There was something about the Reading Circle at “Kabo” that felt like coming home. Women sat together in a circle, their iPads and notebooks open, coffee and food shared between conversations. Some were reading, some were talking, and some were simply enjoying the comfort of being around one another. In that space, friendships were being built, stories were being exchanged, and reading became more than an individual experience.For Maumil Mehraj, the woman behind Srinagar’s Reading Circle, that sense of Circle, that sense of community began with something deeply community began with something deeply personal: her own relationship with personal: her own relationship with books.

Books were often given to her as birthday gifts, but over time, they became more than something to read. A source of comfort and healing. When she moved back to Kashmir, she found herself missing that connection with reading and the quiet companionship that books had always offered. It was this absence that eventually led her to create the Reading Circle, a space where women could come together, share their love for books and find something beyond the solitary act of reading.

After spending years........

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