Within a few months after moving out of the classroom, a young reporter in TheNewsCaravan landed in a team that shot an infotainment series for Ramzan, the Muslim month of fasting. Unprecedented, the almost all-women initiative was a huge success. Babra Wani connects dots and anecdotes to offer the behind-the-camera story.
I was working on a new story when Sabreen Ashraf, my friend and classmate, entered the newsroom, in the first week of Ramzan. She sat exactly next to me and said, “We are recording a video series in Ramzan that will be webcast on daily basis”. Excited, I kept my laptop aside and asked her for more details. The details looked interesting.
The idea of the first-of-its-kind series, about Islam, the Quran and Muslims envisaged travelling across Kashmir. It was a bit of effort to somehow get associated with it. Quickly a research team was constituted and we were four in the team – me, Insha, our senior Humaira and a junior Maleeha Sofi. Peculiar to the TheNewsCaravan newsroom, as I understood later, the initiative was literally an all-woman affair. The entire research team was women, the anchor was a lady and the editor of the show was Iqra Akhoon, the head of TheNewsCaravan’s audio-visual vertical.
The entire camera work, however, was done by Shuaib Wani with Mushtaq Ahmad and Imran also joining on special shoots. One day, even online editor, Raashid Andrabi willingly handled the camera.
Once the team was ready, it still required a lot of brainstorming. Almost everybody contributed to making the programme better. It was named Jashn e Ramadhan because the members felt that the Muslim month of fasting is being observed in such a way that it is not visibly a celebration as it is in the rest of the Muslim world.
Unwilling to Talk
The journey for this series was not an easy one but very memorable. As we moved from one place to another, we encountered different experiences some pleasant others not so pleasant. From each one of these short day-long journeys, we learnt a lot. It never was what the classroom was all about. It evolved on its own, the excitement, the challenge, the locations, the tensions of deadlines, peoples’ unwillingness to talk and having the best photogenic spots.
However, the biggest lesson I believe all of us learnt through the series was that of patience and understanding. Patience while coming across rude people and understanding why people would not talk to us. We all grew through this series.
We also learnt camera fear is so real and convincing people to talk to us was a really daunting task. I saw people covering their faces and running away just at the sight of the camera. And even if people came to talk, once they knew the series had Islamic questions, they backed out. It was so difficult to get the people to talk. Sometimes we were able to give away all three prizes and sometimes we returned back with one. Sometimes we reached back home early and other times after iftar was done. The 15 minutes of every episode was not an easy task. These were hours of travel, interaction and desperation to locate people willing to talk. After all, outreach was key to the series.
From framing questions during the nights to researching locations we were travelling to, everything seemed tiring at times. Despite the limitation of resources and our lack of knowledge about Kashmir outside Srinagar, we kept going simply because the audience loved it. Every morning I wake up I make it a point that I read all the comments and seeing how positively our series was received and accepted gives us immense pleasure.
Rediscovering Kashmir
Jashn e Ramadhan took me and Sabreen to places we had never been to. We explored different places and learnt about different people all through this series. Our journey began with Jamia Masjid, the place of immense importance in the history of Kashmir. And North Kashmir was our last destination. And for us, the series showed us the beauty of places and people.
We saw the white orchards of Kulgam and the yellow fields of Pampore. We went through the green roads of Watlab and walked along the markets of Bijbehara. We went from shrine to shrine in Qaimoh and crossed the Sangam of rivers in Anantnag.
We drove to places we ourselves did not have any information about. Every episode we published offered some idea about the hard work the team put in. It gradually evolved. Every new episode was perhaps better than the earlier one and this series helped us know what a perfect episode is all about. The beauty of the series was how people instantly connected to it and enjoyed it thoroughly. We learnt and we grew together in this journey of Islam and Kashmir.
For the first time in my life, I visited Khankah e Moula and it was not any lesser than a dream come true. To be able to visit a place of such immense importance and to be able to witness people’s faith there seemed surreal. Every time I remember it I feel a sense of relief. When we visited Aali Masjid I was pleasantly surprised to be able to read the history of the beautiful mosque, to be able to relax under the shade of the Chinars there, to be able to see how much people knew.
Team Spirit
It was not an individual effort but a collective one. From Sabreen’s hosting to Shoaib Wani’s camera work to Mushtaq Sahab’s efforts to improve our research and to the flawless editing by Iqra Ma’am, each one of us had an important role to play and each one of us received credit. There were instances when some challenging episode was edited during the dead of the night. A few episodes, professionals may disagree, were shot, edited and used on the same day.
