Tag: philim

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How the “camp life” was brought to screen in Shikara

Guest post by Nitin Dhar on how the “camp life” was brought to screen in Shikara (2020). How the sets were not just movie sets but more than that. 

I was born in 1993, three years after my family like all other Kashmiri Pandit (Hindu) families were forced out of our homeland, Kashmir by the radical Islamist terror outfits and separatist groups for their aim of ‘Aazaad Kashmir’ to cut Kashmir off India and make it an Islamic state. Selective targeting of renowned Hindus in Kashmir began from mid 1989, followed by gang rapes of Hindu women, abductions, loots, burning of our houses and desecration of temples. It was a massacre and an ethnic cleansing on religious basis on the soil of independent democratic India.


My family lived in the refugee camps in tents where my parents got married. Like Shiv and Shanti in ‘Shikara’, the only thing they had was love and hope through all these years of exile. I was born in Jammu and lived in refugee camp called Purkhoo Camp till the age of 14. The only thing that all parents in the camp focussed on was educating their children and not letting their religious persecution sow seeds of hate or revenge. It truly was our resilience and belief in education, love and peace that made us stand on our own feet. We did not pick up stones or guns. We chose pens, peace and hope. And here we are prospering, even in exile.


Almost three decades after the the Kashmiri Pandits’ ethnic cleansing, I got the opportunity to work on ‘Shikara’. It was an extraordinary learning for me, like thousands of those young Kashmiri Pandits who participated in the film and portrayed themselves in it, to witness the tragedies our families went through before our birth.

Ever since I started pursuing photography and filmmaking as my career, I used to think many times that I would definitely have photographed our life in the camps had I been a photographer then, to record images of our tragedy for the world to know.

My grandfather passed away in 1997 due to PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). During the early years of us living in the Purkhoo Refugee Camp in the isolated outskirts of Jammu, he would wear his pheran (long woolen coat) in the scorching heat and run away from the quarter thinking he going back to Kashmir. In less than a kilometre he would faint and fall on the road. People who recognised him would bring him home on their shoulders. He would then take a while to recover. This repeated several times. I will never forget him bringing pieces of bricks and wood to build a small house model and tell me that’s how we would make our house again, a house that we could call home in Kashmir. He was not alone, there were thousands of old men and women who went through PTSD and succumbed to it. Such PTSD is also visible in obsession about news on Kashmir and watching DD Kashir no matter where we live in exile. Besides that, hundreds died because of snake bites, scorpion bites, sun strokes, brain tumour, cardiac arrests etc. For me, every death in exile is martyrdom. It was not just the Kalashnikovs in the hands of Islamic Jehadists in Kashmir that made the Jhelum weep of the Hindu blood, but also the deaths in exile due to the direct consequences of the forced displacement, lest we forget.

On the sets of Shikara, I met many such fellow Kashmiri Pandit refugees who suffer from PTSD. Who wept looking at the recreated camps and who’s chins shivered during scenes that haunt them in their dreams even today.

People who lived in the extreme cold climate of Kashmir, had to suddenly suffer temperature above 48°C, face scarcity of drinking water, electricity and no sanitation or health care. It takes unimaginable courage to look forward and build prosperous lives despite being brutalised and persecuted by one’s own neighbours, and being failed by one’s own state and fellow citizens.
Nevertheless, we stand united in our belief in unity, education, justice and non-violence, come what may.

The refugee masses in ‘Shikara’ are not actors. They are real Kashmiri Pandit refugees who still live in Jagti Refugee Camp in the outskirts of Jammu. This film is the first of its kind.


When the tent camps were being recreated, I remember, Vinod Sir asking me to walk with him during our multiple recces to make sure of authenticity. He even asked me if I had things that the govt. might have provided when my family was in tents, and coincidentally I remembered that we still had an Usha table fan and a couple of blankets that were provided by NGOs and govt. I got them the next day and we put them in Shiv and Shanti’s tent. Another short incident that I will never forget is when we got the refugees from Jagti Camp to the tent camp set, I overhead a little girl sitting in the lap of her mother inside one of the tents. As her mother was emotional and nostalgic, the little girl asked her, “Mumma, aap itne saare log itne chote se tent mein kaise rehte the”? There was silence. I bit my lower lip and walked away to hide tears swelling in my eyes as the mother gave her child a teary smile and a big hug. There are many such examples and stories from the sets of Shikara of how the realism of the sets reflected in the moist eyes and wistful smiles.

Sonal ma’am [Sonal Sawant], who was our production designer made everything look so real. I was myself always surprised as to how she would make the texture of the mud, aging of the tents and the tiles in the narrow lanes of pucca quarters resembles the ones I had in my memory.
Ranga Sir [Rangarajan Rambadran], who was our cinematographer and my HOD did a magician’s job with his imagery, giving us first set of pictures that represent our painful past with so much authenticity.

I can never forget my chats with Rahul Pandita about our exodus and the great event of this film finally being shot. He and his extraordinary book Our Moon Has Blood Clots, have been the source of inspiration for this film and for me in many many ways. He’s our hero. Our real life Shiv.
Here are some more pictures that I present from the sets of Shikara. Hope these images will reach hearts and pull out some kindness. It’s never too late for solidarity and support.

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You can catch the full set of pics and stories at instagram of Nitin Dhar [@wordslivelonger] where the whole series is available there.

