It was emotionally the most draining thing I have ever done. It was very very difficult process. Examining your own past was extremely painful. There has been nothing more emotionally difficult in my life.

But my life experience is not representative of the hardships of Kashmir and I wanted to bring it out. I saw a few things, true, but others had gone through far worse than I could ever witness.

Part I of the interview: 'I am a Kashmiri and my politics are different'

There was time when you also wanted to pick up the gun...

I was 14. It scares the hell out of me when I think of it now. You are reading Hardy Boys and Superman comics and boom, the war starts. You are told you will get a new country in two months. Everything else is blown away in that moment.

Then you see the guns, the chains, the jackets, the Nike shoes... I was a geeky, studious and thin guy. These things are attractive when you are an impressionable kid.

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Image: Militants, part of a group of 24, who surrendered before Indian troops, near Srinagar in April 2007. Photograph: Rouf Bhat/AFP/Getty Images

Also read: 'The next time you hear the swish you don't wait. You sprint'

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