning of “home.”
They also humanised the region’s pain, telling stories of separation, longing, survival. And more importantly, they taught empathy. Imagination grows stronger when we learn to imagine someone else’s shoes. Radio gave that lens to many.
From Solitude to Solidarity
Radio offered not only entertainment but companionship. For a young boy walking home from school in the snow. For an elderly woman weaving a sweater by the window. For the grieving. For the curious. For the unseen.
In regions that sometimes felt cut off from the world, radio offered a thread of continuity. A kind voice that said, “You’re not alone.”
For many Kashmiri households, it wasn’t just about what was playing—it was about the ritual. Turning the dial. Adjusting the antenna. Waiting for the exact hour a beloved program came on. These habits anchored lives, offering comfort in routine.
Still Whispering
Today, things are noisier. Screens have multiplied. Algorithms decide what you see. Everything fights for attention. Loudly.
But radio? It still whispers.
And some still listen.
New voices are rising—young women, storytellers, independent podcasters. They use radio and its new cousins—community stations, online streams, and FM channels—not to shout, but to share.
They read poems. Interview grandparents. Play forgotten folk songs. They talk about mental health, tradition, recipes, and resilience. They use sound to archive memory. And to spark thought.
In a time when facts are debated, and images manipulated, the intimacy of radio remains pure. It’s you. And a voice. Nothing more.
The Storytellers It Created
Radio didn’t just touch listeners. It shaped storytellers.
For Zahoor, a postgraduate student from Anantnag, listening to the radio wasn’t just about staying informed—it was about learning the rhythm of storytelling.
“Radio not only made me knowledgeable,” he says, “but it also nurtured my creativity. I learned to paint pictures with words, to build worlds in my mind. Every story I heard on the radio was like a workout for my imagination. It felt like exercising a muscle that grew stronger with each story.”
Zahid Ashraf, a postgraduate from Srinagar, found in radio a path to his own narrative voice.
“It helped me master the art of storytelling,” he shares. “The way those voices unfolded stories, how they breathed life into characters and events—it inspired me to capture attention, to stir emotions, and to tell my own stories with depth and passion.”
Many writers, poets, teachers, and journalists in the valley trace their earliest creative stirrings to a radio program or a specific voice they heard as children. A single phrase, a dramatic pause, a melody—they lingered, and they grew roots.
Echoes in the Classroom, and Beyond
Radio’s impact also reached schools. Teachers often played plays or educational segments in class. In places where books were scarce or libraries far, radio became an educator. It taught pronunciation. It brought in voices from Delhi, Mumbai, Uttar pradesh. It expanded horizons.
Some government initiatives like Gyan Vani and EDUSAT later followed this tradition, using audio broadcasts to support learning in remote areas. But the seeds were planted much earlier—by AIR Srinagar and Radio Kashmir.
In the End
In a world where distractions pull us in every direction, imagination is what keeps us grounded. And radio, with its quiet yet powerful presence, continues to nurture creativity and connection.
Whether it’s a child listening under the quilt, a woman stitching near the stove, a shepherd with a pocket radio, or a teacher playing a drama for her students—radio still speaks in a way that invites us to imagine, to reflect, and to create.
In a time when visuals dominate and speed is celebrated, it’s the simplicity of sound that calls us to pause, to dream, and to embrace the stories that shape us. Radio doesn’t just fill the silence; it breathes life into it—leaving us with worlds to explore and minds to nourish.
In Kashmir, where every breeze whispers of heritage, radio quietly keeps the rhythm of its past alive.
Gowher Majeed Bhat is a creative writer and educator based in Kashmir. He writes on society, education, and culture.