Srinagar, Aug. 30 -- On a summer afternoon, the camera opens to a hillside resort in Srinagar. Captain Tanvi Raina, the once youngest pilot from Kashmir, leans forward in conversation. Across from her sit Arsalan Nizami and Fahim Abdullah, the singing sensation whose latest Bollywood ballad has become a chartbuster.

The talk does not sound like a podcast. It sounds like friends in a living room, unhurried, playful. Laughter tumbles into silence, and silence into reflection. They tease each other, drift into stories of music, and then, almost without noticing, they arrive at something deeper: what it means to sing of home, what it means to belong.

For Kashmir, this kind of conversation feels new. Public talks have often been solemn, poli...