When we began the series our knowledge of Islam was limited, limited to a few basic things we have been taught in childhood. But Jashn eRamzan we learnt so many new things about Islam, the Quran and Muslim history. Framing even a single question took us hours of studies and scrolling through different Islamic websites and blogs, we read books about Islam about Seerat e Nabvi to set questions and for every episode, we needed to frame almost twenty questions. The questions went through various stages before getting finalised. Though the process was exhausting and tough, yet every time we learnt new things and every time we learnt more.
Yes, we committed mistakes. And, yes, we rectified them.
Partners and Prizes
The series could happen only when TheNewsCaravan got three partners – the Kanwal Food and Spices; the JamKash Vehicleads and Alloha. It was done by the business section and that took them their own time.
Every time somebody won a prize all of us felt really happy to know how people had such great knowledge about their faith. Every time Sabreen stood in front of the camera, she was very nervous, she rechecked everything more than thrice just not to make any mistakes. And every time we began shooting all of us prayed to Allah for confidence and help.
The memorable part, however, for me was how children everywhere were more than willing and excited to participate, talk, face the camera and try their luck. Some recited Qur’an for us while others chose to recite beautiful naats for us. Young girls came to us everywhere to talk to us and asked about who we are and what we are doing. These boys and girls made us happy and vindicated that the idea was not as small as it looked in the routine newsroom brainstorming.
Education
There were many places that I, Sabreen and Insha visited for the first time in my life and knowing about the place through its history, its people and its culture was such an amazing experience. For example, I never knew that Bandipora was such beautiful, but when I first saw it, I was mesmerized, by its picturesque beauty and by the politeness of the people there.
I never knew that stone carving was a thing in Bandipora as well, I had a concept that stone carving was just done in and around Pampore. However, through this series, I learnt that and I learnt about various issues the people involved were facing. Our team came across some different scenes, from a stone carver with hearing and speaking impairment to a woman who was selling vegetables in Sopore, every person we met had a story to share.
We learnt about the different shrines of different places, from the Khee Naag in Kulgam to the shrine of Baba Shakurdin in Sopore, we visited many places of cultural importance.
Through this series, we learnt about different types of bread. What naan khoashek is in the South is Kulche in North Kashmir, what is kandi kulche in the South is mitthe biscuit at other places. We learnt about different dialects. We learnt about different types of pickles. We travelled along Jhelum and Wular. We saw Sangam, not just of three rivers but of different people as well. We met people with immense knowledge and we met people who did not know anything at all.
Weak Economy
Shopkeepers and street vendors in every place we talked to said they have landed in a very economy. Every one of them wanted to talk to us about the severity of the issues they were facing.
As the series went public, people started to recognise us. There were many people who came to us and wanted to try their luck. A man with two daughters we met in Sopore came to us and gave us feedback. A young boy who talked to us in Anantnag said he watched all the episodes and recognised us while travelling with his father. Many people came and complimented our efforts especially Sabreen’s.
In some areas, however, we had some unpleasant experiences as well. There were places where the team was hounded by a crowd. People tried to take pictures and videos and when we stopped them, they argued. Generally, however, people were respectful and we were highly appreciative of that.
Hospitality
While we travelled in all directions from Srinagar, I witnessed the hospitality of people and how it was the same all across the valley. The people of Kulgam and Sopore asked us to stay at their places to make us feel comfortable.
This series not only took us to places but it showed us the rawer side of everything, every place, every person.
Before concluding this personal experience, I need to put on record that the team shot a lot more than what was used. The decision was to make it light and manage one area in one episode. Many episodes that were shot were not used because we could only publish 15 episodes. There was a thought process that the series should move to Shawaal, post-Eid, but its name did not permit that luxury.
I pray the Jashn continues in the 1445’s Ramzan too.
(The author is an intern with TheNewsCaravan and intends to hone her skills in the newsroom across print and audio-visual verticals.)
SRINAGAR: Police have arrested two hybrid terrorists involved in a terror attack on a Youtuber in Shopian.
During the course of investigation of case FIR No. 116/2022 U/S 307 IPC, 7/27 A Act and 16 UAP Act of Police Station Heerpora pertaining to terrorist attack on a YouTuber, a SIT headed by DySP Hqrs Shopian was constituted.
