In December 2007, as thick snow blanketed the narrow lanes of Sonwar in Srinagar, 16-year-old Sumarty lay in bed, burning with a fever that refused to break. “Despite the warm blankets and endless home remedies, the fever just did not go away. Worried, my father took me to the hospital. The doctors performed a lumbar puncture, a routine test they said, to draw fluid from my spine. But that procedure turned into a nightmare,” recalls Sumarty. That lumbar puncture left her permanently disabled.
For months, Sumarty and her father chased hope from one city to another, clutching medical files and fragile expectations. From Srinagar to Mumbai, from private clinics to reputed hospitals, they went wherever a doctor promised even the faintest chance of recovery. “But each time, I came back disappointed,” says the now 33-year-old. For her, life as she knew it slipped away slowly, painfully. The breaking point came on an otherwise ordinary afternoon, when her father, the late Fayaz Ahmad Najar, returned home carrying a wheelchair. “It felt like the sky had come crashing down on me,” she says.
But bit by bit, her resilience returned. “I decided to stop living in sorrow, and to find a way to stand on my own,” she says. Six years later, in 2013, Sumarty opened a boutique in Srinagar’s bustling commercial hub, Lal Chowk. Named ‘Naina Boutique’, it thrived and provided employment to 10 young women. The business continued to run successfully until 2021. Sumarty decided to dream bigger. She envisioned creating an enterprise that would provide opportunities specifically for people with disabilities.
“In 2023, I established a spice business called ‘Sadaf Masalay’. Today, I have 25 employees, including four men who cannot walk, and three women who are deaf and mute,” she says. She took a loan of `20 lakh from the Jammu and Kashmir Khadi and Village Industries Board under the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme to purchase machines for her spice manufacturing unit. Today, Sadaf Masalay with a business turnover of `4-5 lakh holds the distinction of being Kashmir’s first spice manufacturing unit founded by a wheelchair-bound woman entrepreneur.
Sumarty highlights Kashmiri red chilli powder as one of her signature products, sourced directly from local farmers and then dried, ground, and packaged at the unit. The brand is also gaining recognition for its high-quality fennel and turmeric. Today, using a wheelchair, she not only manages her business but also participates in exhibitions across the country. She is now planning to expand her business by establishing units in all districts of Kashmir with the aim of providing jobs and opportunities to disabled youth. “Disability is not the end of life,” she says, looking up from her wheelchair.