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Mani Kaul’s Before my Eyes (1989)

video link
Mani Kaul’s Before my Eyes (1989). The film was produced by J&K tourism department but the end product by the legendary filmmaker left them so confused that the film was never properly showcased by them. It was supposed to be a tourism film but Mani Kaul made it without showcasing the usual sights of Kashmir. Most people would miss the genius of this film, but those who understand cinema would know what Kaul managed to achieve with the film.
With minimalistic human presence and a deliberate brooding consciousness of the geography of the place, the film like some dream of a child, traces the flight of a soul in paradise, there are sights and some sounds, it rises till the beauty materializes before your eyes and you realize it is not a dream, or is it.
The Hot air balloon works like a metaphor for dream in the film. Director hints at it when you see some people asleep in a Hotel room while a balloon rises from the window. You know you are dreaming because the western music mixes up with the local sights from a houseboat.There are vast mountains, greens, whites, wild brooks and broad rivers. You see a child running free. A man galloping on a horse while the moon rises. There is a garden, the (only) famous garden. You are alone in all this space.

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Abhinavagupta on last word


Bollywood is a fantastic flytrap that captures all kind of wonderful cultural specimens. It does so intentionally or unintentionally.

In Masala Bollywood movies, there was a favorite formula involving a dying muslim. The rule was: if the film has a do-gooder muslim character, and if the character is dying, his last dying words are going to be “Laa ilaaha ill-Allaah”. In his last moments the guy has to remember God. The formula is repeated in countless movies, repeated often enough for us to know that if the character dies without completing the sentence, the hero will close the eye lids of the dead man and complete the line for him and then continue with decimation of the villain.

The dying words. It’s an interesting concept. The Muslim tradition comes from Hadiths. A good muslim is to die remembering God and be assured of a place in heaven. Even Kafirs may be given this option so that they may face less trouble in hell.

Meanwhile, we have the (fanciful) stories of Gandhi dying with “Hey Ram” on his lips. Where does the “holiness” of this idea come from? Why did it matter what his last words were? As a kid, I remember reading those booklets by “Hare-Rama-Hare-Krishna” people. There were chapters dedicated to the subject of death. A good Hindu is to remember God in his dying moments. And just like in case of Muslim, not just remember, but God’s name is supposed to be the last word uttered so that one may be assured of a place in Vaikuntha.

The idea comes from Gita which goes even further, the last thought, the last word, it lingers and has consequences. If your last words are of anger, you might get stuck in angry state. It is like dying last wish. According to Gita, in the last dying moments whatever the mind seeks, it gets. A teenage mind wanders, even back then the idea sounded frightful. What if someone dies in sleep, dreaming of dinosaurs? Or, worse still if one dies of diarrhea and shit is all one can think of? What if dying man dreams of Kashmir? Should everyone die dreaming of Kashmir? Is that what is happening?

Again in Bollywood, the concept is put to hilarious use in a little know film called “Bollywood Diaries” (2016) (by K.D. Satyam, writer of Anurag Kashyap’s Mukkabaaz). In the film a terminally ill guy who wanted all his life to be an actors comes up with the simplest plan to have his wish fulfilled. In his last days he surrounds himself with posters of films actors. In his last moment he remembers Amitabh Bachchan.

A religious text has propounded this theory. And the theory has obvious flaws which put a believer in awkward position, that too at the last defining moment of his believing life. If someone is dying, he should not be worried about these things. Even among Muslims, the flaw in the idea was obvious, so later commentators do say do remind the dying but don’t force the guy into saying “Laa ilaaha ill-Allaah” lest the poor guy gets irritated and ends up saying something worse like “Laa ilaaha Laa ilaaha”, and yet just make sure that his last words are “Laa ilaaha ill-Allaah” even if he previously said “Laa ilaaha Laa ilaaha”. The exact last words matter.

In most medieval commentaries on Gita, the importance of last word is emphasised. However, the flaw in this thinking was explored by Kashmiri Shaivite philosopher Abhinavagupta (c. 950 – 1016 AD). In his commentary on Gita, Abhinavagupta also asked the same questions: ” The moment of death can be devoid of happiness, sorrow or delusion/ What if the the man dies in sudden accident and has not time to think of anything? What if the man remembers cold sweet water of the village river? What if in dying moments the man thinks of his wife? Does the wife also die instantly and he gets to be with her forever? Or does his sole become one with his wife? “

These are doubts he had and these are questions he sought to answer.

Abhinavagupta’s answer: “At that very last moment (one who had been remembering God throughout his life) will remember God as a result of the impression created through continuous meditation and will be united with Parmaesvara. This is because he becomes free from the binding influence of time.”

Basically, Abhinavagupta believes that for a man who spent his life remembering God, the last critical moment is immaterial because time is a relative term. This answer to these queries may or may not matter sound rational. But, the fact that he sough to answer these questions means that people even back then could be rational about religious texts.It is amazing that people have spent so many centuries pondering over these issues borne of divine speech and texts.

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Reading the English translation of Abhinavagupta’s Gitartha Samgraha by Boris Marjanovic

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Jashn-e-Intifada

When Sanjak Kak’s Jashan e Azadi (2007) came out hyper-nationalist were infuriated and asked for banning. I remember asking people to watch it. Only if you watch it, can you have an opinion on it. Only then you can understand why ultra-left would color Jihad as Intifada. Here’s the intro to the word “Intifada” in the film, the screen rolls in archival footage from 1992 showing Mujahideen giving gun salute to fallen comrades as common non-combatant local Kashmiris raise slogans, the narrator tells us :
“In the beginning of 1990, memories of old repression sought inspiration from Pakistan, Afghanistan; even Palestine and Iran. In those days, around 35000 rebels ( Kashmiris called them ‘Mujahideen’) were fighting the Indian army of 3.5 Lakh. The rebellion would be known as “Kashmiri Intifada”.

