SRINAGAR: Government Arts Emporium Srinagar hosted an exhibition of artwork produced by engineers Iftikhar Wani and Shazia Basharat. Divisional Commissioner Kashmir, Vijay Kumar Bidhuri inaugurated the two-day painting exhibition.
Shazia Basharat, an engineer by profession, discovered her love for art during the lockdown period. This being her first exhibition, she looks forward to the journey ahead. ‘Art has changed my outlook on life and brought immense peace to me. Just like in art, sometimes in life things do not turn out exactly how we had imagined but just some touches can make it look better. I learnt from painting that there is always time to change, just that it should come from within you,’ said Shazia. Some of her paintings explored the beauty of nature, including ‘Aatish-e-Chinar,’ which depicts the beauty of the Autumn season, and ‘Beginnings,’ which depicts the beauty of the early bloom of almond flowers in Spring.
Although there is a diversity in her artworks, two of Shazia’s paintings showcased Sufi whirling dervishes. “In my understanding, these artists who whirl around at some point find that everything is blur around them, and when these worldly things become a blur for them, that is when they connect to God. They even try to dance on their toes as if disconnected from the worldly affairs,” said Shazia.
Iftekhar Ahmad Wani, on the other hand, is a self-taught artist who worked as a marketing manager and industrial marketing expert in Saudi Arabia. He started painting in 2012 and feels that art comes naturally to him. He mainly uses Kashmir as his inspiration for his paintings. One of his paintings shows the mesmerizing beauty of Khanqah-e-Moula. ‘My father was an engineer by profession, and he used to take me to Khanqah as a kid. After he passed away, I started painting those places. It is challenging to paint Shehr e Khas, but there is a poetic atmosphere to Kashmir” said Iftekhar.
Dr Jahangeer Aslam Makhdoomi, who is an Oncologist and an Artist, said, ‘I am happy to see that people are coming with their work. I hope this creates a chain reaction and encourages others as well, especially the youth. The paintings of Iftekhar Wani took me back to my native place, Downtown, and refreshed my memories.’
One of the onlookers named Unis Saleem commented, ‘Each painting seems to be telling a story. For a person like me who always dwells in paintings, visiting this exhibition has been a piece of solace as well as a thought-provoking experience.’
Another onlooker, Rukhsaar Manzoor, said, ‘These paintings bring out a feeling of home in me. For all of us, Kashmir is home.”
Wartav takes two shapes in the Kashmiri community: cash and kind. It can be either or both on given occasions depending upon the proximity and mutuality among the relations.
Wartav in Kashmiri connotes two different meanings operating in two different contexts. In one context, it is used as a verb and in another context, it is a noun.
As a verb, Wartav indicates a behaviour, conduct, how one conducts oneself, acts in a given task or assignment or manages an arrangement or how one deals with or treats others through one’s conduct and behaviour. It is more than equal to Urdu and Hindi word Bartav which means one’s salook with others. You can capture so many sentences in your mind of the verbal use of Wartav. To exemplify, one should always Rut Wartawun with all; it depends upon the host how he will distribute the goodies Chiz Wartavin at the marriage of his son and so on.
As a noun, Wartav is a socio-cultural custom of giving presents to each other on auspicious occasions of weddings Khandar, betrothals and engagements[ Nikkah Nishani, laying of foundation-stone of new house Ka’in Di’un, job-appointments Nokri Lagun, exam-passing matric, graduation or another exam/imtihan pass Karun, entering a new house Navis Makanas Manz Achun, setting up some business Kahn Business Shore Karinand such like.
Wartav takes two shapes in the Kashmiri community: cash and kind. It can be either or both on given occasions depending upon the proximity and mutuality among the relations. Under Shariah Law, it is called Hibba Bil Iwaz, a returnable gift. The basic purpose of making Wartav right from the olden days, which used to be invariably in cash, was mutual funding. To help out each other financially, the host who had to incur a lot of expenditure on arrangements for the wedding of his son and daughter was financially helped by cash-wartav.
