In Kashmir, India, there are three stages of winter: Chillai Kalan, Chillai Khurd and Chillai Bache. The first is The Great Cold, occupying mid-December to the end of January, when the weather is at its harshest and temperatures drop below freezing. Snowfall is a common occurrence. The second is the Small Cold, when things warm up slightly but the weather can still be biting, followed finally by The Baby Cold, characterised by intermittent sunshine and melting ice. This annual progression towards spring is the focus of a new book from Magnum photographer Sohrab Hura (b. 1981). Snow documents the artist’s repeated visits to the Indian-administered region over a five-year period, recording its passage through the three distinct phases. His images interweave snowy landscapes with the land’s struggle for self-determination, revealing a dichotomy between beauty and brutality in one of the most militarised regions in the world.
This project is characteristic of Hura, whose previous works have traced the realities of life in India. His first series, The River, explored three cities along the river Ganges and its tributary, whilst Land of a Thousand Struggles followed a grassroots movement in rural India that led to an important social security act. The self-trained artist expanded from documentary photography to a more multi-layered practice. Here, he focused on issues that reflected his personal experience, turning his strong vision inwards to create visual journeys of his life and relationships as a means to “find his own logic.” Snow marks a continuation of this experimental style, taking a distinct and unique approach to place. In viewing Kashmir solely through the prism of the arrival and melting of snow, Hura tells a decades-long story of agency, self-determination and identity from a new perspective.
The book is structured as though the reader is living through the three stages of winter. The first few shots are classic snowy-scenes. In one, a man drags two figures on a sledge, in another, boots leave crisp foot prints in newly covered ground. People roll snowmen, or children throw snowballs. These are universal scenes, familiar to anyone who lives in a cold climate. They’re also emblematic of Huda’s style, where, according to Magnum, he blends “whimsicality and humour with surreal scenes of isolation, illness and despair.” The depth of snowfall, often burying homes and trees to the point they’re barely visible, along with the layers of furs and warm clothing his subjects wear, drive home the brutality of the cold. The joyful abandon of snowball fights may be light reprieve, but the reality of life is hard. By the end of the publication, snow has given way to patchy sleet, which is replaced by blue skies and clear roads.
The melting snow, however, reveals a new dimension. Kashmir has been at the centre of disputes between India, Pakistan and China since the partition of India and dissolution of the British Raj in 1947. Each country has laid claim to the land despite the persistent struggle for self-determination of those who inhabit the region. As the snow melts in Hura’s shots, picturesque imagery often gives way to residual markers of conflict and violence. A smoking truck barrels into a fence. “Resistance is Life” is scrawled across a wall. Soldiers sit leaning against a wall in a brief moment of solitude. There’s an ominous feeling to later images, graveyards, fires and bloody hands are intermingled with blossom trees and green grass. In Kashmir, the harshness of life under military rule is never far from mind.
The cyclical nature of the seasons – snow into blossoms into sunshine into snow – is everywhere in this book, poetically mirroring the frustrating and seemingly endless struggle for political stability in Kashmir. Nowhere is this more evident than Hura’s postscript: “My last visit to Kashmir, for a friend’s wedding in August 2019, was cut short when the Indian government removed the region’s semi-autonomous status through Article 370, and a siege ensued. Snow remains an incomplete body of work.” In ending on such a powerful note, Hura reminds audiences that the story of Kashmir, and its people, continues to be written. This beautiful book is just one small chapter in an ever-evolving narrative.
Snow (2026) by Sohrab Hura is published by MACK: mackbooks.co.uk
Words: Emma Jacob
Image Credits:
All images: Sohrab Hura, from Snow (MACK, 2026). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.
