Here Is How A 25-Yr-Old Engineering Graduate Is Bringing Light In Kashmir Through Her Business

A 25-year-old woman has opened the region's first candle-making business to revive the Kashmir valley's candle-lighting culture. 

Mehak Pervaz, a student of electronic and communications engineering from Srinagar's Illahi Bagh neighbourhood, handcrafts one-of-a-kind candles. 

'Shamaaque by Mehak,' a small-scale business she founded during the COVID lockdown in August, appears to have received widespread support. 

They do not use ornamental candles for weddings, birthdays, or any other special event here, as we are in other places. She is hoping that, as a result of her endeavor, candle culture would become more prevalent in this region as well. 

Weddings, birthdays, and other special occasions are not celebrated with decorative candles here, as they are in other regions. She hopes that by launching her business, candle culture will become more popular in the area. 

The young entrepreneur revealed that she enjoys art and has been attracted to candles since she was a child.

During COVID lockdown, she was reading through Instagram one day when she came across a few stunning candle photographs. That's when the idea of turning her passion into a business dawned.  Mehak mentioned how difficult it is to locate decent scented candles in Kashmir. When she was at her cousin's wedding a while ago, they wanted some candles for decor, but we couldn't find any.  It was also at that point that the thought of creating candles came to her.

Her family assisted her in putting it into action. Nothing was accessible in this location. She had to acquire all of the raw materials online, which were pretty pricey. Things took a long time to get to her because of the lockdown. 

Mehak creates scented, non-scented, aromatic, and creative candles based on the needs of the consumer. She stated that personalization is prioritized to make one-of-a-kind products. Each candle burns for about 2-3 hours and costs between Rs 30 to Rs 700, depending on the design and size.

Measuring and melting the wax, mixing fragrance oils, connecting the wick, pouring the wax, sealing, and removing the wick at the end are all steps in the process. 

People have used candles as a replacement for electricity in Kashmir, where power outages are common. Mehak has indeed been able to show people about using candles in a variety of ways, thanks to her business.

 She wants to turn her business into a full-fledged one after obtaining a lot of notoriety in a short period. She currently accepts orders via her Instagram account, which has over 1.4k followers.