KASHMIR IS SAFE❣️

We embarked on our All India Travel journey focused on "Enhancing Dental and Fitness Health in India" on June 14, 2023. We thought of starting it from Jammu & Kashmir, but ultimately, it was a decision driven by instinct, The experience underscored the unpredictable nature of our endeavor—it wasn't necessarily easy, yet not overly difficult either, travelling through Jammu & Kashmir, all we could see were soldiers armed with large guns including the traffic police. That initially caught our attention, but soon it became a familiar sight, as it's a common occurrence throughout Kashmir. As part of our mission, we began reaching out to schools, NGOs, and the community to organize complimentary sessions on Dental Health and Fitness awareness. In Kashmir, everything initially feels like a tough job due to security reasons, but the Kashmiri people are gem, they helped us a lot during our volunteer work in Kashmir.

There were some questions asked by the Kashmiri people which lingered in our minds. However, with time, we came to understand the significance of these questions to them.

HOW IS KASHMIR?

IS KASHMIR SAFE?

DO YOU LIKE KASHMIR?

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT KASHMIR? (AS MEDIA POINT OF VIEW, NEWS ETC)

These were some questions they kept asking whomever we met and talked about. The same questions were everywhere.

For us we felt home in Kashmir, actually, these questions deeply impacted us because they were suffering from of social media chaos, political as well as people's point of views towards them. They kept asking those questions to us because they wanted to know if our personal perspective has changed towards them or not.

Do you believe in what MEDIA shows you?

In our point of view, Kashmir is the safest place in India. Honestly, Kashmir is heaven on earth but I would say the people in Kashmir made it heaven on earth. We Stayed with a stranger whom we just met 5 minutes ago who became part of our family and made us their family, and their hospitality is more than we could have ever imagined, We were with four different Muslim families, where they made us feel like we belonged among them. We are so grateful to them till date because we never felt so safe and belonging like home anywhere. That's why we said the people of Kashmir made Kashmir heaven on earth. During our time in Kashmir everything went smoothly, we got lot of help from local people as well as the school representative.

My personal perspective is that Kashmiri people are next level in showing hospitality we won't find elsewhere, we hitchhiked throughout Kashmir, and lots of people helped us by giving lifts. Actually, an incident happened when we were taking a lift to Anantnag, standing side of the road, people asked ''why are you people standing here?'', you won't get a lift and all, because today is Eid and all are going to their home. One of them tried to give us money so that we get a vehicle to reach Anantnag.

Then this happened a Father and son were walking towards us and asked what we were doing, we explained why we were there and the purpose of traveling, then he invited us to his home for chai and there we met his father and family they were so nice and well-behaved people. We talked a lot and at last, they invited us to stay a night there. It was truly surprising and heartwarming that they welcomed us into their home from the road side with such kindness. That's why Kashmir is heaven on earth.