Mention of numbers, the maths, is of course to remind the viewers that the Mujahids were fighting a brave war against heavier odd. No mention of the fact that exactly from 1992 onwards the number of foreign Mujahids kept increasingly sneaking into Kashmir. However, this post is not about sneaky Mujahid with guns but an inquiry into how the word “Intifada” is sneaked into the left narrative. The director is honest enough and true to his principles claiming rebellion “would be” known as Kashmiri Intifada, he doesn’t claim it was back then known as Kashmiri Intifada. To the people on ground it was and it is Jihad, a religious duty. When the director says “would be known as”, it is just a wish that the director of the narrative has. It is like sugar coating a bitter pill of religious fanaticism with ideological romanticism. It is an attempt by Left to reclaim future without looking at its past failures.

The left has a special love for term Intifada. After all it is supposed to mean “resistance”. But, there is more to that love.


Most people now know the word thanks to the conflict industry setup around Palestine. But, the word in the sense it is used now, first came to be employed in Arab world of 1950s when the left was making great strides in attaining power. In Iraq, Iraqi Communist Party successfully used it against monarchy, the power of course later went to Army, and eventually to Iraqi “Ba’ath Party” (the words means “resurrection”) which spent no time burying communists. The original socialist Ba’ath Party before its split was founded in Syria by people who believed in pan Arab state. The left politics had a bigger impact on Syrian politics. At the time Syria was under military dictatorship of Adib Shishakli, a man who had earlier fought in Palestine in 1948. Communism had a mass following and was blooming.Historian Maxime Rodinson explains the significance of it as:
“In September 1954, in the first elections after Shishakli’s downfall, 22 Baathist were elected to the Parliament, together with the communist leader Khaled Begdash. This was the Left’s first great success in the Arab world.”

As later history tells us, this man too was hounded out.
Using such a powerful word in case of Kashmir, of course draws immediate connect from western audience which is well acquainted with Arab conflicts and its relation of the word “Intifada”to word colonialism. Even the left intelligentsia in India, has heavily invested in Palestinian conflict, so they too are able to see Kashmir with a certain lens when the word Intifada is used. It becomes easier to pass off Kashmir as a colony of India. India was a brute force.


And it has other benefits too:

When Hezbollah supports Intifada and when Arundhati Roy supports Intifada, both are essentially on same page and yet few would question Roy, “How can you be on same page as Hezbollah?”
Replace Hezbollah with Hizbul Mujahideen. You get the picture. If violent religious ideology of Hezbollah can be overlooked, Hizbul Mujahideen too can be sanitised and sold as “resistance movement” and broadcast on youtube as Electronic Resistance.

All that is fine. But, why this desperate attempt to plagiarize this history of Syria, Iraq, Palestine and Hezbollah, roll it into a bitter-sweet pill and pop it into “would be” conflict test lab of Kashmir. Why keep selling the condescending thought that when Muslims get repressed, they only rebel as violent religious organisations and the world has to accept it? Why not tell them about history of left led rebellion in Arab world? It’s success and failures. Similar success and failure of left in Kashmir. The assassinations of left leaders by the “rebels” in “Kashmir Intifada” of 1990s.

If nothing else, at least, come up with a Kashmiri word for Intifada.
What did Intifada do for Palestine?
Before the rise of religion driven movements and intifadas in Arab world, French Marxist historian Maxime Rodinson had these lines to offer as advise to his fellow Marxist in 1968. 
/“Yet false and over-schematised conceptions of Israel’s membership of and dependence on Western world must be rejected. Such conceptions are very widely held among the Arabs and elsewhere, and are furthermore frequently linked to Marxism. These notions are of the type which are fashionable in the most vulgar ideological Marxism of the Stalin era. The capitalist imperialist enemy of the people’s longings for liberty and equality is represented as a kind of legendary monster, with a single head and brain controlling a host of tentacles which unhesitatingly obey the orders of the master mind. The brain is situated somewhere between the Pentagon and wall Street, and none of the tentacles has any will of its own.
[…]
If the consequences of pressing a just claim are liable to be calamitous and unjust, and too fraught with practical difficulties, there may be grounds for suggesting that it be renounced. The wrong done to the Arabs by the Israelis is very real. However, it is only too common throughout history. Innumerable violations of rights of this nature have taken place since the beginnings of human society. Sometimes one side, sometimes the other has been the ultimate beneficiary. The Arabs, in their history, have made conquests on an infinitely greater scale and wronged many other nation. Some still behave in an entirely reprehensible manner – towards the Kurds for instance, and the negroes of South Sudan. The conquests of the past have been shrouded by the moral prescript of forgetfulness. The colonists are not monsters in human form, but people responding to reflexes which are unfortunately only too characteristic of social man. No one can without hypocrisy judge himself or his community to be free from such reflexes.”
Rodinson had the courage to say it after the end of 6 day war of 1967. Replace India with Israel and change Arabs with Kashmir, it won’t be difficult to do for some of you. If you go “…but India is no colonist” or “…but Kashmiris did no wrongs”, or “let’s get to the beginning”…you are either a hypocrite or ignorant or a mix of both.

It is easy to pass around quotes of Edward Said on Palestine and fit them to Kashmir. Be like Said, pick a stone and throw it around. But, is that honest.

