The Bol Bosh Collective :
A few missed deadlines and much kahwa later.…we are finally here. Only just.

Let’s begin with footsoldiers. And there are only foot soldiers. We are headless. Head less.

Aadil Amin Kak, teaches linguistics at the University of Kashmir was instrumental in telling us that one has to look at the interdependancy of tongues, to hit the highways and understand that lilt, the tone, the timbre, the music and the harshness of the language. He guided this team of young students in shaping the idea of polyphony in a time where language dominance becomes a tool in the hands of a majority.

Akhter Rasool, the guy with the magic hands, the master of colour put our concept into a beautiful shape as a designer. Students and scholars at the Linguistics Department, Kashmir University and Baramulla Degree college were the real movers of the whole process.

Mansoor Khan, guy with intelligent mind and technical hands developed this website within short span of time and put all the material together .

Sumaya Jehangir, the girl with a sweet voice, was the main voice-over person, and a thorough editor. Sumaya Tariq, Munnera Hakeem and Ambreen Farooq were there when we needed them, and above all were the girls who produced wonderful melodies (which surprised everyone, including themselves).

Shahid Yousuf aka Shad a gifted but lazy boy, who had to be coaxed and goaded to do things. Abid Rasool Bhaba a student at Baramulla College conducted some of the interviews. Neelofar Hussain Wani collected most of the research material and shared his own research on the website.

Fozia Sheikh a student at Baramulla College made several beautiful sketches for the website when we were in the process of designing it.

Ubaid Aziz, who is an undergraduate student at Baramulla College remained steadfast and ever dependable. What he lacked at times in skill, he more than made it up by persistence. And wore many hats. From editing the text to data collection to subtitles, handling the camera for documentation and for being enthusiastic when chips are down.

Sohana Shah the six year old girl ( the one in pheran with a tooth missing) from St Josephs school Baramulla and Iqra who is in class VI from a local government school and delivers milk from door to door to support her mother financially, after her school (with smile and vigour), gave a beautiful look to the website by posing with smiles on their faces. Thank you very much Kids!

The website is a small initiative by a group of people with ideas. Please share your research and creative work to make this loosely curated and self-funded project going.

The kernel of Bol Bosh was conceptualised by Asiya Zahoor, who is currently teaching at Baramulla Degree college. Her research area has been Psycho-linguistics and newly emerging writings of South Asia.

Currently, she is pursuing a PhD from Jamia Millia Islamia, Asiya and her sister Maheen Shah travelled across valley landscapes and collate material relating to the languages spoken in the valley.

We are not, as of now, a fellowship-applied or a fund-driven initiative. We welcome your ideas and value the fierce independence that lies both as a context and a subtext within those fragments of thoughts. Happy ideating !





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