CULTURE: THAT KASHMIRI FEELING
Agar firdaus bar roo-i-zameen ast,
Hameen ast o hameen ast o hameen ast
(If there is a paradise on earth,
It is this, it is this, it is this)
This is what Amir Khusro, a great Sufi musician, poet and scholar once said about Kashmir. Famous for its breathtaking greenery and snow-covered peaks, Kashmir has a rich culture and crafts tradition. One of the most integral parts of Kashmiri cultural identity — such as Koshur (the local language), Wazwan, shikaras, houseboats, Noon Chai, kangri — is the pheran.
Stroll around the Kashmir Valley and you’ll spot people wearing this ankle-length or knee-length dress, either holding kangris (10-inch tall earthen pots filled with glowing charcoal and encased in handmade wicker baskets) in their laps or tucked inside their dress to keep warm. This traditional outfit is widely worn by men, women and children irrespective of class and religion in the valley. There’s a good reason behind its popularity — the combination of pheran and kangri, after all, is a perfect way to survive Kashmir’s freezing six-month long winter.
Every year, almost every Kashmiri makes it a point to get a fresh pheran made. A pheran requires at least two to three metres of thick wool fabric and the average cost is 400 Indian rupees (700 Pak rupees) per metre. Given the population of the Kashmir Valley, it means locals annually use two million metres of fabric on Paet pherans and spend eight billion Indian rupees (almost 14 billion Pak rupees) on them.
What the Pheran really means to Kashmiris
Unfortunately, despite such an economic benefit, not a single metre of wool or cotton is produced or manufactured locally in the valley. Every single metre, along with the thread used for stitching, is imported from the Indian Punjab, Delhi and Mahrashtra. There has not been a serious initiative on the part of the local government to set up local factories for this purpose, neither have the people themselves picked up such entrepreneurship with the ethos of political uncertainty they exist in.