Srinagar, Sep 07: Before Kashmir became a troubled headline and its cinema halls fell silent, the Valley had another identity etched deeply into popular imagination—it was Bollywood’s favourite outdoor studio.
The mountains, Dal Lake, houseboats and winding roads of Kashmir were once familiar territory for film crews. Bollywood stars arrived in numbers, stayed in houseboats, travelled in shikaras and drew crowds wherever they went.
Now, as the inaugural International Film Festival of Jammu & Kashmir (IFFJK) brings filmmakers and cinema personalities back to Srinagar, those memories are resurfacing along the banks of Dal Lake.
For 70-year-old Wali Muhammad, president of the Shikara Owners Association, the festival feels like more than a celebration of films. It reminds him of a time when Kashmir and Bollywood were almost inseparable.
“I have seen those days. Bollywood stars would flock to Kashmir. The whole atmosphere would change whenever a film was being shot here,” Muhammad recalls.
He believes the International Film Festival could signal the beginning of another chapter for Kashmir’s relationship with cinema.
“This film festival seems like a new beginning. Perhaps Kashmir is once again finding its way back on the film screen,” he says.
For people like Muhammad, the memories are not stored in old photographs alone. They live in the waters of Dal Lake, in the shikaras that carried actors and film crews, and in the houseboats where some of Hindi cinema’s biggest stars once stayed.
Ghulam Ahmad Patloo, an elderly shikara owner on Dal Lake, has his own cinematic memory etched into the history of the place.
He vividly recalls the shooting of the iconic Bollywood film Kashmir Ki Kali and claims that one of its sequences was filmed on his shikara.
For Patloo, cinema was once a familiar presence on the lake. He also remembers legendary actors Shammi Kapoor and Shashi Kapoor staying in houseboats during their visits to Kashmir, when the arrival of a film crew was itself an event for local residents.
Those were the days when the presence of a Bollywood star could turn an ordinary corner of Srinagar into a spectacle.
The lake would become a natural film set. Shikaras would carry actors across its waters, cameras would capture the surrounding mountains and houseboats, and curious crowds would gather to catch a glimpse of their favourite stars.
The relationship between Kashmir and cinema extended well beyond film shoots.
Before the 1990s, cinema halls across the Valley were an important part of everyday urban life. Films drew huge crowds, particularly when popular Bollywood releases arrived. For many families and youngsters, going to the cinema was not merely entertainment—it was a social experience.
Theatres would witness long queues and packed houses, with audiences eagerly waiting for the latest releases and stars.
Then came the upheaval of the 1990s, and the rhythm of that cinematic life was abruptly broken.
Cinema halls shut, film shoots disappeared and the relationship between Kashmir and mainstream cinema entered a long period of uncertainty.
Decades later, the International Film Festival of Jammu & Kashmir has once again put Srinagar under the cinematic spotlight.
But for the elderly residents who remember the Valley’s earlier film era, the significance goes deeper than screenings and red carpets.
They remember a Kashmir where cinema was part of the landscape—and where the landscape itself helped define Indian cinema.
As IFFJK brings filmmakers and film lovers to the Valley, those memories are beginning to feel less like nostalgia and more like a possibility.
Perhaps, after decades away, Kashmir is preparing to become a film destination once again—not simply as a picturesque location, but as a place where filmmakers arrive, stories are created and audiences once again gather around cinema.
For the old men watching the shikaras glide across Dal Lake, it is a familiar scene with a new meaning.
The cameras may be returning.
And with them, perhaps, a little of the old Kashmir.
