29-year-old, Mudasir Farooq, a multimedia professional from North Kashmir’s Sopore town while sensing a need to create a source of entertainment with a local flavour has come up with a YouTube channel Koshur Kalakar which means ‘Kashmiri Innovators’.
Any normal person would suffer from depression by witnessing everyday killings, pellets, bullets, cordon, search operations, and protests every day.
Trying to find a creative solution to people’s misery, Mudasir called several of his college friends for suggestions and support, but no one turned up. Instead, He found in YouTube what he lacked in both human and physical resources and created the channel.
Days later he assembled some of his neighbours and asked them to take part in his first video.
The video, Fake doctors in Kashmir, had two aims: to make people laugh and at the same time make them realise how they swallow rumours too easily. The video went viral on social media in Kashmir.
The channel has managed to rack up more than 600000 subscribers on both Facebook and youtube since its launch in March 2018 with more than 10 crore views.
Koshur Kalakar specialises in satire based on the region’s social and political issues.
“We try to keep all aspects and sensitivity of society in mind before shooting videos so that it may not hurt anyone’s sentiment,” says Mudasir Farooq, “Our main aim is to wipe the tears of our people,” he continues.
Mudasir believes making people laugh in a conflict zone is no easy task. He says they hesitate to post videos whenever a civilian, militant or policeman is killed in any corner of the state.
“We are humans, and we understand what killing means,” He added.
“In recent years we did not post a single video the day killing took place but only after a gap of two or three days. The decision of not posting videos was taken collectively in order to respect the sentiments of the families of the deceased,” he adds.
In the past 4 years, his fame increased in the valley as ‘Koshur Kalakar” he has become a household name for every Kashmiri as there is a selective source of entertainment in Kashmir.