The said purpose of Wartav has not diminished from the Kashmiri society but with the passage of time, it has taken new shapes under new traditions, more of a farce competition among show-offs or neo-rich in recent times with respect to the traditional concept of Wartav in the society. To iterate, people do give Wartav on weddings and other auspicious occasions to each other both in cash and in kind. The amount of money in cash Wartav is determined by the factors like the economic status and mutuality of Hi’uin Du’iun in their relations, friendships and other acquaintances. I have been told that in rural Kashmir Wartav is identified with the term Hi’uin Du’iun which is near to the meaning of Hiba Bil Iwaz.
The kind Wartav comes in the shape of gold ornaments, called Sone Vas, of gold-pound, gold coins, rings, chain pendulums, earrings, bangles, bracelets, tie-pin and buttons, for the bride and the bridegroom. Iterating, it is returnable gifts mostly with additions to the original under social traditions.
Wartav in Kashmir is also called Guli-Myiuth. Guli means hands, while Myiuth means kiss. Hence, it means kissing on the hands, and forearm, a gold ornament-like bracelet fastened on the forearm of a bride at a wedding by relations and other close friends.
While doing Watav, it is customary to kiss the hand or forehead of the bride or bridegroom by the wartav-giver and it appears that the term Guli Myiuth has come into use by the juxtaposition of the two terms side by side. It needs a mention here that Gui-Myuth is different from Athe-Myiuth. The latter is referred to as a lady who is very skilled in the preparation of tasty dainties and dishes and we say, she has Athe-Myuith. Guli-Myuth finds mention in some old Kashmiri marriage songs called Wanwun.
The Pohh Custom
In rural Kashmir, there was a custom of giving rice on marriage occasions as Wartav which was like a mutual-funding in a highly impoverished Kashmiri community of the olden days. This custom prima facie had roots in a Brahman tradition of Kashmiri Brahmans, Bataas, which is and was called Pohh-Bog.
MJ Aslam
From the times of spiritual transformation of the overwhelming Kashmiri community from Hinduism to Islam in the fourteenth century, several pre-Islamic traditions remained intact among the majority community. Pohh was one such tradition. Here cooked rice and fish were offered to an imaginary tutelary Devta of the house on a Tuesday or Saturday of the dark month of Pohh by Kashmiri Brahmans.
Etymologically, Pohh Rasm among rural Kashmiri Muslims had roots in Brahman Rasm of Pohh–Bog to Devis and Devtas who were considered as protectors of their households by Kashmiri Brahmans. The rural Kashmiri Muslims’ custom of Pohh was related to marriage occasions only but, obviously, like many other traditions of Musalmans of the valley, it was adopted over a period of time under the cultural influence of Brahmans.
(MJ Aslam is a published author and a columnist. Ideas are personal.)
SRINAGAR: Agreeing to the plea that a fair trial in Kashmir is challenging for him, the High Court has transferred the trial of erstwhile health minister Shabir Khan to Jammu. He has been accused of molesting a lady doctor, who happens to be the wife of a separatist politician.
“It is not in dispute that respondent No 2, (complainant) who happens to be wife of a separatist leader, wields some influence amongst certain sections of people living in the valley who subscribe to his ideology,” the transfer order issued on February 22, 2023, by the court of Mr Justice Sanjay Dhar reads. “It is a fact of common knowledge that incidents of attacks on mainstream politicians and the people who do not subscribe to the separatist’s ideology are still taking place in Kashmir Valley. Therefore, it cannot be stated that apprehension expressed by the petitioner to his life at Srinagar while facing trial before the court is unfounded.”
In his plea, Shabir Ahmad Khan, the Congress party’s minister of state for health in Jammu and Kashmir has said that his defence lawyer, Mohammad Abdullah Pandit, refused to represent him in the court after he received a threat to his life. Later, Khan stated that he approached two more lawyers – Maroof Kha and Showkat, but they refused to plead his case.
Shabir A Khan (Congress)
“It is further submitted that the atmosphere surrounding the court premises is highly surcharged and hostile and whenever, he appears before the court, slogans are being raised against him inside and outside the court premises,” the order details Khan’s plea. “It is averred that at the time when the case is being taken up for hearing, the court remains jam-packed and the petitioner apprehends grave and serious bodily attack from the crowd which gathers over there, upon the instigation of the separatists.”
