Holding on to silver:A century-old family craft survives in old Srinagar’s shrinking market

By Ada Bhat
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18 Apr 2026

Ghulam Nabi Zargar shapes silver the way his father once did; says machine-made products now dominate the trade

Srinagar, Apr 17: In a narrow lane of Fateh Kadal, where shops open into dimly lit interiors and time appears to move at its own pace, Ghulam Nabi Zargar sits at a wooden workbench, shaping a piece of silver the way his father once did.

The tools around him are old. Some belonged to his father. Others, perhaps, to the generation before that.

The work, however, remains unchanged.

“I learned this by watching my father,” Zargar says quietly. “Now I continue it so that it does not end with me.”

For nearly a century, his family has run this small silver workshop in downtown Srinagar. His father, Ghulam Mohammad Zargar, was known locally for his craftsmanship, a silversmith who built his reputation on precision, patience and trust.

As a child, Zargar spent hours in the workshop, observing more than participating. Over time, observation turned into practice. The slow discipline of cutting, shaping and engraving silver settled into his hands.

There was no formal training. Only repetition.

In its earlier years, the shop catered to a steady stream of customers, many from outside Kashmir. Orders came in for handcrafted jewellery rings, pendants, bracelets, and complete silver sets, often customised to specific designs. Each piece was made entirely by hand. The process was deliberate and time-consuming: silver would be cut, heated, shaped, engraved and polished without the aid of machines. A single item could take days.

“It was slow work,” Zargar said. “But every piece had its own identity.”

That identity, he says, is what sets handcrafted silver apart, no two pieces exactly alike, each carrying the mark of the craftsman.

Over the years, that market has changed.

Machine-made and readymade silver products now dominate shops across Kashmir. They are quicker to produce, uniform in design, and significantly cheaper. For many customers, affordability has replaced craftsmanship as the deciding factor.

The impact on traditional silversmiths has been direct. “Earlier, we had regular customers,” Zargar said. “Now most work comes only if someone places an order.”

The shop that once depended on steady footfall now runs on occasional buyers, those who still seek handcrafted work, or those who return out of familiarity.

Inside the shop, little has changed.

The wooden workbench remains where it always was. The tools, worn, functional, carefully arranged, continue to be used. Old designs, unfinished pieces and samples of earlier work are preserved, not as inventory, but as memory.

“This is not just a shop,” Zargar said. “It has my father’s tools, our old designs, everything we built over the years.”

The space carries the weight of continuity. Techniques learned decades ago still guide the work being done today.

Zargar took over the shop with his brother after their father’s death. Years later, his brother passed away as well, leaving him to carry the work forward alone.

Now, the question is not just survival but succession. He wants to train young people, to pass on what he learned. But interest is limited. The work is slow, the returns uncertain, and the market increasingly indifferent.

“It is difficult to bring someone into this,” he says. “They look for quicker earnings.”

Without new learners, the craft faces a quiet risk not of sudden disappearance, but of gradual fading.

For Zargar, the workshop is still both livelihood and responsibility. He continues to work with the same methods, the same tools, and the same patience that defined his father’s time. Each piece he makes carries forward not just a design, but a way of working that has survived nearly a century. What has changed is everything around it.

He hopes for greater recognition, more support, and platforms that can bring attention back to handcrafted work. Not as nostalgia, but as a living craft.

Until then, he continues.