Woven in Kashmir: Fayad Ahmed Mir on the Family Loom That Has Never Stopped

My name is Fayad Ahmed Mir, and I am from Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir. I work in handloom — the craft my family has practised for generations, the knowledge passed down from one pair of hands to the next.

I did not learn this from a school or a training programme. I learned it from my own family, in the same way everyone in my family learned it: by watching, by doing, by becoming part of something that was already in motion before I arrived.

Kashmir's handloom tradition is one of the most revered in the world — the shawls, the woven fabrics that carry centuries of craft in every thread. To work in it is to carry that history. To keep weaving is to ensure it does not end with us.

The loom in a Kashmiri home is not just a tool. It is a connection — between the person at the loom and every person who sat there before them. I work to keep that connection unbroken.