The court found merit in the plea and transferred the case to a Jammu court. The transfer was directed on basis of the status of the petitioner and background of the complainant as the court observed that “it appears that fair and impartial trial of the case that has been filed against the petitioner on the basis of the complaint lodged by respondent No 2, may not be possible at Srinagar”.
The case is an older one. On basis of the complaint filed by the lady doctor, the Jammu and Kashmir Police registered a case against Khan on February 6, 2014, at Shaheed Gunj police station for offences punishable under section 354 (outraging modesty of woman) and 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the Ranbir Penal Code (RPC). Khan resigned from the ministry within days.
This also led to his resignation as health minister in Omar Abdullah government on February 7, 2014. His party had advised him to put in his papers till an inquiry will find out the details about the allegations levelled against him. Khan, then represented Rajouri in the erstwhile state assembly.
In her complaint, the lady doctor had alleged that she was repeatedly summoned by Khan’s staff to meet the minister about some announcements made by the health minister in Delhi. The complainant claimed that even though she insisted the minister must get details from senior officials, still, she was compelled to report at the minister’s office on January 28.
The woman alleged that when she reached Khan’s office at the Secretariat, he acted like a “sexual predator” and made provocative advances – both verbal and physical. Besides, the minister offered her many favours despite her resentment. Later the police registered a case on basis of the complaint.
Police investigated the case and submitted the charge sheet. Now, Khan moved the High Court and sought the case transfer to Jammu. His petition claims that he is a politician was “falsely implicated” “due to political rivalry”, in order “to tarnish his image”.
The case is listed for trial on April 12, 2023, in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate Jammu
The transfer of the case, interestingly, has off-court implications as well. “The ruling came at a time the Centre has been hard-selling an all-is-well line on Kashmir,” Kolkata-based newspaper Telegraph reported.
SRINAGAR: Modern science may take its time to establish the importance of herbal baths for postpartum women but Kashmir has used the bath for centuries is helping mothers to heal and bounce back to life. Rooted in tradition, the bath, after 40 days of the birth is a special occasion that honours a mother for giving birth to a life.
Loaseh Gasseh: The herbal mix that goes into the making of special fragrant and curative water that women use for bathing after 4 days of childbirth. KL Image by Ifra Reshi
“A mother carries her baby for nine months during which she goes through a lot of changes mentally and physically,” Raja Begum, herself a mother, said. “The bath is part of a set of practices that have passed on across generations and it helps in rejuvenation and healing.”
In Kashmiri, a postpartum lady is called Loase or Loaseh. Exactly 40 days after childbirth – normal or C-section, a mother is supposed to take a bath with Loaseh Aab (aab means water). It is a special water that is prepared by boiling Loaseh Gasseh in water for an hour or two, usually in a copper pot.
Tradition treats a mother like a patient for 40 days. She is served specially and given a lot of nutritious food. Apart from Koshur Kokur (courtyard chicken), they used to be fed with a lot of Haund (dandelion leaves), Lisseh – in certain cases, Vopul Haakh, which are vegetations having medicinal properties.
Normal practice is that the husband or her in-law brings, Peaw, a special visit to her, which brings in a lot of food items, besides clothing, warmers, beddings and – in certain cases, gold. This is seen as an occasion of celebration. Traditionally, the mother stays with her parents after the delivery. It is almost mandatory in the case of first birth unless the situation dictates otherwise.
Forty days later, the family gets ready for the bath and it changes the status of the mother. Now she can move around, go home, and get into the routine.
Almost in every society, such cultural rituals exist but in the case of Kashmir, the tradition is mixed with serious curative and healing efforts of the mother.
“It was my first experience of being honoured as a new mother,” Maroofa Majeed, a first-time mom, said. “The process was amazingly restorative and for the second time in my adulthood, I felt important and honoured – the first time was when I got married and the second time when I gave birth to the child.”