During the course of investigation, on the basis of oral, circumstantial and technical evidences, number of suspects were rounded up. During questioning, two suspects identified as Suhaib Reyaz son of Reyaz Ahmad Mir and Anayat Ullah Iqbal son of Mohmmad Iqbal Wani, both residents of Saidapora Payeen admitted their involvement in the terror attack. It also came to fore that duo were working as hybrid terrorists of proscribed terror outfit TRF.
On their disclosure, the weapon of offence viz a pistol along with its magazine and five pistol rounds besides, an IED has been recovered by a joint party of Police and 44RR in the orchards of village Saidapora Payeen Shopian.
Further investigation of the case is still going on.
A master craftsman died within months after a British organisation was awarded for the intricate design he displayed at an exhibition. Years later, his elder brother decided to pick the complicated art of his brother and finished the job six years later. The very expensive shawl, however, is not on sale and is being retained by the family as an emotional and artistic reunion of the two brothers, reportsBilal Bahadur andMasarat Nabi
Kashmir’s shawl weaving is acknowledged globally. However, certain anecdotes revolving around some of the very special shawls are not in public knowledge. These stories could be as true with the shawls carrying the map of Srinagar city as it is true with certain complicated designs that were associated with certain master artisans. Recently, one such shawl made news for an interesting development.
An artisan known for his intricate design work died within months after he started working on a pattern and it was approved by a buyer for its intricate and very expensive design. He left the shawl half-finished as the death does not keep a calendar, unlike a work schedule. For a long time, nobody could touch the shawl. Finally, the family decided that they need to pick up the threads and complete it. It took years and last month the shawl was completed.
This is the story revolving around Shabir Ali Beigh, a master artisan known for his intricate patterns. In his lifetime, he made his presence felt within and outside Kashmir. He bagged all the awards at the state and national levels. Besides, he received the best of the best award at The Art in Action Award from Oxford University Press in 2007.
“His work was recognised by this award, in a competition where more than 3500 artisans from around the world had come to demonstrate their works,” his brother Mehboob Ali said. “Shabir Ali got the first prize for his Kani Sozni work.”
Within a few months after his return from London, Shabir Ali died. This left his work unfinished.
“One day, I received a call from the Arts and Action Museum asking for the shawl position, and I told them Shabir Ali was no longer alive,” Mehboob said with moist eyes. “They wanted me to give them the shawl cutting and his needle so that they could preserve it in their museum. I suggested they recognise my brother’s work and put his name and state on the (unfinished) shawl, but they didn’t agree. I refused to give them the unfinished work.”
It was after this acrimonious conversation with the British museum that Mehoob’s family decided to complete the unfinished work and make the award-winning design a complete story. It proved to be a challenging task.
“At first, I was unable to understand how my brother had worked on that shawl, but I did not give up,” Mehboob said. “It took me almost a year to understand how he had used the thread in designing the intricate pattern, and when I finally finished the shawl, I felt a great sense of accomplishment.”
Mehboob said it took him around 6 years to complete the shawl. “This was a huge work and this helped me understand the intricacies involved in the craft.”
This intricate and complicated-pattern Kashmir Shawl is an interesting masterpiece. Its design work won Kashmir Sozni artisan, Shabir Ali a major British competition and the product was supposed to go to the British museum. He had barely started to work on it when Shabir died leaving it unfinished. It was his elder brother, Mehboob Ali who put in his hard work and completed the work in six years. Once the wonder was ready, the family decided against selling it to the British Museum as they decided to retain it as a souvenir at home. KL Image: Bilal Bahadur
The Father
Now Mehboob is an extraordinary artisan. Living in Srinagar’s Zadibal, he speaks proudly of his craft and the inheritance of knowledge. He is a proud third-generation artisan.
His father, Ali Mohammad Beigh specialised in weaving pashmina shawls and mastered the art of sozni. This led him to get a number of honours. In 2006, he received the Shilp Guru Award for his work on ten samples of shawls. Conferred upon master craftspersons in recognition of their excellent craftsmanship, product excellence, and their roles as gurus in the continuance of crafts to other trainee artisans as a vital part of the traditional heritage of India, Shilp Guru Awards was given to him by Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar in 2002. Given as part of the Golden Jubilee of the resurgence of handicrafts in India, the award carried a gold coin, Rs 2 lakh prize money, a tamrapatra, a shawl, and a certificate. A respected artisan, he won the state award in 1984 and the national award in 1992.
