When I Click

Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life. Pain or mindless, every shot has a story behind. A vision that's captured into a memory.

The favourite shot from a village called Kalpa in the Kinnaur District of Himachal Pradesh. To the first stop of the first ever solo trip. A small homestay amidst the huge mountains absorbing the 360-degree panoramic view of the cold mountains. A sense of accomplishment, satisfaction and mesmerisation is achieved when you see the sunlit cap of the mountain. Even if it was for a short time, that shot remains one of the closest to my heart. The sky kissing mountain that gets the last ray of sunlight! And the view from the room, through the apple tree branches.

Lockdown and Quarantine is driving everyone crazy. From where I live, a small place called Cherai along the shores of the Arabian sea in the coasts of Kerala, its always a crowded mess. But since lockdown, I have never seen the beach so silent, eerie and beautiful. The emptiness over the chaos that the beach had earlier, was one of the rarest and probably the first and last sight in my life. How is it to experience the sunset without anyone around you in the beach. A dip into the water, just like an infinity pool with just you and your friends that led to the other end of the world where the sun on the other side takes a dip along with us. Just the ocean, the sun and us! -Gowreeshankar

Channi Anand The story of India’s crackdown on Kashmir last August was difficult to show to the world. The unprecedented lockdown included a sweeping curfew and shutdowns of phone and internet service.

But Associated Press photographers Channi Anand, Mukhtar Khan, Dar Yasin and found ways to let outsiders see what was happening. Now, their work has been honoured with the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in feature photography.

A day after Anand was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, he sat out on his journey to the border of Jammu.

‘‘I went to the border area near R.S Pura. I left early in the morning for a photoshoot. People in the border areas are busy working in the fields as it was the harvesting season. There was a lot of checking by the police and the police was also helping people, so I thought of doing a photoshoot of these activities’’

Anand’s photograph of a Border Security Force soldier who keeps a vigil near the Indian-Pakistan Border at Garkhal in Akhnoor which is about 35 kilometers to the west of Jammu was one of the photographs from the series that was awarded the 2020 Pulitzer.

Channi Anand is a resident of Jammu & Kashmir who currently works as a reporter for the US News Agency associated press. In Aug 2019, he won the most prestigious journalism award.

Mukhtar Khan is a resident of Kashmir who extensively covered the Kashmir conflict in 2020 and also the earthquake in South Asia during 2000s. He has also won the Atlanta photo journalism award in 2015

Mukhtar’s photograph of the six year old Munifa Nazir, a kashmiri girl, whose right eye was hit by a rubber bullet shot allegedly by Indian paramilitary soldiers on Aug 12 stands out from the series of photographs that he had taken.

“It was always cat-and-mouse,” Yasin recalled . “These things made us more determined than ever to never be silenced.” Yasin and Khan are based in Srinagar, Kashmir’s largest city, while Anand is based in the neighboring Jammu district. India said the moves were needed to forestall protests and attacks by rebels seeking independence or Pakistani control for the region. Thousands of people were arrested. With communications shut down, AP journalists had to find out about protests and other news by finding them in person. Khan and Yasin took turns roving the streets in and around the regional capital of Srinagar, Yasin said, facing mistrust from both protesters and troops. The journalists were unable for days to go home or even let their families know they were OK. “It was very hard,” Khan said, but “we managed to file pictures.” After spotting luggage-toting people walking toward the airport, he said, the photographers decided to ask travellers to serve as couriers. Yasin also recalled how a relative of his, who was also a photojournalist, had told him about delivering the film to New Delhi in person as the conflict in Kashmir raged in the 1990s.

Mukhtar Khan

Dar is a resident of Kashmir who has covered the Kashmir conflict, the aftermath of the South Asian earthquake, the Afgan war and the Rohingya refugee crisis. He has won several awards like the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards, National Headliner Awards and the Sigma Delta Chi Award. He was a part of the AP team which has won Hal Boyle Award and Robert F. Kennedy Award for Rohingya crisis coverage. He also won the 2019 Yannis Behrakis International Photo Journalism Award.

Yasin’s photo of a masked Kashmiri protester, who jumps onto the bonnet of an armoured vehicle of police, was on of the image that was a part of the series of the photographs taken by the Associated Press photographers.

“I ve been covering conflict back in my homeland for over a decade now. Kashmir happens to be one of the most militarized zones in the world. India and Pakistan, which claim the disputed region in its entirety, are always in a state of war over the issue. Covering conflict in my homeland hasn’t been easy, but it hasn’t necessarily changed me. It has left a mark, it has made me rage, and it has left me in despair, I knew that no matter how bad things were back in Kashmir, we still had a roof over our heads and food to eat and our families to be thankful for. Just reaching out with a kind thought, word or deed towards someone else can completely break down all these ‘modern’ crises. And this is even more important when you are in a situation like the ones we face on a daily basis on the streets of Srinagar. Whether it is the paramilitary or the local police or the innocents caught in the crossfire, all it takes is a bit of kindness towards them, and immediately, the common humanity inherent in each of us surfaces. And that is what makes a picture worth a thousand words” -Dar Yasin