“I remember my mother being very cautious and excited about the day preparing the bath, steeping the herbs mixed with water in a big traditional copper pot and left for boiling on a traditional mud burner outside the house and then pouring into a big tub,” Nasreena Trumboo, another first-time mother, said. “She took a fistful of herbs and scrubbed and massaged my whole body for 20 minutes.”
It is just not a bath, it is literally a procedure that induces healing and rejuvenates the body.
An early twentieth century Kashmiri mother with her child
“The herbs used in the postpartum bath are part of Kashmiri folk medicines and not the Unani Tibb. It relaxes internal organs, balances the muscle tune, detoxifies and gives restoration to the body of postpartum women,” Dr Ayoub Sofi, Incharge Medical Officer Ayurveda, Yoga ad Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH) unit SMHS said. “In fact, the tourists and foreigners who come from far distances also take this medicinal herbal bath in Kashmir for relaxation and rejuvenation.”
The Loaseh Gasseh is a huge mixture of herbs, shrubs, leaves, wild fruits and roots together. These are sourced from different areas. Some of the items are cultivated in Doda, Gurez and Kishtwar areas. Many others are sourced from mainland India.
Practitioners believe a function of herbal medicines in bathing is to increase the involution of the uterus.
Sofi, however, regrets that the people bring these herbs from Bohru shops, people selling the herbs or herbalists, and take a postpartum bath at home without having proper awareness regarding the usage and benefits of all herbs. The pouch of the Loaseh Gasseh must contain a balanced mix of all the items that have been used traditionally. It includes various antiseptics and astringents that help heal and rejuvenate.
Normally, the Loaseh Gasseh has the following items:
Calendula, (Marigold, Jaffer): Anti-inflammatory properties that soothe and heal tissues.
Comfrey, (Black Wort): Heals bruises and sprains.
Sage leaves (Tej patta, Bargi Tej): Anti-inflammatory properties and also relieves muscles.
Liquorice, (Shangar): Repairs and reduces the number of bacteria on the skin.
Curuma, (laedri Gandri): An antiseptic having antioxidant properties that soothe joints.
Taraxacum, (Dandelions, hand): It has detoxifying properties, reduces scars and heals skin.
Unab, (Bray Mewi, Jujube fruit, Chinese date): Reverses the effects of ageing, has antioxidant properties, and fights and prevents cell damage.
Sapistan, (Lasora): Helps in relieving and relaxing pain.
In certain cases, even sea salt is also added to the water for its therapeutic uses.
This photograph put on social media in early 2023 shows a mother carrying her baby as the medicine drips into his veins. While it demonstrates the crisis of the public health infrastructure (it apparently taken in the casualty of a hospital in Anantnag), the photograph explains the costs that the mother pays in nurturing life.
Tradition suggests that the water needs to be boiled in a copper utensil for one to two hours and used when it is lukewarm. The boiled herbs are also used to scrub the body.
The herb collection costs not even a fraction of what eventually goes into its preparation. Normally, after the bath, women are supposed to take rest in a warm bed and have good meals. Since the water they use for bathing is aromatic, these women feel scented for many days.
In certain cases, like that of Kashmiri Pandits, the bath would be performed after 11 days only.
SRINAGAR: Modern science may take its time to establish the importance of herbal baths for postpartum women but Kashmir has used the bath for centuries is helping mothers to heal and bounce back to life. Rooted in tradition, the bath, after 40 days of the birth is a special occasion that honours a mother for giving birth to a life.
Loaseh Gasseh: The herbal mix that goes into the making of special fragrant and curative water that women use for bathing after 4 days of childbirth. KL Image
“A mother carries her baby for nine months during which she goes through a lot of changes mentally and physically,” Raja Begum, herself a mother, said. “The bath is part of a set of practices that have passed on across generations and it helps in rejuvenation and healing.”
In Kashmiri, a postpartum lady is called Loase or Loaseh. Exactly 40 days after childbirth – normal or C-section, a mother is supposed to take a bath with Loaseh Aab (aab means water). It is a special water that is prepared by boiling Loaseh Gasseh in water for an hour or two, usually in a copper pot.