The Sons
While mastering the art, Ali Mohammad passed down his knowledge to his two sons, Mehboob Ali and Shabir Ali. They improved upon the knowledge and experience they inherited and also aged all the awards.
Mehboob, for instance, received three state awards in 1987, 1988, and 1989. In 1996, he got national awards for his work on a Jamawar shawl and another national award for Sozni in 1997.
Working diligently, Mehboob has achieved a level of mastery and is being considered matchless among his peers. “We are illiterate, but this art has given us everything – pride, dignity, and a sense of accomplishment,” Mehboob said. “Our work keeps us so engrossed and busy that we don’t get time to think about other things.”
Apart from finishing a challenging work that his brother left unfinished, Mehbooba has his own anecdotes. “The index finger of my left hand has a visible mark developed by needle pricks while embellishing the shawls,” he said. “This is the occupational hazard so no regrets.”
Beighs have dedicated their entire life to Sozni embroidery. That is why, despite Shabir Ali’s absence, Mehboob’s passion and commitment to this craft never fade; they are not just working to earn a living but also working to keep the craft alive and vibrant. This art form has given them a sense of purpose and a source of pride. Mehboob hopes to pass down the knowledge to the next generation, almost following in the footsteps of his father.
By the way, Mehboob has decided not to give the Shawl to the British museum. He intends to retain it as the memory of his brother and not sell it. He said he is getting buyers for the product but will not sell it. Money apart, it is an emotional product that links him with his dead brother.
A Regret
Shabir left two sons behind – the elder one is a seventh-class student and the younger one is in the third primary. Mehboob is taking care of his brother’s family. He regrets that the system is cruel and inhuman. “If a government employee passes away, he still gets some kind of help,” Mehboob said. “What about us? We may not require financial help but at least somebody could have come to condole the death, a loss that was primarily ours but the art belonged to all of us and we had lost a major artisan.”
Mehboob Ali Beigh is a master Sozani artisan. He works on complicated designs and works with 300 artisans within and outside Srinagar. However, he sees the unfished work of his late brother, Shabir Ali as a perfect masterpiece. KL Image: Bilal Bahadur
Mehboob regrets that the system is not sympathetic towards the artisan community. “Nobody looked towards the handicrafts during the two years of Covid19. It is my God that kept the families intact,” Mehboob said. “When the sales fell flat, we devised products for local consumption involving bag sewing and papier machie boxing for the weddings and that is how we could survive those two years for the meals.”
New Trend
The Covid19, he said, despite being trying proved a blessing in disguise. “After a very long time, the local market revived and now people are acquiring the Pashmina and Jamawar shawls the same way they acquire gold. This is a new trend that is on the surge. This trend is now a major source of income to the handicraft artisans,” Mehboob said. “People find the value of precious shawls almost like gold.”
Mehboob said he has been telling his family clients that he is willing to acquire all the kani shawls and Jamawal shawls at a cost higher than they paid when they bought them 20 or 30 years ago. “If somebody had purchased a shawl for Rs 50,000 from us, say 30 years ago, used it for all these years, I am willing to pay more to get it back,” Mehboob said, insisting he purchased a few. “This has led people to make comparisons between a Kani or a Jamawar shawl with the gold. People purchase gold and when they require money, they sell it but the buyer deducts some money. In the case of shawls – as long as they do not have damage, I do not deduct anything and instead, I pay more.”
Mehboob said he works with more than 300 artisans within and outside Srinagar and almost 25-30 artisans come to his workshop and work there in the daytime. “We are in Sozni and we work on any kind of material – sarees, pashmina, semi-pashmina, pherans and crewel and this is helping us keep our worker network busy, Mehbbob said. “The stress is there in the market but we are finding ways and eams to keep the workforce engaged.” He, however, asserted that the surge in the local market, especially during the wedding season, has emerged as a major support base for the artisans.
Content with the work he is doing, Mehboob said the new generation in the family is studying but it is unlikely that they will desert the sector. “Our children study, and get degrees but come back to the craft that we have inherited,” Mehoob said. “This is a craft that has been given to us by spiritual personalities and that is how we make best of the life even in challenging situations. We will live by the needlework, come what may.”