“To make matters worse, the Palestinian Islamists have played into Israel’s relentless propaganda mills and its ever ready military by occasional bursts of wantonly barbaric suicide bombings that finally forced Arafat, in mid-December, to turn his crippled security forces against Hamas and Islamic Jihad, arresting militants, closing offices and occasionally firing at and killing demonstrators.[…]

A closer look at the Palestinian reality tells a somewhat more encouraging story. Recent polls have shown that between them, Arafat and his Islamist opponents (who refer to themselves unjustly as ‘the resistance’) get somewhere between 40 and 45 percent popular approval. This means that a silent majority of Palestinians is neither for the Authority’s misplaced trust in Oslo (or for its lawless regime of corruption and repression) nor for Hamas’s violence.”

 Edward Said wrote this in 2002 on the “new” Palestinian intifada, on how most Palestinians stood for neither Arafat nor Islamists, and how these people were the “silent majority”.

Needless to say, the intifada factory in India hasn’t yet reached a stage where such nuances matter. An Islamist terrorist is wrapped in sugar syrupy shroud weaved using “see-as-fit” words of Edward Said and presented as “The Resistance”, just because they, the Indian Palestinian experts, will have every one believe the most Kashmiris stand for Islamists and any body interesting in a future of Kashmir, has to get used to the idea. And it is all because of brutality. So, justified. So many are dying, so justified.

All the while failing to explain why even in face of Israeli brutalities, Palestinians were able reject Islamists?

The answer is because the Palestinians resistance is native while in Kashmir it is all an import. The guns and the ideology is imported from across the border while the lens used to analyse the Kashmir is imported from Indian intelligentsia that has long studied Palestine. These people who bendover backward to make Hizbul Mujahideen look like another run of the mill radical yet benign socialist party, are the people who would ensure that Kashmir will never see a truly secular future, or any future while Palestine still has a chance. Kashmir will only continue to churn out Indian experts who will put their sloppy Palestinan theories into action in Kashmir.

Now, recall history of Kashmir where unlike Palestine the violent bloodletting is only, on historic scale, recent, just 26 years old. If you see people peddling the failed vulgar variants of Marxist ideologies in case of Kashmir. It is no coincidence the new cry of Kashmiris is “Bharat ki Barbadi tak”. You know how things would turn out. Kashmir still has a chance. All stake holders just need to count their losses of past, present and future.

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Pic 1: Screengrab from the film showing Mujahideens giving gun salute to fallen comrades.
Pic 2: “Have mercy on us, because we are small and frightened and ignorant” ~ “dance macabre”, end scene from “The Seventh Seal” (1957) by Ingmar Bergman.

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Kashmiri Film: Arnimaal (1977)


Extracts from television film “Arnimaal” by Siraj Qureshi shown in 1977 (1982 according to some sources). It was based on the popular folklore surrounding the poet Arnimal (Mrs. Bhawani Dass, circa 1738 – 1778). Story, Screenplay and dialogues by poet Prof. Sattar Ahmad Shahid (b.1931). The film was uploaded in parts by Dara Nazeer.

I have compiled them together sequentially as they should have been in the movie. Also, adjusted the video and audio quality a bit.

video link

The story goes that Arnimal was married to rich boy from Srinagar Bhawani Dass who was a good poet. Arnimal (played by Reeta Jalali) is also gifted at weaving words. There is much love between them. Bhawani Dass becomes a high officer in Afghan court and slowly starts drifting away from Arnimal and instead spending time with the courtesans. Out of her grief Arnimal becomes a great poet while Bhawani Dass has a reverse of fortune. Today no one remembers Persian poet Bhawani Das but Kashmiri poet Arnimal is still sung. The film gives a beautiful glimpse into the culture and way of life of Kashmiri Pandits. The Pooza scene and the wedding scene particularly stands out for freezing the memory of that fading culture. Another notable thing is a casual scene in which the recipe of Kashmiri Sheera (a kind of syrup…Arabic ‘sharab’) is given (Raisins + Melon seeds).

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Sound recording was done by Ashok Koul, trained at FTII Pune.

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Deepak Marhatta shared SearchKashmir‘s video.
January 11 at 5:14pm ·

Some portion of this film has been shot at Dewan Khan (an ancient ornamental building housing the Mahant)of Mata UMA BHAGWATI temple Umanagri where a learned Brahman Lt Sh Naranjan Nath pandit(Nera Kak) is performing the puja.

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Bharti Raina [Rita Jalai, the actress] She is happily married, and Live’s Himachal Pradesh ,( Mandi )

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info. via Aasha Khosa: My maternal grandmother is figuring in this film. This is Shobawati Bhat, w/o Vaid Lal Bhat of village Nagam, Budgam district.



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Another one



veteran Kashmiri actor Sudhama Ji Kaul.

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Paanch Azaan


video link

1:19 min. Made over two years.

Act 1
Manasbal
 […crowds of worshippers used to fall down and rise at prayers, imitating the high waves…]
~ Dvitīyā Rājataraṅginī, Jonaraja describing Muslims at prayer.
Act 2
Nagin Lake
the man said there are now so many mosques in his area, new Ahle Hadees, competing Barelvi, then the older ones and many more. But, inside empty. Only loudspeakers. It gives him headaches. He then left for his Namaaz.
Act 3
Silent prayer.
Act 4
Village Tullamulla
She said there’s a hawan going on somewhere nearby. Some one is praying. Indrakshi Stotram. Let’s go. A CRPF guy standing next to a pile of stones corrects her, “Namaaz”. It is Friday. He is waiting for stone pelters.
“When he (Jayapida) was appropriating (the land of) Tulamulya, he heard, while on the bank of the Candrabhaga, that a hundred Brahmans less one had sought death in the water of that (stream).”
And with their magic prayers they broke 9th century King Jayapida’s head and caused his death. So say’s Kalhana.
Act 5
Pampore
February 20, 2016
Two terrorists take over a JKEDI building shoddily built atop the 11th Century AD King Jayasimha’s Simhapora, burying history under concrete. [link]
While the gun battle starts, in nearby village, the priest in the mosque asks people to answer the call of Muslim blood.
Army diverts the cars to take an alternate route to reach Srinagar.
We are stuck in a car near village Kunmoh, the birth place of 11th-century Kashmiri poet Bilhana.

