How silent reading communities in Srinagar are encouraging a newfound love for books and reading

It’s a hot day in Srinagar and I can’t tell if it was hotter back home in Delhi or if the sun in the valley is more relentless. If stewing in the heatwave in the capital made headlines in May 2024, Srinagar, as residents claim, has seen its hottest summer this year. One usually expects some rain in July, but even a drizzle of respite seems unlikely.

Cognisant of breaking out of my daydream, I bite into the last bit of my sheermal and down my noon chai (Kashmiri pink tea) to head to the Sher-i-Kashmir Park on Residency Road, to join the members of Srinagar Reads, a group of readers who assemble under the shade of chinar trees every Saturday evening to read books together.

Upon reaching, I find a spot by the side of the group of young men and women, and pull out my copy of Yoko Tawada’s Spontaneous Acts. The group, I notice, is engrossed in reading a mix of books which include familiar names like Franz Kafka and Albert Camus.

Srinagar Reads

After a concentrated two-hour long reading session (followed by a few rounds of Uno), I catch up with Ridwan-ul-Haq, a software engineer by profession and the founder and community organiser of Srinagar Reads, to chat about how he started this local chapter of the global silent reading movement. “When I moved back to Srinagar from Bangalore in 2023, I found weekends in the valley to be awfully quiet and idle,” he said. “There was nothing to look forward to. At first, I tried opening a Srinagar chapter of Toastmasters (a global non-profit organisation that helps individuals develop public speaking and leadership skills), but that didn’t work out due to logistics. Then someone introduced me to Harsh Snehanshu, who co-founded Cubbon Reads with Shruti Sah (a quiet book reading community founded in December 2022, now a worldwide reading movement), and that got me intrigued. I thought the idea of reading together silently in a park every weekend was very cool. Both Harsh and Shruti were very supportive and encouraging of me volunteering to start the Srinagar chapter. I personally found it really inspiring because I felt Kashmir definitely needed a community like this.”

Haq is one of the enablers of this growing reading culture in Srinagar. Joining him in this movement is 29-year-old Seerat Sofi, also an engineer, who curates Boulevards Reads in the city. “After I moved to Kashmir in April this year, I found myself with little to look forward to on the weekends,” Sofi said. “Having spent seven years in Bangalore, my weekends were always filled with activities like exploring new cafés, attending Cubbon Reads, trying out workshops, or hanging out with friends. But here in Kashmir, I have only a few friends, most of whom are either full-time professionals or busy preparing for competitive exams. Being an avid reader, I knew the joy of connecting with fellow readers, and I missed that. More than anything, Boulevard Reads is something I wanted to create for myself because it's a reflection of my own passions. I love hearing about what others are reading and understanding how those books shape their perspectives.”

Every Sunday morning at 7 am, participants gather around Ghat No 5 on Boulevard Road to read in silence together. They spend a couple of hours in the company of books (and one another), as the sleepy houseboats and shikharas rouse to life.

Sofi’s choice of Boulevard Road for the reading community comes from the memory of her morning walks and school cross-country runs spent there. It is also by far one of the most popular spots of Srinagar, one that can be easily accessed from most parts of the city. The peaceful, aesthetic atmosphere of the Dal Lake adds to the experience.

It is an interesting time for Jammu and Kashmir. The state goes to polls in September for the first time since the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019, and a lot has changed since then. Especially in the last ten years, for its residents, their livelihoods and their lives.

A bookshop in Srinagar

Sheikh Ajas, who owns Gulshan Books, one of the prominent independent bookstores in the state, one that has a long-standing legacy of publishing, agrees with the transitions that have made space into the valley ever since the new ruling party took over in 2014.

“When I took over the trade from my walid sahab (father) in 1985, things went downhill in the valley in just a few years,” said Ajas. “Earlier we would get calls about some bandh (strike) or other, and our shops would remain closed for days. It impacted our business immensely. The atmosphere was not stable. That’s not the case anymore. The last ten years have seen peace in the valley. When the current ruling party came into power, we didn’t expect positive implications of the revocation of Article 370 in the state. But since then, a lot of funds have come in to improve the conditions in Jammu and Kashmir.”

