Meet Humeria, another busy young woman who has fallen victim to 21st century technology. Her cell phone is always ringing because she has two jobs, one of which is her own advertising company plus she is a single mother. I met Humeria in 2010 ans she was kind enough to translate for me and also find contacts for interviews. Two years ago she struck me a a woman who was ready to break out of the confine of home and social gender norms, so I was really looking forward to meeting her again this year and  hearing what she has been up to.
Her parents are Kashmiri but they left Kashmir for Delhi during the militancy. So Humeria grew up away from the conflict and away from gender oppression which was being intensified due to the conflict and militancy. She says that only when she returned to Kashmir in her teens did she realize that she had grew up with a fair amount of freedom. She felt jailed in Kashmir with curfews, restricted schooling and the enforced by society and her mother covering of her hair with a hijab. She was suddenly forced to look like and act like a "good Muslim girl" and for some time she fell into depression and rebelled when ever she could. The ultimate rebellion she tells of is when she decided to be the good Muslim and go all the way; done the full Arabic style burqua and study Islam all day every day. This of course shocked her family is a completely different way. Soon she knew more on Islam than her parents and even those who taught Islam. This lasted for a few years until her parent decided to get her married. Unfortunatly the marriage never worked out and she came back to Srinagar.
So for the past 4 years she has been in Srinagar living with her mother and her daughter. In 2011 she started working at a local bank and started her own advertising/ event planning business. She has been very successful and has become in many ways showing other young woman that they can leave home, be in the work place and still be a 'good Muslim woman.'Humeria is not only organized, she is a lot of fun, highly fashionable, speaks her mind and is not frozen by fear of what other may think of her.  I think she is great