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Khamosh Paani (Punjabi)

Khamosh Paani (Punjabi)

Cinema, Indian Cinema

What is the movie about?
Set in Pakistan of the 1979, Khamosh Paani tells the story of a Muslim widow, Ayesha being deeply troubled about her son’s transformation from a mild, affectionate teenager to a violent activist for an Islamist group that is instigating the youth of the village to join the jihad or holy war. A visiting Indian Sikh pilgrim discovers that Ayesha is his sister, who was separated from their family in the riots during the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. Ayesha’s non-Islamic past becomes inconvenient for her son, but for Ayesha herself, this truth has tragic social consequences. For her refusal to make a declaration of her true faith, Ayesha is ostracised by the village and country she has learnt to call her own.  
 
Who is it by?
Khamosh Pani was written and directed by Sabiha Sumar.
 
Why should I watch it?
The movie has won numerous accolades, including five awards at the 2003 Locarno International Film Festival for its depiction through one lifetime, of a woman’s choicelessness not only in the politically charged period of the partition of India and Pakistan but also in a later period of radical fundamentalism.
 
An edited version of the article was published in Culturama’s November 2012 Issue.
Parzania (English, Gujarati, Hindi)

Parzania (English, Gujarati, Hindi)

Cinema, Indian Cinema

What is the movie about?
Cyrus Pithawala (Nasseruddin Shah), a Parsi film projectionist befriends Allan (Corin Nemec) an American on a downward spiral, who is in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, to complete his PhD on Gandhi. Allan becomes witness to the disintegration of the Pithawala family, when Hindu mobs go on a premeditated rampage to kill Muslims in the city. Cyrus’ wife, Shernaz (Sarika) escapes with their daughter Dilshad, but gets separated in the melee, from their 10-year old son, Parzan. Cyrus searches futilely for him and finally takes solace in spirituality. Shernaz testifies at the Human Rights Commission hearing, voicing the helpless of being pitted against a blood-thirsty mob even as the police plays mute spectator. She laments not knowing what happened to Parzan and the tragedy of Dilshad being forever emotionally scarred by the violence.
Who is it by?
Parzania was directed by Rahul Dholakia who went on to win the Golden Lotus National Award for Best Director in 2005 for Parzania. Dholakia has been accused of being anti-Hindu, choosing to depict only the carnage by the Hindu mobs, without depicting the violence that the Muslim mobs unleashed. Dholakia went on to face immense difficulties in having the film released in Gujarat.
Sarika, who plays Shernaz Pithawala won the Silver Lotus Best Actress award 2005.
Why should I watch it?
Parzania depicts the psyche of terror. It is based on the true story of a boy called Azhar who has been missing from his Gulbarg Society residence, after a massacre on February 28, 2002, much like what is depicted in the film. The scenes before the carnage are of an idyllic cocooned life. The scenes of the carnage and after focus on the fear, nausea and ultimately, the courage of the victims to carry on. 
An edited version of the article was published in Culturama’s July 2012 Issue.
The Rising : The Ballad of Mangal Pandey (Hindi)

The Rising : The Ballad of Mangal Pandey (Hindi)

Cinema, Indian Cinema

Director: Ketan Mehta 
The movie dramatises the incidents surrounding the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, through the eyes of Captain William Gordon (Toby Stephens).
Mangal Pandey is a sepoy, a native soldier in the service of the East India Company, stationed in Barrackpore. One day, Pandey learns that the cartridges that the sepoys will chew off while loading the new Enfield rifles, are rumoured to be coated with animal fat. Ingestion of cow fat is considered sacrilege among Hindu Brahmins and coming in contact with pig fat is desecration according to the Muslim faith.

Captain Gordon, with whom Pandey shares a strong bond of friendship, assures the sepoys that the cartridges are free of animal fat. Pandey believes him and uses the rifle. When the truth emerges, Pandey is distraught. On the one hand, he has been defiled. On the other, he presumes that Gordon has deceived the sepoys. Their friendship is tested when Pandey instigates the other sepoys to rise in revolt against the Company. 

The sepoys across different barracks plot a simultaneous revolt to overpower the few British soldiers stationed on Indian soil. The Company foils these plans by bringing in back-up in the form of the Rangoon regiment. Pandey leads the revolt at Barrackpore anyway. The sepoys are outnumbered. Pandey is captured. 

Captain Gordon regards himself inadvertently responsible for the situation. But Pandey assures him that the Indian freedom movement rapidly gaining in strength is independent of any sentiments about the cartridges. Pandey is executed in public and the movement spreads to other parts of India, ultimately leading to India’s Independence 90 years after the incident.

Some creative license has been used, including the characters of Captain Gordon, the widow Jwala (Amisha Patel) rescued by Gordon and the prostitute Heera (Rani Mukherjee) whom Pandey falls in love with.

An edited version of this article appeared in the August 2011 Issue of Culturama
Image courtesy Maya Movies Private Limited.

