Ibni Ahmad
I had the rare privilege of spending seven days with Dilber Fayaz in Lucknow during the “Viksit Bharat” tour last year. It was in those whirlwind days filled with interviews, discussions, story shoots, and long drives that I first understood the full measure of what made him special: not just his talent, but his warmth, his boundless curiosity, and his fierce commitment to story. As I listened to him speak, or simply sit quietly as he contemplated a phrase, I felt I was in the company of a true storyteller: a man who saw life through the lens of both a poet and a journalist.
Dilber Fayaz more widely known as Fayaz Dilbar as i learnt joined journalism long before I was born. Born and raised in Maharaj Gunj, Srinagar, he cut his teeth in the newsroom of the Srinagar Times. Later, in the early 1980s, he co-founded the Kashmir News Bureau (KNB) alongside Imdad Saqi, operating from Dar Building at Madina Chowk. That enterprise became one of the most vibrant and courageous local news agencies of its day.
He later moved to Delhi in 1988, at the invitation of veteran journalist Vinod Dua, and joined The Sunday Observer. But Dilbar was never just a reporter. His heart lived in literature, theatre, poetry, and film. Over decades, he nurtured multiple identities as a poet (in Kashmiri and Urdu), a playwright, a novelist, a short story writer, and a filmmaker.
His death on November 9, 2025 following a heart attack in Srinagar has left Kashmir’s literary and journalistic world feeling orphaned. He was 68, and even in his final days, he remained deeply rooted in the valley he loved, despite having spent decades in Delhi.
Dilbar’s most enduring contribution was perhaps his ability to weave journalism with art. He reported with precision, but he also wrote poetry that carried the fragrance of Kashmiri soil. His plays and short stories captured the minute tragedies and quiet joys of ordinary life in Kashmir. He brought the sharpness of a journalist and the sensitivity of a poet to everything he touched.
As a filmmaker, he believed cinema could be a mirror for Kashmir’s identity. In interviews, he spoke about making films that would reflect the real Kashmir not just its scenic beauty, but its daily struggles, its whispers and its heartbeats. He insisted that Kashmiri identity was not just about landscape, but about language, tradition, food, memory all of which he portrayed elegantly on film and paper.
One of his defining traits was generosity. He mentored young writers, filmmakers, and journalists. He encouraged them not just to aim high, but to stay true to their roots, their language, and their conscience. Many in Kashmir’s creative circles say that Dilbar made room for voices that otherwise would not have been heard.
During our week in Lucknow, I saw glimpses of that generosity. He was never too busy to explain a metaphor, to debate a line of Urdu poetry, or to sit in a small café with a young storyteller and listen patiently. He believed that stories were not just for telling they were for connecting people, for bridging divides. In his company, I often felt that every person he met mattered to him, and he treated every conversation as an opportunity.
Politically, Dilbar stood for dignity. He never shied away from the hard conversations about Kashmir’s future, about rights, about representation. But he also refused cynicism. He believed that by telling true stories, by preserving language, by nurturing creativity, Kashmir could heal and grow.
His work in printmaking in his later years is another testament to his commitment to art. In Srinagar, he co-founded the Kashmir Art and Artists Foundation (KAAF) studio in Harwan, a place where young artists could draw, print, and create without leaving home. Through KAAF, Dilbar envisioned a Kashmir where art would flourish, where children could find their voice not by leaving, but by staying and building.
For me as someone who once traveled with him Dilbar will always be the man who held both a camera and a book, who could jump from analyzing a script to reciting a ghazal with equal passion.
He was a storyteller not just by profession, but by heart. His was a life lived in pursuit of truth in journalism, in verse, on stage, and on screen. His passing is a profound loss. But his words, films, poems they remain. They will continue to inspire, to challenge, and to console. In Kashmir’s memory, Fayaz Dilbar will live on, as a bridge between past and future, between suffering and hope.
May his legacy help us remember that stories matter not just for what they show, but for what they make us feel.
