25/08/2025
What if a simple loaf of bread could tell the story of an entire place, its resilience, its politics, its poetry? Does it not already?
In this episode of Whetstone Audio Dispatch, host Meher Varma takes us deep into the heart of Srinagar, Kashmir, where the unmistakable aroma of freshly baked tchot leads her to the neighborhood kandur, a traditional bakery that’s far more than just a place to buy bread.
Through conversations with bakers, poets, and everyday customers, we uncover how these bakeries, modest structures built of brick and smoke, have become cornerstones of community life, sacred tradition, and resistance. We meet legendary Zareef Ahmed Zareef, who traces the 4000-year-old roots of Kashmiri baking, and listen to local myths where mystics emerge from tandoors bejeweled and unburned.
Whether it’s feeding a neighborhood during a curfew, sharing unspoken trust through pay-later systems, or trading morning news, bread becomes a portal into an unseen Kashmir, one where bread is more than sustenance; it is survival, spirit, and social glue.
Bread is Life: Kashmir’s Sacred Flame, is now streaming on Whetstone Audio Dispatch wherever you listen to podcasts.
Photography: Sanna Irshad Mattoo. | .irshad.mattoo
Host: Meher Varma
Production: Céline Glacier
This episode was made possible by the support of Vaishnavi Bodanapu
