Exploring Responsibly
Aninda Sardar
In this day and age of engagement farming where splashing through a clean stream or doing doughnuts in a pasture might get you to that tempting goal of a viral reel, it’s refreshing to meet people who say no to such antics. Meet Ali Sajid and Farah Zaidi, the proverbial prodigal couple who returned to India, Kashmir in fact, after a long stint overseas. Their reason? A bunch of them actually. Chief among them, the desire to unplug from a corporate world and reconnect with their roots.
“My first job was in Saudi Arabia. That was in the early 2000s. On weekends we used to go into the desert and have fun driving around, off-roading,” recalls Sajid, who also loves to travel. Fortunately, Farah too was bitten by the travelbug right from the get go. So, before one knew it, the happy couple were exploring the length and breadth of West Asia by road. “It was my call to head back to Kashmir. I love the mountains,” says Farah, who grew up in Delhi. That love of the mountains and overlanding, which she shares with Sajid, is the genesis story of what over 10,000 people on Instagram know as Kashmir Off road.
Although the idea of Kashmir Off road wasn’t new, the outfit formally began in 2017. The inclusion of Kashmir in the name was deliberate too. With the region largely being associated with turmoil, conflict and instability, the duo thought that the state could do with positive connotations denoting exploration and possibilities. At first, the outfit focused on curating and creating motoring events, with off-roading as their core focus. “When we first started, people in Kashmir by and large, viewed cars as nothing more than a means of transport. The fact that they could be used for leisure also was largely an alien idea,” Sajid explains. “Car culture really didn’t exist. Besides, people wanted to keep a low profile.”
The outfit’s first event was an off-roading one, naturally, but on snow. “It was the first time ever that an off-road event was being organised on snow,” says Sajid. “It was a two-day event for which we got 30 participants. The Tourism Department wanted to do something and they wanted to support us. It was a big success and then we did more events.”
The events picked up pace but at some point there was the realisation that they wanted something more – a movement of likeminded people. “Kashmir is largely a forested area. We wanted to make sure that if a person joins us on one of our expeditions, they should be likeminded and be there for the love of exploration,” says Sajid. “We didn’t want to promote recklessness, which was happening in the name of off-roading,” quips in Farah. Their outings evolved, shifting towards a more intimate, family-oriented experience of the Himalayan outdoors, more observant of landscapes, communities and infrastructure. That desire to do something more meaningful led Sajid and Farah to become involved in initiatives around sustainable and border tourism where they work closely with local administrations, the Indian Army, and the J&K Forest Department. On the plus side, these collaborations opened up lesser-known regions which they explore responsibly, promoting travel in sensitive border areas with due respect to security, the local communities and ecology. “Show us your Kashmir, our friends tell us,” says Farah. It’s almost like a mission statement for the couple, whose event organisation has now become more of a storytelling project. If you follow their work closely, you’ll see them documenting not just mind-blowingly beautiful destinations and new routes but also processes integral to travel. How travel unfolds, how decisions are made on the road, how landscapes are changing and how travellers can move through these regions with greater awareness and restraint. And that truly is the need of the hour. Just that one voice that shows the Himalayas as a living system and not just a magnificent backdrop