I ask her if she is afraid.

She answers, “No.”

I ask her, “why?”

“I don’t know, “she replies.

Even now, knowing death is quickly closing in, 
my thought leaves the gods and is drawn to her in awe.
What can I do? My thought is obsessed: “She is my love!”
~ Bilhana.
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Alman Khasun

Alman Khasun: In Kashmir, climbing on top of things, roof, shelves, poles, windows, gates, walls, trees, anything, in a state of frenzy.

Clip: 1. Bollywood frenzy from a song in Mr. Natwarlal (1979) shot in Kashmir. 2. A shot from frenzy that was 1990.

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footnotes to Haider



Jo Aazdi tumhe tumhare cliches say Aazaad nahi kare, us Aazadi ka tum kya Karoge.


Hero singing out the details of a conspiracy, how a killing was planned and how it was carried out. Hero dances on stage in front of the villain and sings out his the plans of a long overdue revenge. Hero is not Rishi Kapoor in Karz (1980), it is Shahid Kapoor in Vishal Bhardwaj’s Haider (2014). Prince Hamlet sings Ek Tha Gul Aur Ek Thi Bulbul to Claudius to get his confession of guilt.

In words of Sheikh Walli Mohammed Peer, ‘Bollywood, Bollywood, Bollywood.’

I will not write about the film. There is not much to say about it. Maqbool still is the best Shakespeare adaptation by Vishal Bhardwaj. My Kashmiri pride say’s Kashmir deserves a Akira Kurosawa, not this meek surrender of senses. (Kasheer’s Gass’ya AtumBum pyon and then we would get Akira). But then decades of conflict seems to have only produced generations of experts on the ‘Kashmir Issue’ and not the arts. So much bloodshed and yet we are devoid of art, a language, a medium in which original metaphors of this conflict could be produced. Instead, we have imitation of art. We look for inspiration in art produced by other conflicts. Coping bits and pieces. Putting together a kind of magic mirror that only Bollywood can produce. Perhaps it is fitting for a conflict whose narrative was and is always dying to follow the narrative curves of other conflicts. If it wasn’t sad it would be funny. I said I will not write about the film (yes, I have reached a point where it seems pointless), so I will write about some random stuff that you would see (and hear) in this film and things you wouldn’t see, hear or read in context of the film. We will try to see if there indeed is a method to this maddening conflict. But, first just to clear some doubts. The purpose of movies.

‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ (1930) couldn’t stop ‘Triumph of the Will’ (1935) couldn’t stop ‘The Great Dictator’ (1940) couldn’t stop Vietnam War couldn’t stop ‘Full Metal Jacket’ (1987) couldn’t stop Afghan war and so on.

Movies they come and they go, the conflicts they move on. They were and they will.

But, it is always a nice idea to watch a movie about a conflict. There’s a rare chance, you might learn a few things. Be entertained. Move on.

Moving on.

The Men with Mottos

In ‘Haider’, in a particular scene, Haider looking for his missing father moves from military camp to military camp. In a particular camp on the wall can be seen a motto,’Get them by balls, minds and hearts will follow.’ This was an actual motto of the renegade army comprising of former militants trained and armed by Indian Army as a solution to Islamic terrorists. It is mentioned in a bunch of books about Kashmir issue (first in ‘The Meadow’ (2012) by Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark about most famous case of kidnapping of the foreign tourists in Kashmir). It is an embarrassing kind of motto, the violence in it is kind of indefensible. What is probably even more embarrassing is the fact (seldom mentioned by experts) that the motto was not an original Indian invention. It was an American invention. It is said to have been uttered by their President Lyndon Johnson. It came to represent the American Military’s approach to Vietnam war. We all know how that ended for them. So the question is why did some unknown, powerful, spook-infested, dim-witted man in uniform chose those lines as motto for this band of state sponsored killers? Hadn’t he seen ‘All the President’s Men’ (1976)? What lack of imagination!

The factories

PAPA2 becomes MAMA2. Simple. MAMA 2 would have made sense if the film was about a girl looking for the story of her mother. The mother could then be heard singing in the torture cell at nights. The only voice of defiance in the dark cells of this death factories in which monsters are moulded. No, wait a minute that film has already been made. Denis Villeneuve’s brutal film ‘Incendies’ (2010). To imagine a defiant Kashmiri inside a PAPA2, one had to borrow a metaphor from an Oscar nominated film set in Middle-East conflict. What lack of imagination!