1947 Earth

1947 Earth

Cinema, Indian Cinema

Director: Deepa Mehta
Language: Hindi
The second film in Deepa Mehta’s Elements trilogy, 1947 (the other two being Fire and Water), Earth is based on Bapsi Sidhwa’s novel, Ice Candy Man. The movie vividly captures the bestial violence that erupted during the Partition as witnessed by an eight year old polio-afflicted Parsi girl who lives in Lahore, Pakistan.
Lenny (Maia Sethna) is privy to the budding romance between her Ayah, Shanta (Nandita Das) and a masseur, Hasan (Rahul Khanna). Lenny is also aware that Dil Nawaz (Aamir Khan), the smooth-talking Ice Candy Man, has a growing obsession with Shanta. Lenny and the Ice Candy Man become unwilling voyeurs to this unfolding love story.
As the dark clouds of the Partition gather, the animal in each man, like the lion that Lenny fears, is unleashed. Dil Nawaz proposes marriage to Shanta and says in a sombre foreshadowing, that it is only she who can keep his inner animal in check.
In a scene that best captures the horrific violence during the Partition, Dil Nawaz awaits the arrival of a train from Gurdaspur carrying his sisters. The train finally arrives twelve hours later laden with mutilated bodies of passengers.
Dil Nawaz eavesdrops on a conversation between Shanta and Hasan, where the masseur shares his plans to flee to Amritsar in India. The next day, Hasan’s body is found in a gunny sack. Lenny is deceived by Dil Nawaz into revealing Shanta’s whereabouts and along with a group of marauders, he abducts Shanta. Unlike the novel, the movie offers no explanation about Shanta’s fate and it is presumed Lenny lives with the guilt of having sealed the fate of her Ayah.

The end titles of the movie capture the immensity of the Partition, that divided India and Pakistan – “Over one million people were killed in India’s division. Seven million Muslims and five million Hindus and Sikhs were uprooted in the largest and most terrible exchange of population in history.” 

An edited version appeared in Culturama’s July 2011 Issue. 
Pic from the Hamilton Mehta Production website. 

Gabhricha Paus (Marathi)

Gabhricha Paus (Marathi)

Cinema, Indian Cinema

Language – Marathi                                                                 
Director – Satish Manwar
Gabhricha Paus contextualizes farmer suicides in Maharashtra even as the movie remains true to the black comedy genre. The vagaries of nature are portrayed to be only one among many aspects leading to failed crops and farmer deaths.
The film opens with yet another farmer’s suicide due to mounting debts. When the farmer’s wife regrets that she didn’t heed her husband’s moodiness, Alka (Sonali Kulkarni) suspects that her husband, Kisna (Girish Kulkarni) too is contemplating suicide. She enlists her son, Dinu (Aman Attar) and her mother-in-law (Jyoti Subash) to keep an eye on Kisna.
There is a pall of fatalism that hangs over Kisna, even as he dismisses the morbid insights of a fellow farmer, Patil. Kisna is confident that although it hadn’t rained in two years, with the benevolence of the rain gods and a little financial help, he can sow a crop whose harvest will erase his debts.
The dead farmer’s wife laments one day that she hadn’t made her husband’s favourite sweet often enough when he was still alive. Alka takes to making sweets and this expense in difficult times, along with Dinu’s constant scrutiny, rankles Kisna.
Kisna pawns his wife’s jewellery to buy seeds, and sows them, only to find that the monsoon is delayed. Under the vulturish gaze of Patil, he contemplates death. Alka persuades him to start over. This time, when the rain arrives, it submerges the seeds. Only a small crop survives and this too, is seized to offset Kisna’s debts.

When Kisna takes a bank loan to install a motor to pump water to his field, he thinks he has finally risen above his circumstance, only to encounter new challenges. In an ironic twist, Alka’s fears come true in a rather unexpected way.  

An edited version appeared in Culturama’s June 2011 Issue. 

Pushpak (Silent)

Pushpak (Silent)

Cinema, Indian Cinema

Language – Silent
Director – Singeetham Srinivasa Rao
Pushpak is a black comedy, that deftly uses background music and symbols to convey meaning in the absence of dialogue. 
In the Ramayana, the Pushpak was a flying machine with the ability to conjure up on offer, all the luxuries of the world. The Pushpak Hotel and its winged halo logo featured in the movie are an allegory for the lavish life on board the mythological flying machine. At another level, the movie explores the fleeting, illusory world of money and the divide between the haves and the have-nots.
An unemployed youth (Kamal Haasan) comes across a millionnaire (Sameer Khakkar) lying in an inebriated state, with a room key of the luxurious Hotel Pushpak in his pocket. The youth decides to steal the millionnaire’s identity, leaving him gagged in his own humble room. He moves into the lavish suite of the Hotel Pushpak, and uses the millionnaire’s wealth to groom himself in the fashion of the wealthy.
The youth falls in love with a magician’s daughter staying at the hotel. The young lovers spend time together and the youth senses with some relief, that the magician’s daughter (Amala) does not hanker after his presumed wealth. Meanwhile, a hitman (Tinu Anand) fails in his attempts to kill the youth. The youth realises that the real target is the millionnaire and, decides to investigate. Disillusioned with the material world that gave him wings, he sets things right, finally returning to his own humble life.
Pushpak won the Golden Lotus among the National Awards for the Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment.
An edited version appeared in Culturama’s May 2011 Issue.

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