Historically, the women in Kashmir have remained empowered enough to be part of every sphere of life. Though they have traditionally picked a set of jobs as their careers in education, governance, business and medical science to suit their homemaking role, some of them have opted for challenging careers. Humaira Nabi talks to a number of Kashmir women scientists detailing their journeys in the challenging field and their core research focus
A group of Kashmir women scientists (L to R) Zahida Qamri, Beenish Rufai, Manejah Yaroob, Humaira Gowhar, Samina Raja and Nasheeman Ashraf. KL Graphics
In Kashmir, throughout history, women have remained equal partners in life. It was the partnership between the men and women that made Cashmere Shawls dictate the fashion trends on Paris streets even when they hardly had enough to manage their meals. Two centuries later, half of the doctors in Kashmir are women. They are part of every field of life and, off late, they are academically performing better than men at all levels. So, how could they not be in science?
Though women have routinely chosen particular areas as their careers, there are dozens of Kashmiri women who have opted to be scientists, comparatively a challenging area. Some of them have impressive research to their credit and a few have actually pioneered newer systems and protocols to understand the complexity and diversity of life. Most of these scientists are serving offshore laboratories. Their journeys were interesting and belonged to the era when the infrastructure, back home, was not adequate enough to encourage their return. Most of them did research in these institutions and settled there. However, a few younger ones in recent years availed new openings to return home and serve Jammu and Kashmir.
The trend has only started and is expected to improve in the near future.
The Saffron Scientist
Kashmir has remained home to the world’s costliest spice for many millennia. Though there were efforts to study it scientifically and certain things were better understood. However, the spice waited for Srinagar scientist, Dr Nasheeman Ashraf to study it at the genetic level.
Nasheeman’s interest in Kashmir’s agriculture developed with her graduation when she studied at SKAUST-K’s Wadura campus in Sopore. With an All India Ranking (AIR) of 25, she passed the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) postgraduate admission examination and joined GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Uttarakhand for a master’s in Biochemistry. She did her doctorate from The National Institute of Plant Genome Research, Delhi.
“It took me six years to complete my PhD. My research was based on chickpea, where I studied Fusarium wilt- a widespread plant disease that impacts its yield,” Nasheeman said.“I along with my fellow researchers developed transcript profiling of susceptible and resistant genotypes during chickpea-Fusarium interaction.”
This study led to the identification of a set of differentially expressed genes among which some were common to both genotypes while a subset of genes was specific to either of the genotype. “This helped us plan a strategy to develop the resistant cultivars,” she said.
Within a month after defending her PhD, Nasheman was offered a principal scientist position at the Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (IIIM), an institution tasked to discover new drugs and therapeutic approaches from natural products. She picked Crocus sativus, the Kashmir saffron. The choice was dictated by her urge to work on something that finds utility back home.
“The desiccated stigma of Crocus sativus forms the saffron, however, in some species of the plant, many other parts of the flower also form saffron,” Nasheeman said. “So, I tried to study the regulatory pathways of Crocus which enable these varieties to form saffron in the stigma and in petals as well.”
She started working on developing a transcriptome map for Crocus, which was used for the identification of genes involved in the regulation of this process. This helped her understand that Corcuspathways can be manipulated to develop the required components in other parts of the plant as well, which can increase the biomass produced. Normally, one kilogram of saffron demands the cultivation of 25o thousand blossoms. If the manipulation at the genetic level becomes a success, it can improve the yield, manage the demand-supply chain better and have better returns for the grower.
As an acknowledgement of her research, Nasheemanwas awarded with CSIR Raman Research Fellowship in 2016, which enabled her to work as a visiting scientist at the University of Kentucky, USA followed by an EMBO short-term fellowship to work in Spain.
“In Spain, they were already working on Saffron. It helped me to incorporate their expertise in my research and I got to study some of the plant samples, which produce saffron in petals as well,” Dr Nashman said.
Currently exploring non-traditional areas having the potential for saffron production, Dr Nasheeman asserts that all Kashmir districts can produce saffron. “Last year, I distributed saffron bulbs among a group of my students belonging to various districts for cultivation. We covered all the 10 districts and found that it grew everywhere,” she said. “The findings of the study will determine whether any other areas of Kashmir have the potential for saffron cultivation.”
Apart from starting her laboratory literally from the scratch and making it big, Nasheeman, now a principal scientist, has pioneered developing a gene database of Saffron which consisted of around 64000 genes. After she published the data, many offshore laboratories picked the thread and are following it up.