The Kids who love to sing

In a flashback scene, a teenage ‘Haider’ can be heard singing a Jihadi song that originated from Pakistan side of Punjab after fall of Russia in Afghanistan, ‘Jago Jaho Subha Hui, Khoon Shaheeda Rang Laya’ [link] made without any stringed intrument. The Jihadi song was based on a harmless fun PTV song meant for children [link] to get them to wake up early in the morning. Apparently, the Jihadi version was quite popular among kids in Kashmir in early 90s. It was their ‘Eye of The Tiger’. The kind of song on which one could dream of happily blowing up. The song is available on a Youtube channel named, ‘ugerWadi’. On the same channel having a whole range of Jihadi songs you can find a song called ‘Apni Jang Rahay Gee’. The response of Bollywood to such songs: ‘Mera Mulk Mera Desh’ from Diljale (1996) based on Israeli National anthem.

Our War Remains

The original ‘Apni Jang Rahay Gee’ [link] was sung by Mehdi Hassan ( who gave us ‘Gulon Mein Rang Bhare’ ) in a Pakistani film called ‘Yeh Aman’ (1971) and written by lefty Habib Jalib (who spend a later part of his life having Jung with Zia). The propaganda film was made after the failure of Operation Gibraltar of 1965, the song had a refrain that relied on a Kashmiri saint, ‘Ya Peer Dastgeer Madat Kar’. The Jihadi version of the song, reflecting and triggering the changing vocabulary of the Kashmir, had instead the refrain ‘Ya Rabbul Alamin Madat Kar’. (In Haider, in one of the torture scenes, you can hear a Kashmiri swear on Dastgeer Saheb).

What has all this got to do with Haider?

 ‘Yeh Aman’ (1971) had Tabu’s father Jamal Hashmi playing a Kashmiri. It is one of the few films on Kashmir in which Pandits (comically) are part of the story. More on that film, some other day. It is interesting that Shahid’s father Pankaj Kapoor played the first famous Kashmir terrorist in Roja (1992), a film that couldn’t even be shot in Kashmir.

These Bhands

In the scene in ‘Haider’ where ‘Bhands’ are introduced, we are also introduced to the other sort of actors: the new Politicians of Kashmir out to ‘sell’. ‘Bhand’ has been used as a derogatory term in India for a long time, but the term in Kashmir is employed even more potently. In Kashmir, these traditional performers have had to deal with the label of ‘traitors’. It is recalled that they right from the time of Nehru have been performing in the State capital. They have been deemed collaborators. Some unknown masked-men remember their Pandit origins and their love for fiddle, so these artists have faced bullets. Their art dying a slow death. In fact, the art of using masks in Bhand performances (the mask the are parts of  ‘Haider’) was revived only in 2012-2013. It is extensively used in a performance known as ‘Shikargah Pather’.

These Actors

The other variety of collaborator is also some sort of actors. The Mimicks. The Bhands. The Jesters. The Salman loving two Salmans. We could say it is Bollywood making fun of themselves. But, here too they chose the easiest target they could find and shoot. So, the only characters in the film within the influence sphere of Bollywood too have been shown as collaborators. In Kashmir of that decade, a film loving Kashmiri may or may not have been a collaborator but he certainly was a suspect. Under that glare of scrutiny, allegiance to Bollywood moved from public to private sphere. They don’t watch films in public in halls but in safety of their homes. The film tries to imply that it is because Cinema Halls became torture cells. The film doesn’t tell the entire story. Some of these halls were burnt down by Jihadists. Like in case of ‘Palladium’ where in 1947-1948 massive pro-India rallies were organised. It was here that Sheikh Abdullah welcomed Nehru with the lines of Amir Khusro:
Mun tu shudam tu mun shudi,mun tun shudam tu jaan shudi
Taakas na guyad baad azeen, mun deegaram tu deegari

I have become you, and you me,
I am the body, you soul;
So that no one can say hereafter,
That you are are someone, and me someone else.

The cinema hall were a mini-theatre of war and protest even back then. In around 1965, the playing of Indian National anthem in cinema halls of Kashmir was stopped. Palladium was the stronghold of Bakshi brothers in 60s, to the Islamist puritans, the house of corruptor.  No wonder it had to be brought down in the 90s. The ideology of the unknown masked-men remembered and attacked the symbols and what they stood for.  The body and soul, separated. Salman and Salman crushed to death. Death to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. 

The Stage

Beside the Cinema Hall, the only other stage presented in film is the ruins of Martand. It’s odd to note that Martand was an place were Kashmiri at least up till 1950s used to gather to dance and sing. Few remember it now. This stage too is now gone. Instead, we have idiotic manufactured controversies over ‘Ahansa, he showed Shaitan in our Mandar. Down with the film.’ From the way the scene is set, the temple, is used to represent Kashmir in which a dual faced devil (or Roman Janus, the god associated with among other things, Sun and changing time) watches all and devours some.

When Haider does Dhamali, he not just mimics dance steps from Gangnam style, he is riding the horses of the sun god.

The Shadow Men

‘Haider’ tells us a middle-class well educated Kashmiri Muslim even when close to death, would ask another person, if he is a Shia or a Sunni. A convenient contortion of creative zeal in a Bollywood film penned by a Kashmiri. A contortion that deforms an otherwise brilliantly throughout idea by Basharat Peer: The ghost of King Hamlet. 
The answer of the Ghost is:
Dariya b main, Darakht b main
Jhelum b main, chinar b main
Daer hu, haramm b hu,
Shia b hu, sunni b hu
Main hu Pandit;

Main tha, mein hu aur mein he rahuga

The lines are a mashup Lal Ded’s:

Aassi aiys ta asi aasav
Aassi dur kur patu-vath
Shivas sari na zyon ta marun
Ravus sori na atu-gath!