Tradition treats a mother like a patient for 40 days. She is served specially and given a lot of nutritious food. Apart from Koshur Kokur (courtyard chicken), they used to be fed with a lot of Haund (dandelion leaves), Lisseh – in certain cases, Vopul Haakh, which are vegetations having medicinal properties.
Normal practice is that the husband or her in-law brings, Peaw, a special visit to her, which brings in a lot of food items, besides clothing, warmers, beddings and – in certain cases, gold. This is seen as an occasion of celebration. Traditionally, the mother stays with her parents after the delivery. It is almost mandatory in the case of first birth unless the situation dictates otherwise.
Forty days later, the family gets ready for the bath and it changes the status of the mother. Now she can move around, go home, and get into the routine.
Almost in every society, such cultural rituals exist but in the case of Kashmir, the tradition is mixed with serious curative and healing efforts of the mother.
“It was my first experience of being honoured as a new mother,” Maroofa Majeed, a first-time mom, said. “The process was amazingly restorative and for the second time in my adulthood, I felt important and honoured – the first time was when I got married and the second time when I gave birth to the child.”
“I remember my mother being very cautious and excited about the day preparing the bath, steeping the herbs mixed with water in a big traditional copper pot and left for boiling on a traditional mud burner outside the house and then pouring into a big tub,” Nasreena Trumboo, another first-time mother, said. “She took a fistful of herbs and scrubbed and massaged my whole body for 20 minutes.”
It is just not a bath, it is literally a procedure that induces healing and rejuvenates the body.
“The herbs used in the postpartum bath are part of Kashmiri folk medicines and not the Unani Tibb. It relaxes internal organs, balances the muscle tune, detoxifies and gives restoration to the body of postpartum women,” Dr Ayoub Sofi, Incharge Medical Officer Ayurveda, Yoga ad Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH) unit SMHS said. “In fact, the tourists and foreigners who come from far distances also take this medicinal herbal bath in Kashmir for relaxation and rejuvenation.”
The Loaseh Gasseh is a huge mixture of herbs, shrubs, leaves, wild fruits and roots together. These are sourced from different areas. Some of the items are cultivated in Doda, Gurez and Kishtwar areas. Many others are sourced from mainland India.
Practitioners believe a function of herbal medicines in bathing is to increase the involution of the uterus.
Sofi, however, regrets that the people bring these herbs from Bohru shops, people selling the herbs or herbalists, and take a postpartum bath at home without having proper awareness regarding the usage and benefits of all herbs. The pouch of the Loaseh Gasseh must contain a balanced mix of all the items that have been used traditionally. It includes various antiseptics and astringents that help heal and rejuvenate.
Normally, the Loaseh Gasseh has the following items:
Calendula, (Marigold, Jaffer): Anti-inflammatory properties that soothe and heal tissues.
Comfrey, (Black Wort): Heals bruises and sprains.
Sage leaves (Tej patta, Bargi Tej): Anti-inflammatory properties and also relieves muscles.
Liquorice, (Shangar): Repairs and reduces the number of bacteria on the skin.
Curuma, (laedri Gandri): An antiseptic having antioxidant properties that soothe joints.
Taraxacum, (Dandelions, hand): It has detoxifying properties, reduces scars and heals skin.
Unab, (Bray Mewi, Jujube fruit, Chinese date): Reverses the effects of ageing, has antioxidant properties, and fights and prevents cell damage.
Sapistan, (Lasora): Helps in relieving and relaxing pain.
In certain cases, even sea salt is also added to the water for its therapeutic uses.
Tradition suggests that the water needs to be boiled in a copper utensil for one to two hours and used when it is lukewarm. The boiled herbs are also used to scrub the body.
The herb collection costs not even a fraction of what eventually goes into its preparation. Normally, after the bath, women are supposed to take rest in a warm bed and have good meals. Since the water they use for bathing is aromatic, these women feel scented for many days.
In certain cases, like that of Kashmiri Pandits, the bath would be performed after 11 days only.
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.)
