By Shereen Naman
As children, we did not know exactly what Vai Voph ( mythical creature in Kashmiri folklore ) looked like.
No one ever described it fully and that was the point.
Every winter evening, just as darkness thickened outside our wooden windows, someone in the room would lower their voice and narrate haunted tales of Vay voph
That was enough.
We would inch closer to the elders, pull our pherans tighter, and listen. Vai Voph was not a monster in the usual sense. It did not roar or chase. It hovered. It lingered in pauses, in the creak of doors, in the whistle of winter winds. It existed only to make stories work and to make children sit still long enough to hear them.
In those days, winter in Kashmir demanded storytelling which not only engaged the children but increased a sincere bond of affection with elders .
Snow sealed us indoors. Roads disappeared. Time slowed. Nights stretched endlessly, and electricity was unreliable, but imagination never failed. Stories were not entertainment; they were warmth.
Vai Voph was the uninvited listener. If you didn’t pay attention, it might come closer. If you interrupted elders, it might linger longer. And so we listened—wide-eyed, obedient, enchanted. Fear was only a tool; the real purpose was togetherness.
The modern snowless winters have been quite different.
There is cold, yes -but no snow to trap us indoors, no long white silence pressing families together.
Children scroll instead of listening. Evenings dissolve into noise rather than stories. The kangri still burns, but the circle around it feels broken.
Sometimes I wonder where the Vai Voph has gone.
Perhaps it wanders confused, looking for snow-heavy nights that no longer arrive. Perhaps it waits outside houses that no longer tell stories. Or perhaps Vai Voph itself is depressed—displaced by climate shifts, modern distractions, and a world that no longer pauses long enough for folklore.
The tragedy of a snowless winter is not only environmental. It is cultural. It steals the conditions that once nurtured imagination, discipline, and memory. Without snow, winter loses authority. Without winter’s authority, stories lose their urgency.
And without stories, mythical creatures like Vai Voph fade—not defeated, just forgotten.
Some losses do not announce themselves loudly. They disappear quietly, like a story no longer told, or a child no longer warned.
This winter, I miss the fear that made us listen.
I miss the creature that never existed—yet once kept an entire generation still.
