[Hilarious] You won't be able to tell what this ad is for

Also read: Why Kashmir hates the new OLX ad

The new OLX India ad filmed in Kashmir is projecting much more the famed beauty of Valley previously exploited in many "Incredible India" ads and films. Apart from showing the usual stereotypes of Kashmir and Kashmiris as projected in many previous ads and films — bearded, skull capped, Pheran-clad Kashmiri — the new ad appears to normalise the relationship between the military and the Kashmiri natives who are shown as good old "friends" helping each other in tough times.

In the past, many Bollywood films have used Kashmir as a backdrop to enhance the appeal of their song and dance numbers, in between panning out to show some snow capped mountains, gushing streams, houseboats, and flowers and gardens. The idea being to enhance the beautiful background, which serves their purpose, acting a backdrop of their actors, while diminishing the stories of people, which doesn’t serve any purpose for their films. The story of people, at best, remained absent from the screens filled with this sanitised, beautiful landscape, or lingered at the insignificant margins.

And if the people of Kashmir did show up on the screens, their stories were either distorted, or they were simply used as props to complete the frame, their lives inconsequential to the plot. Read more.