Falak Bilal
Traditional bone healer of Ali Kadal draws faith across Kashmir In the maze-like lanes of old Srinagar, where wooden balconies lean over narrow streets and the Jhelum flows silently beside centuries of history, a modest clinic in Ali Kadal witnesses an endless stream of hope every day.There is no gleaming hospital board outside.
No appointment desk. No polished waiting hall.Yet before the doors open each morning, dozens gather quietly — laborers with fractured limbs, elderly women struggling with chronic back pain, young boys injured on cricket grounds, and anxious parents carrying children in their arms.At the center of this faith stands 68-year-old Ghulam Mohammad — affectionately known across Kashmir simply as “Papa.”For more than four decades, Mohammad has built a reputation that stretches far beyond downtown Srinagar.
To some, he is a traditional bone fixer. To others, a Unani practitioner. Many call him a faith healer.But to the people who arrive at his small clinic from every corner of the Valley, he is something simpler: a man they trust.“I only become a means,” Mohammad says softly, adjusting a patient’s bandage with practiced hands. “Shifa dene wala Allah hai, main toh ek zariya hoon — healing comes from God; I am only an instrument.”
A Legacy Passed Through HandsMohammad’s journey began long before he treated his first patient.The craft was inherited from his father, a cloth merchant who was also known locally as a vaatan-gor — a traditional bone setter. In old Kashmir, before modern orthopedic hospitals became common, such healers were often the first and only source of treatment for fractures and dislocations.Sitting inside his crowded clinic, Mohammad recalls watching his father work with fascination as a child.“My father could identify a fracture simply by touching the affected area,” he says. “People trusted his hands more than machines.”What began as observation slowly became apprenticeship.
By the early 1980s, Mohammad had started treating patients himself. Since 1982, he says, he has rarely had a day without visitors seeking relief from broken bones, herniated disks, sprains, and joint dislocations.Word spread quietly — from neighborhood conversations, family recommendations, and stories carried from village to village.Today, many patients arrive not through advertisements, but through generations of trust.Perhaps the most unusual aspect of Mohammad’s practice is not the treatment itself, but the absence of a fee.
There is no consultation charge pinned to the wall. No billing counter.Patients donate whatever they can — sometimes a few hundred rupees, sometimes nothing at all.“Poor people should never be denied treatment because of money,” Mohammad says. “If someone leaves healthy and pain-free, that is enough for me.”For daily wage workers and families unable to afford expensive medical care, this philosophy has turned the clinic into more than a healthcare space. It has become a refuge.Outside the clinic, 45-year-old Bashir Ahmad from Budgam waits patiently with his teenage son, whose wrist was injured during a football match.“We came because people told us Papa’s treatment works,” Ahmad says. “In villages, people still believe in his healing.”Another patient, Haleema Begum from north Kashmir’s Baramulla district, says she travelled nearly three hours after suffering severe back pain for months.“I had visited many places,” she says. “Someone told me, ‘Go to Papa once.’ So I came with hope.”Between Tradition and Modern MedicineMohammad’s popularity reflects something deeper in Kashmir — the enduring place of traditional healing in a society where modern and inherited practices often coexis.
Medical professionals acknowledge that traditional bone-setting has deep cultural roots across South Asia, though they caution that serious fractures and spinal injuries require scientific diagnosis and supervision.Still, many patients continue to seek out traditional healers, especially in areas where healthcare access remains limited or expensive.Inside Mohammad’s clinic, Qur’anic verses hang beside shelves of herbal oils and cotton bandages. Patients sit shoulder-to-shoulder, waiting quietly for their turn while stories of recovery pass from one stranger to another.For some, healing here is as much emotional as physical.“There is comfort in the way he speaks to patients,” says a university student accompanying his grandmother. “People feel listened to.”
As evening falls over Ali Kadal, the rush inside the clinic shows little sign of slowing.Mohammad, despite his age, continues attending to patients one after another, his hands moving carefully, almost instinctively.He does not describe his work as extraordinary.“I learned this from my father, and I continued it,” he says. “If people trust me, that trust itself is a responsibility.”In a rapidly changing Kashmir, where modernity steadily reshapes old traditions, the clinic of “Papa” remains an enduring reminder of another era — one where healing depended not on machines or paperwork, but on human touch, reputation, and faith.And every morning, before the old city fully awakens, the people still come.