Planning For World
From Gagribal in Srinagar to the United States and then devising urban planning systems that interested a key UN agency, it has been a fulfilling journey for Dr Samina Raja. Trained as a civil engineer from Jamia Millia Islamia, Dr Samina Raja had a predicament that while she was being trained to build she was not trained to think. With apprehensions about the impact of building on human health, Dr Samina saw challenges on a bigger scale and decided to pursue her Master’s in Planning, with a focus on housing, from the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi. Later, she opted for a PhD programme in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Prof Samina Raja heads the Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities laboratory in the University of Buffalo, New York. Photograph by Alexender J Becker
“I remember the first lecture I attended during my PhD programme being about ethics, which, despite being an important aspect in all fields, is not widely discussed in developing countries,” Dr Raja said. “It focused on the fundamental concerns of why and for whom we are building while planning. It was a pivotal lecture. So, my PhD ended up being about land development and layered on to that was public finance. I studied the impact of land development decisions and buildings on human health and future generations.”
Subsequently, Samina Raja focused her training with economists and urban planners on what happens to local government’s public finances and taxes in the United States when an urban planner develops land for construction.
“There is a concept of the highest and best use of land in urban planning. It is also used sometimes in Kashmir and in South Asia. So, there is a heuristic notion that if, for example, farmland is converted into a building, we conceive that to be the best use of the land,” Dr Raja said. “I actually measured whether that was accurate. There is a widespread global method that teaches urban planners how to judge whether land development is good or bad. I tested the accuracy of the methods and discovered that the methods that planners use are flawed. It led me to my judgment that some ways an urban planner plans can be hurtful to the general public. To simplify, if you see a patch of farmland converted into a mansion and you think it’s a sign of progress, it turns out that it’s not, it’s complicated.”
Dr Raja’s PhD raised more questions than it offered answers for herself and many others. The key question her dissertation raised was about the general understanding of the appropriate use of land. That research forced her to reimagine how to plan and set her on a trajectory to develop tools and resources for healthy city planning.
“I ended up contributing to the newly emerging field of food systems planning. My research lab was the first one in the world that uses urban planning to improve food systems,” Dr Samina Raja, who now wears many hats said. Now Prof Raja is an Associate Dean and Director of the Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab, which operates within the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of Buffalo. “So, I was able to take my learning from the dissertation and apply it in one particular way to develop the lab, work with city governments, develop technical assistance models and train students. So, I think the impact of that dissertation is translated into the real world today in unexpected ways.”
In 2014, Dr Samina Raja along with her team conducted a national survey of urban planners in the United States. With 40,000 local governments across the United States, her team reached out to them about the impact of urban planning on human health and food and found that only one per cent of local governments were focused on the impact of their planning decisions on food systems. Dr Raja took note of the situation and along with her team pushed for a change to help urban planners in the United States to impetus their planning techniques.
“There is an association called the American Planning Association, which is the largest professional association of urban planners. In 2008, they published Planners Guide to Community and Regional Food Systems, the first advisory report on the topic for American planners. It was written by me and my colleagues and that was one of the contributions of our lab. Our lab trains local governments across the United States about the impact of a comprehensive plan, Master Plan as it is called in Kashmir, on human health. Similarly, I led the development of a report for the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) on the impact of urban planning on food and health. Our team with the help of GIS and other technologies monitors the impact of urban planning on human health,” Dr Samina Raja said.
She is now dividing her time between teaching, supervising research, and advising civic organizations, local governments and national and global agencies. She has many researchers from Kashmir on her team, and her laboratory is already working with various scientists in Kashmir.
A Caset Scientist
Keen to talk hard science into Kashmiri, Dr Humaira Gowher is a Srinagar-born biochemist who is an Associate Professor at Purdue University and an Adjunct faculty at the University of Kashmir-run Centre for Interdisciplinary Research and Innovation (CIRI). She is studying the regulation of DNA methylation in development and disease in her high-end laboratory.
Having persuaded her early education at Caset Experimental School, Karanagar, Humaira considers herself being lucky to have grown up in a school which had the word ‘experiment’ associated with it. “Prof Chuni Lal Vishen, chairman of Caset Experimental School was way ahead of his time. He was a Princeton returnee, and had a vision of imparting education which was prevalent in the west but was not much appreciated here,” HUmaira said. “I believe that a fair share of my inherent knowledge has come from the school, and I’m very thankful to him for that.”
