Watching films in Kashmir Valley, 1960–1990: an interview with Inder Salim, artist

The ensuing conversation between internationally acclaimed Kashmiri performance artist Inder Salim and Kaushik Bhaumik presents a freewheeling autobiographical account of watching films in various cities and towns in Kashmir while growing up. Needless to say, all these films were watched in different single-screen halls – from the Nishat in Anantnag where Inder grew up to the ones he mentions in the fleshpots of Srinagar. As we read along, we palpably feel the single-screen theatres in Kashmir transform from the magic of covert youthful dalliances to sites of slogans of fighting for independence. Throughout, films in the cinema hall remain a magical Pied Piper serenading various generations of Kashmiri youth to various romantic ends. Inder’s account forces us to ask What kind of performative freedoms were afforded by that ‘old place’ – the single-screen theatre, and what did the ‘singleness’ of the screen/theatre have to do with those kinds of freedom; on the one hand, sexual, and after some time, politically insurgent.