Gulshan Books found its first home in pre-independent India in a small town called Pattan situated on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road in Kashmir’s Baramulla district. It was founded by the current owner, Sheikh Ajas’s great grandfather – late Sheikh Mohammed Ibrahim – and operated primarily as a publishing and distribution house. Post-independence, the shop moved across many pin codes – Chattabal, Maharajganj, Fateh Kadal and Madina Chowk.

“Back in the day, we used to publish local authors in Kashmiri, Arabic, Persian and Urdu languages, along with religious books on Islam,” said Ajas. “It was only in the 1950s that we evolved into a bigger publishing wing and started importing books in the English language from outside of Kashmir.”

The bookstore, Ajas said, suffered losses of Rs 7 crore in the catastrophic floods of September 2014. Three of their fully stocked warehouses – all in the civil lines area which experienced the worst side of the calamity – perished. “To recover from the losses, the new government gave us a cheque of Rs 3,500,” Ajas said.

But even as their Dal Lake outlet, one that made it to the Limca Book of Records 2018 and offered free shikara rides to the store, ceases to exist today, thanks to the end of a six-year lease, three outlets of Gulshan Books continue to thrive in the present day – a stunning three-story store on Residency Road in Srinagar, a compact space inside Srinagar airport, along with a branch in Leh-Ladakh. Additionally, a division of their publishing house continues to publish Urdu and Kashmiri language books in Gow Kadal, Srinagar by the name Sheikh Mohammad Usman and Sons. This year, their publishing list includes the complete works of eminent Kashmiri poets like Samad Mir, Abdul Ahad Azad, Soch Kral Saeb, Nyam Saeb, Rasul Mir, among others, along with the works of thirty Kashmiri poets translated into English by eminent writer and teacher Neerja Mattoo.

“Our Dal Lake store had a wide collection of as many as 80,000 books. It was the only bookshop-library on a lake,” said Ajas. “Times have changed and so have publishing and reading habits. Before the pandemic, publishers used to print 20,000 copies of a book. Now the print runs have come down to 3,000 or 4,000 copies, sometimes even lower. Naturally, this affects our business. Online retailers like Amazon and the availability of books in different formats like e-books also impact the trade. But I would say the trend of reading from kindles has gone down considerably. It may have been so during the pandemic but people are back to visiting bookstores and buying buy physical books.”

“With the rise of technology, I’ve noticed a decline in reading habits,” added Sofi. “I used to finish a book in eight hours, and now, with constant distractions, I look back and wonder if I could still do that. But then, ten years ago, I’m not sure if a community like Boulevard Reads could have existed. I do believe that now is the right time for it to grow.”

Boulevard Reads

While Boulevard Reads is only five months old, Srinagar Reads recently celebrated its first anniversary on July 20 over cups of hot kehwa amidst a wholesome gathering of familiar faces and several new ones. But as the community grows with each day, an essential aspect concerns Haq – the accessibility of public libraries.

“During Chillai Kalan or what we call the forty-day period of harsh winter days, we tried organising the sessions in one of the libraries, but it didn’t work out,” said Haq. “I also tried registering at the SPS Library here but public libraries in Srinagar don’t have a welcoming aura. They feel more like bureaucratic offices than reading spaces. People you meet there are often studying for competitive exams or for academic research. I wonder what happened to reading for leisure in libraries. Also, the formalities to access the library are tedious and I feel, more than bookstores, it is essential for public libraries to make their collection available to young readers to encourage reading habits.”

Nevertheless, both Haq and Sofi are thrilled every time a new person discovers them on Instagram and joins the gathering. Their own reading preferences are vastly different (Haq prefers science fiction while Sofi’s taste spans both Urdu and English fiction, with a particular love for Urdu poetry), but their shared passion for growing their respective communities is aligned.

“While I've been pleasantly surprised by the higher number of male participants, every reader, regardless of gender, has left an imprint,” said Sofi. “We've even had non-Kashmiri readers who’ve participated when they're visiting the city, and readers from other parts of Kashmir who have stayed over in Srinagar over the weekend just to attend a session with us. And then there are times when I’m the only one sitting on the parapet at Ghat No 5, and that’s okay too. This community has given me so much more than I ever expected, and my heart is full because of it.”