Being fond of biochemistry from an early age, Humaira joined the Aligarh Muslim University, then the only institute offering the course. “I completed my bachelor’ and subsequently my master’s in Biochemistry from the AMU. During the course of my studies, I developed an inclination for research. I was fortunate enough to be a part of experimental research as a summer trainee for a couple of months in Dr SE Hasnein’s lab at the National Institute of Immunology, Delhi, which instilled a love for the subject and associated research.”
After qualifying GATE examination, with a very high percentile, Humaira applied for the Indian Institute of Science and topped the biochemistry department. This made her the first Kashmiri woman to enrol at the institute. After spending two years at ISC, she left the programme and flew to Germany with her engineer husband. There, she continued her PhD at Justus Liebig University.
Having picked her research skills in India, she completed her PhD in 30 months. Her PhD revealed that the short catalytic domain of the mammalian DNA methyltransferases Dnmt3a and 3b are active without their large N-terminal part, which led to characterization, crystallization, and those enzymes in multiple labs around the world. There, she published seven first-author research papers. She was awarded Summa cum laude, an honorary title used by educational institutions to signify a degree that was earned “with the highest distinction”.
“I received a lot of offers from UK and US, but I chose United States because I felt it to be more inclusive unlike Europe,” Humaira said. “I joined one of the pioneers in the field of chromatin Biology named Gary Fasenfeld, who is a student of the legendary Linus Pauling. I had the privilege of working in his lab for eight years and the experience was outstanding. While I learned science and associated things, the best thing about working with Gary Fasenfeld was that I learned how to be humble. Working with someone, who has produced around eight Nobel laureates, you don’t expect him to be that humble but he is.”
With a vision of working independently and owing a lab, Humaira after her postdoc, was appointed as an Assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry at Purdue University. During the course, she has established her own laboratory and is working independently.
Perfecting A Vaccine
A Ramanujan fellow and previously a Senior Resident at AIIMS Bhopal, Dr Beenish Rufai is a young Kashmiri scientist who did the genome-sequencing of all the tuberculosis strains inflicting India and for the first time created the circular reference genome of the pathogen Myobacteriumorygis. Student of Kothibagh Higher Secondary School, Beenish chose Microbiology as a major during her graduation and post-grad studies in Dehradun. “I chose microbiology because I was always fascinated by the microbes,” Beenish said. “I loved to see these tiny creatures under the microscope who happen to be a cause of much of the disturbance in the world.”
At AIIMS in Delhi where she did her PhD, she joined the clinical microbiology division under Dr Sarmand Singh. For more than a year, she studied various aspects of microbiology. It included studying all the seven strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis that have come up right during the course of its evolution.
“I studied these lineages with the basic goals of analysing how they spread in India, how they are evolving, and why there is such a high prevalence of drug resistance in India,” she said. “We found 52 per cent of patients infected by Beijing lineage prone to drug resistance.”
The study revealed every stain of Mycobacterium tuberculosis has occupied specific geography. In North India, they found a Central Asian strain of Mycobacterium Tuberculosisis. In South India East African lineage of the disease dominates. The Beijing lineage was in the North Eastern region because of its Chinese origin but during the epidemiological transmission survey, it was found that these strains are circulating all over India.
“We found North Eastern part more TB drug resistance and more vulnerable to the disease,” Beenish said. “It was at that time we did comparative genomics-aligning the genome of all the strains of TB and studied their commonalities. We found that a particular gene known as CRISPR, which is known to provide some adaptive immunity to the bacterial cell is deleted in Beijing strain.”
Later, she went for postdoctoral training at McGill University in Canada, where she researched Mycobacterium Bovis. Mycobacterium Bovis is a zoonotic disease which spreads from infected animals to humans. This settled a myth forever. Earlier, it was presumed that in India people get infected by TB transmitted from animals but it was not. “In microbiology, there is a strain, known as a reference strain, which is defined as any microorganism acquired from a recognized culture collection,” Beenish explained. “It is the standard that allows it to be compared to other strains. We didn’t have any reference strain of Mycobacterium orygis so I had to develop a circular reference Mycobacterium orygis so that we could distinguish a suspected sample of Mycobacterium orygis from other strains. I got successful and developed the first circular reference genome of Mycobacterium orygis.”
