As the season’s first snowfall carpeted Kashmir this winter, Ronak left for the outskirts of Srinagar. She was planning to shoot a music album there.

“I wanted to be captured in the backdrop of the virgin snow-draped plains, bereft of human footprints or traces,” says Ronak, in an ebullient voice.

In her early 20s, Ronak has been into modelling since 2017. The passion started when her candid pictures got an overwhelming response on Instagram.

“I have so far received a good response from netizens back home,” she says. What also works in her favour, she says, is that nobody questions her choice of career much, something unthinkable for girls in Kashmir till a few years back.