"My mission is to bring films back to J&K’’
R.C. Ganjoo

NAZIR A. Bakshi belongs to the well-known Bakshi family of Kashmir. A former "Prime Minister of Kashmir," Gulam Mohd Bakshi, was his real uncle. Nazir, however,earned his name in the tourism sector after leaving his family business of automobiles. Nazir is a trained automobile engineer from TELCO, Jamshedpur, and had joined his family business for a brief period.But he went into tourism trade and launched his own agency in 1970.

Though born in Srinagar, Nazir received his school and college education from St Xaviers’ in Mumbai, where film director Manmohan Desai became his close friend.The friendship proved to be boom for when he launched his travel agency, film units became his major clients. His first foray was the handling of Prakash Mehra’s film unit when he was making Himalaya Se Uncha in 1973. He extended assistance during the identification of locations in Kashmir. So far, he has handled 600 film units.

Nazir is of the opinion that film and tourism industries help each other to grow. This is particularly true for Kashmir where tourism has "declined but not died yet." At present, Nazir is the president of TAA, member of the J&K State Tourism Advisory Committee and the president of the Chamber of Commerce, Kashmir. Excerpts from an interview:

Manmohan Desai was my school friend in Mumbai. Dilip Kumar also became my friend while I was in Mumbai. Sunil Dutt contacted me in Srinagar in 1972 when Prakash Mehra, his partner Satyan Chaudhary and director Thapa came for shooting Himalaya Se Uncha. It was the first time that I worked with a film unit.

It was indeed a challenging job for me as they wanted to create sets in the mountains showing a air-crash and shooting at Sonamarg glacier. After that, there was no looking back. There was Yash Chopra’s Kabhi Kabhi, Prakash Mehra’s Khoon Pasena, Lawaris etc. I used to provide them production facilities and continued doing so till 1990 when militancy raised its ugly head in Kashmir. Since then I’ve maintained my relations with almost all film actors and actresses who had become my friends then. These stars include Sunil Dutt, Amitabh, Rajesh Khanna, Shammi Kapoor, Shashi Kapoor, Rekha, Zeenat, Hema and Reena Roy.

My personal relations with Subhash Ghai are so thick that my advice the final word for him. It was on my suggestion that Madhuri Dixit was selected by Subhash Ghai in Karma for a dance sequence. In 1980, Subhash Ghai had come for shooting Karma in Pahalgam. He was looking for junior artistes for a role in that film. His brother, Ashok, contacted me in Srinagar. At that time, Madhuri Dixit, accompanied by her mother, was in my office for booking their tickets for Mumbai. She had come to Srinagar with some other film unit. I had noticed a spark in her and asked her whether she would be interested in a brief role in Subhash Ghai’s film. She accepted my offer and went to Pahalgam. And that, gave her, I believe, a real break in Hindi films.

Just one incident made me change my career. I had gone to Srinagar airport to receive a friend. At the airport, I found that my tyre had gone flat and there was no spare tyre with me. I hired a taxi for which I had to pay three times more than what was normally charged. It was sheer cheating and I suddenly came up with the plan to provide transport to visitors from the airport.

Shiraz Travels was set up in 1970 against the wishes of my parents. I started off with one employee, one chair and one table.

This has come as a blessing for us today. Otherwise militants would have eliminated us long back. Before the death of my uncle, Gulam Mohammad Bakshi in 1970, he called a meeting of the male members of the family, including my uncle Hussain Sahib, cousin -- Nasir Bakshi and I. He had sensed that my cousin and I were interested in politics. G.M. Bakshi told us that Sheikh Abdullah would compromise with the Government of India and come back to power and that would be the beginning of the breaking up of Kashmir.

After wasting 22 years of the Kashmiris, there would be nobody to listen to them. Neither he nor G.M. Sadiq would be alive. Sheikh Sahib would be at the top of his glory.

He had predicted that politics would change its course. A new generation would come up which would be violent in nature. It would decide the future of Kashmir. He took a pledge from us that no one from the Bakshi family would ever enter Kashmir politics. Till today, none from our clan has joined politics.

When we see the political situation today, we feel my uncle was right in dissuading us from entering politics. Indira Gandhi (in 1978) and Rajiv Gandhi (in 1984) put tremendous pressure on our family to join politics. But we declined because we stood by our word given to late Bakshi sahib.

I have helped the tourism industry in Kashmir become more organised. I made hoteliers, houseboat owners and others related to this industry operate in a systematic way.

The secret of promoting tourism is that one must always leave the tourist unsatisfied but not dissatisfied. The unsatisfied visitor will have the desire to visit again and again, whereas the dissatisfied tourists will never come back.

Print and film are the best media that can project Kashmir in the right social, political and economic perspective. My mission is to revive the business by bringing back top film producers for shooting in Kashmir.

It will give a fillip to the dwindling industry. I am also planning to set up studios. I had conceived this idea long back with late Vinod Mehra. I now want to implement it.