We did live in the past and we will be in future also:
From ancient times to the present, we have activated
this world.
Just as the sun rises and sets, as a matter of routine,
The immanent Shiva will never be relieved of birth and
death!

And Heraclitus’ “war is the father of all things and the king over all”

The ghost of Hamlet becomes Roohdaar, the father of war, the vengeful soul of Haider’s father, the body of an ISI agent.

The body of Ghost who walks

In Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Mission Kashmir, the invincible ghost has his head slit and yet he survives. In Bhardwaja’s Haider, he is shot and drowned and yet he survives. Make a few more Bollywood movies, throw in poisoning, and it would definitely seem like we are trying to kill Rasputin.

The ghost claims immortality. The only thing immortal in all this is war. It seems both sides, the pro and the anti, have conceded that the war is immortal. So, our war remains.


The physical appearance of Roohdaar, the dark glasses on snow burnt eyes reminded me of a character from Kashmir known as Nabgagal.


The Violence


Violence is an act in which ideas are not attacked but the head from which ideas originate is attacked. Trotsky must get Snowballed. Haider intentionally and unintentionally cracks every skull that he deems source of his suffering.

The Gravediggers

In 1990, NSD theatre artist Bhawani Bashir Yasir was among the people who crossed over to Muzaffarabad. He took a new name Dr. Haider Mizazi and in Muzaffarabad took over the work of propaganda for Amanullah fraction of JKLF. Bhawani returned to Srinagar in 2000, took up his old name and again returned to theatre. In the irony that is Kashmir, Bhawani plays one of the three gravediggers in ‘Haider’ and sings ‘Aao na’.

So Jao. A century ago, the only Kashmiris who would dig their own graves while alive, were called Rishis and Peers. They were worshipped even back then.

The Missing

The case of missing Pandits is brought out in the film by a real Pandit, Lalit Parimoo, who plays a cop collaborating with the state. In the scene, he seems to be forced to break character to bring up the argument. It is abrupt and out of place. Missing Pandits is an argument made by many people when Kashmir is discussed, particularly by Pandits, but seldom by a Muslim man of the establishment to counter another Kashmiri Muslims’s claim over victimhood.

The missing witness

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the only real friend Prince Hamlet has is Horatio. He is supposed to bear witness to almost all the major events. He is the only one left alive to tell the tale of Hamlet to the world. In ‘Haider’, the friendly witness is missing. The friend is played by a girl. And she too dies. Did Haider’s of Kashmir have no real friends? The audience  can’t be the witness because even though they see all, not all the people watching are friends of Prince Hamlet. They can’t help laughing, spilling pop-corn and soda, when a Kashmiri (cameo by Basharat Peer) won’t enter his own house without going through frisking. So, who first bore witness to the story of Kashmiri Hamlet? It seems like Haider himself. After having left Claudius alive, feeling great about not being revengeful anymore, he went on to write his experiences and the wisdom it brought to him. Or maybe even Claudius, after being left alive, feeling remorseful, vengefully went on to write about his loss of humanity. Or perhaps the writer of Haider.

Even though Kashmir is still in a ‘to be or not to be’ state, Haider the film doesn’t end on that note. It is forced into a ‘to be’ state. What death of dreams. What march of Tamasha.

P.S. What’s with the Moby beat from Bourne Identity (2002) and the end sequence. The gun behind the chain-toilet is a nod to Godfather (1972). In ‘Yeh Aman’ (1971), ‘Mission Kashmir’ (2000) and in Haider (2014) the loss of Kashmir, peace, is symbolised by things blowing up by a projectile. In Haider it is the house while in both Yeh Aman’ and ‘Mission Kashmir’, a Shikara is blown up in first one minute of the movie.

The story of missing doctor in Jhelum comes from Jalil Andrabi murder case of 1996. The young boy found alive in a truck of dead bodies, and then dancing. That tale comes from Gawkadal Massacre of 1990.

PAPA2 was shut down in around 1996. Later, the colonial building became residence of PDP’s Mufti Sayeed in around 2005. In 1947, a priest of the Hari Singh had declared the building inauspicious as it was built over a spot dedicated to a goddess.

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Anyone read ‘Shalimar the Clown’ (2005) by Salman Rushdie? The one which mashes up
Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ with ‘Hamlet’. The revenge story which actually ends on ‘to be or not to be’ note. The story in which a woman named India/Kashmira, born of Ghazala and Khurram, must choose what to do with King Hamlet, Shalimar the Clown who has turned killer.
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Posted on

Lakhon Mein Ek, 1967, Pakistan


It is 1948 and Kashmir is already divided between two newly created nations. But a war still wages on and boundaries are being drawn and re-drawn. There is news of communal violence in Poonch. Prem Nagar (Love Town) is in sphere of violence. Caught in this violence are two patriarchs in town Khairabad, one Hindu and one Muslim, one Hardayal and one Ahmad. Both are looking for their missing family and young child. Hindus are killing Muslims. Muslims are leaving Poonch and heading for the land now rechristened ‘Azad Kashmir’. Emotions are running high. Ahmad begs his friend Hardayal to leave for Hindustan. Hardayal does not want to leave his birth place and head for an unknown land but takes the advise. Ahmad promises to continue looking for Hardayal’s daughter Shakuntala. Hardayal promises to look for Ahmad’s wife and son Mehmood on the other side. On reaching the other side Hardayal finds the whole village of Prem Nagar burning with no sign of Ahmad’s wife and son Mehmood. The shock of violence proves a bit too much for  Hardayal, he protests the violence and like Manto’s Toba Tek Singh, ends up in an asylum. Ahmad manages to find little Shakuntala safe in a police station. He takes her in. When the news of violence in Prem Nagar reaches Ahmad, he takes his wife and son for dead. Little Shakuntala is afraid that in retaliation her Ahmad uncle will kill her. Ahmad tells her his Allah don’t believe in such mindless violence. When a Muslim mob turns up at his house to get the girl, he tells them the same thing – ‘not the way of true religion.’ As often happens in movies (and in Bible), an instantly repentant mob drops weapons and goes away enlightened. We know Ahmad is going to raise Shakuntala as his own daughter. Meanwhile, little Mehmood evading a Hindu mob crosses over to Azad side and is rescued. But the violence does an erase job on his memories. He is taken in by a Pathan Dilbar Khan, a lorry driver who will raise him as his own son renaming him Dildar Khan.