It was later that Beenish started probing the TB vaccine in vogue and came to the conclusion that humanity lacks an effective TB vaccine. Discovered in 1921, the BCG vaccine was the outcome of science when the genetic architecture of the strains wasn’t fully understood. With evolving strains and increased drug resistance, the efficiency of the BCG strain to provoke our immune system and give protection against TB has also rained down.
It was this project that brought her back home to work at IIIM in Srinagar where she had to establish her laboratory from a scratch, almost following Nasheeman. She is working on techniques that can improve the efficacy of the BCG vaccine. “I work on membrane vesicles of TB that are released from the bacteria inside the host body,” explained Beenish. “These vesicles are already known to have a role in immune invoke evasion. I thought to engineer the BCG strain. If there are some vesicles that are actually helping our immune system in a positive manner against infection, so we can engineer this BCG strain so that they release these vesicles. I aim is to work on the BCG strain to engineer it with such genes that aid in the secretion of these vesicles thus enhancing the efficacy of the strain.”
Dr ZahidaQamri
For Zahida Qamri, it was a quantum jump when she convinced her family that she must move out and study. This led her to get admission to Jamia Hamdard. Fighting weather and managing the cosmopolitan culture, Zahida did her master’s and a PhD in biochemistry.
Her research work was around diarrhoea, one of the major health problems in children under one year of age. In certain cases, it could prove fatal. “During my doctoral programme, I examined the stool of the children and developed DNA fingerprinting of the bacteria I found,” Zahida said. “The purpose of my study was to identify and characterize the bacterial strains which cause diarrhoea in infants, by using various techniques. I also studied drug resistance among diarrhoea-causing bacteria.”
During her post-doctoral programme in microbiology, Zahida developed an interest in oncology. She was selected to Safdarjung Hospital, Delhi as a research scientist, where she worked on breast cancer. “During our research, we hoped to identify a cancer-causing gene in the North Indian population. If we locate that gene in any person during genome sequencing, we can inform them about their propensity for cancer.”
At that time, there was a job opening at Harvard Medical School for breast cancer and she applied for a post-doc. “ I had studied breast cancer at Safdarjung Hospital; I incorporated brain and lung cancer in the study during my postdoc at Harvard. It was a great opportunity. I started drawing experiments and writing grants independently,” Zahida remembers.
After spending 30 months at Harvard Medical School, she moved to Ohio State University where she worked for 12 years. Later grants dried up. Then, she did a master’s degree in clinical and pre-clinical research from the same university. “The programme helped me get into a new field of managing clinical research and the impact of our work that we do in labs, on common people,” Zahida said. Clinical trials, she said, is a new and emerging discipline. “For better management, Western countries are outsourcing the field. To enter the field, you do not require a specialist degree. You may even participate from home, thus the current work-from-home culture made forth by the pandemic is a bonus. Internet access and electricity are two fundamental requirements in this field.”
Now, she spends her time with JK Scientists, a Srinagar-based network of scientists who identify and guide new talent.
Medical Innovation
Married to a networking engineer from Silicon Valley, Dr Manijha Yaqoob was a successful medical professional from SKIMS, Soura, when destiny subjected gave her an opportunity to get into the technology side of health care in San Francisco after marriage. She is into medical innovation. “While I enjoyed medical practice, I decided to take leverage of the immense technology that I was surrounded with,” Dr Manijha said.
Currently serving as a Physician Scientist at Roche USA, Manijha for the last 18 years has been working with various companies including Abbott Vascular, Medtronic Neurovascular and many others. Apart from working on various drugs and medical devices, her most remarkable work includes a drug-eluting coronary stent called XIENCE V. Whereas coronary stent, made of plain metal, was invented long back, XIENCE V decreased its risk reduction which included restenosis, a stage when an artery previously opened with a stent or angioplasty becomes narrowed again. Besides, she has also been a part of the team whose innovation helped retrieve clots from stroke patients’ brains.
Stressing upon the importance of health technology, Manijha believes that medical students must not shy away from choosing an interdisciplinary medical profession if they have a bent on technology. “I have trained medical professionals across the world,” Manija said. “Doctors have a major role to play in innovating products and devices, by giving a medical perspective thereby proposing inventions with better efficacy. Doctors must not stick to writing a prescription, they must broaden their vision.”
(This report is merely a start to showcasing the Kashmir women in science. More is in pipeline.)