Years later, lorry driver Dildar Khan meets Shakuntala and both fall in love with each other. Ahmad reminds Shakuntala not to do anything that would embarrass him in front of the society. He indirectly asks her if she has consummated her love with the Muslim boy. Shakuntala promises she did no such thing. Ahmad meets Pathan Dilbar Khan and politely asks him to stop Dildar Khan from wooing the Hindu girl. An angry Pathan confronts his son Dildar Khan and asks him what has he been doing with the innocent Hindu girl. ‘Nothing, father, we just hugged once.’ Pat comes a slap. ‘Would you like it if someone hugs your mother or sister?’ Love is forbidden. Caught in a dilemma, Dildar Khan promises to forget Shakuntala. Driving his lorry in a distraught state, he has an accident that again erases his memories and brings back old memories.

He wakes up from accident remembering his real name and the name of his father. He refuses to recognise Pathan as his father. Mehmood is reunited with his real father Ahmad and moves into his house. Here, he again meets Shakuntala but doesn’t remember her as the woman he once loved but remembers her as the little Hindu girl he used to play with. A crestfallen Shakuntala sings her sad songs to the lovely valleys. Mehmood does not remember her. She cries. Mehmood does not remember her. Angry Pathan arrives at Ahmad’s door to reclaim back his son. Pathan claims his son Dildar Khan became Mehmood so that he could live with Hindu girl Shakuntala. Shocked at hearing this accusation, Mehmood finally remembers everything. Love again blossoms. Everything is fine but then Shakuntala’s real father Hardayal return from India to take back his long lost daughter.

It is obvious Shakuntala loves Mehmood. He is her god, yet, Shakuntala and Mehmood part ways for if they stay together it shall bring dishonour to everyone, every religion.

In Hindustan things don’t get any better for Shakuntala. Hindustan isn’t kind to woman who falls in love with a man prone to amnesia. It has been so since the birth of Bharat. The tyranny that amnesia inflicts on women gives birth to nations.

Shakuntala
Amar Chitra Katha

In Hindustan, Shakuntala is looked down upon because she slept in Pakistan, Land of Pure. In India, she is treated as impure and not even allowed to enter the temple. Shakuntala wants to return to the real land of pure. Father is helpless.

Shakuntala’s problems only compound. A rich Hindu sets his lecherous eyes on Shakuntala and using the help of a local conniving pandit manages to marry her. But on their first night together, Shakuntala tells him that her heart belongs to someone else. Scene cuts to the temple of her heart and we see her singing bhajan the her love god.

God of love from Pakistan.
No weapons here.
[video]

Sung by Noorjahan and written by Fayyaz Hashmi of ‘Aaj Jaane Ki Zid Na Karo’ fame, ‘Man Mandir ke Devta‘ is a curious specimen from old world Pakistan where even propaganda had to be rooted in a certain unavoidable intimacy with the enemy. Pakistan has come a long way since then and Pakistani cinema is of course as good as dead.

The conniving Pandit and the profane rich landlord.
The regular Hindu punching bag blokes in Pakistani cinema.

Scorned, Shakuntala’s husband decides to put an end to this unholy love. He shoots off a secret message to Mehmood pretending to be Shakuntala and asks him to meet up at the border. He plans to kill Mehmood. Shakuntala overhears the evil plan and rushes to save Mehmood. In the finale at the line of control, Shakuntala takes a bullet for Mehmood and dies. Mehmood takes back Shakuntala’s body to Pakistan, the land of pure.
Funny thing, the subcontinental popular cinema. In 1962, the story of Shakuntala was retold in Indian film ‘Ek Musafir Ek Hasina’ (1962). Again a girl in love with an amnesic boy and again a drama set in Kashmir. However, while the Indian film towards the end disintegrates into a regular Bollywood affair so that in sum Kashmir just looks like an exotic prop, it is surprisingly the Pakistani propaganda film which at least is a bit more focused in its depiction of complex geographical and ethnic setup of Kashmir. Indian films were and remain very vague about these things. Who in Bomaby would have made a film about a place called ‘Poonch’? 
If you invert ‘Lakhon Mein Ek’, if it was made in India, if the girl was muslim and the amnesic boy was Hindu, if the rhetoric was kept the same, if the story is again told over the dead body of a woman, if the religious overtones are a bit diluted and a nationalistic flavour is a bit amplified, if a dying Shakuntala was to again plead the case of a nation, you get the story of Raj Kapoor’s Henna (1991).  

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Watch the entire film here

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This is Part 1 of two part series on ‘Kashmiri women in Pakistani cinema’. In part 2, we are going to look at the curious case of a Kashmiri pandit girl pleading the case for Pakistan.

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Previously: Bollywood and their Kashmir nonsesne

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