Forced Exodus or Glory of Romance?

When The  Kashmir Files was released with much visibility, I wasn't too sure if I should watch this.

Apart from the wide pre release publicity it received, including tacit patronage from powers that be, there were also nudges from many friends and acquaintances to watch the movie. 

As if I was thorough by heart ,on all the historical facts and events, on the exodus, I was also eager that the next generation should have atleast a prima facie glimpse of such historical past of India's controversial political turn of events. So, I asked my son to accompany. He , the one fed by a barrage if left liberal woke media,was sceptical in our physical safety in the cinema hall- we have had a Petrol bomb thrown on Maniratnam's house after release of Bombay.

To be frank, I wasn't in the country in those tragic years,- I was in Middle East : and un  coincidentally my neighbour was a Kashmiri Carpet dealer. Was friendly,few words, though his wife preferred chatting to the wife of a Sudanese neighbour than with my wife-  One prime factor could have been that both me and my wife were ignorant of Hindhi , courtesy the  Annadurai Karunanidhi Anti Hindhi mafia. I couldn't even know if my Kashmiri Padosi was from Srinagar or POK. But all I knew through my professional dealing with such Carpet Sellers was that there were many families hailing from either side of the LOC. The 1947 or 1965 incursions left no scars on them.

Now to the film under discussion.

Yes, it was moving. Staring from the rice brawl scene to the one where the teenage girl is forced to pee under a temporary cover in a moving truck. One saw more of a documentary than fiction necessitating suspended disbelief , which you are usually compelled to adopt in Indian movies. So absorbing that when my TN settled North Indian fellow audience started a Kitty party post interval,  I had to express my vocal  objection to demand silence.

It was like borrowed nostalgia, not necessarily pleasant. I was forced to recall the kidnapping episode of my colleague who was a Pundit then posted in Srinagar. At that time, it didn't sink. A blue eyed boy of the Management took an interview of the victim ,as if was an expedition to Mt. Kilimanjaro.Si it was pass. I can't even recall any one in our offices discussing it as a major escapade from a 45 day captivity.

It was then I accidentally came to know that this was not the first movie on tragedy of Kashmiri Pundits. The iconic director Vidhu Vinod Chopra having made his 

' Shikara' just two years back. I am a self confessed cinema afficinado ,being member of Film Clubs, addicted to watching international films coming out of  right from Argentina to Japan. But for reasons of preservation of intellectual sanity, never ever was comfortable with regular Bollywood  Commercial Output. 

Ofcourse , Garam Hawa's, Manthan's , Pyaza' s were a separate niche by theslves which did the Art Film circuit rounds. Not pictures which grossed 200 crores in the first week. So, no wonder I hardly knew of Shikara.

Now having watched the Vivek Agnihotri community biopic, I was curious to follow up with what the Director of unorthodox genre like Munnabhai, Parinda etc, had to offer. Yes, like the posters for Kashmiri Files, this movie also was unabashedly screaming that this was about the Untold Suffering of the Kashmiri Pundits. Which put me on my bedside edge (OTT)

I had to strain to watch it at one go. What was good was the photography was idyllic. Scenic Kashmir in its splendor. Cultural diversity shown through celebrations of weddings with sumptuous Kashmiri cuisine and music. Hindu Muslim Bhai Bhai till a Muslim cricketer's father is assaulted by Forces and turns into Terror camp. Shairs, Hugs, Stolen glances, Housing Dreams, so on 

 The central theme , therefore, was all about romance between a poet lecturer and a petite lady nurse intern. A typical Vinod Chopra piece a la 1942 A Love story or Ek Ladki...Aisa Hua" etc. 

Not very unlike Maniratnam' s Roja. What do you take away? Terror in Kashmir or a Tirunelveli rustic girl's fighting spirit to free her newly married husband from across LOC ? P C. Sriram photography or debutant A  R  Rahman scores? Arvind Swami's chocolate face singing a patriotic flag holding song or Pankaj Kapur's unbelievable Tamil knowledge of a JKLF terrorist?

Same here.

You don't whimper a second for the gruesome reign of inhuman assault on ordinary people. The protagonist spends a huge chunk of money to fulfill his commitment of taking his spouse to see the Taj Mahal and after discharging his betrothal obligation, carries the ashes of the departed wife to ancestral home , whose name, gives the title to the film

" Shikara" . Where is the agony a whole ethnicity experienced? Showing the inland refugees scrambling madly for one piece of tomato is nothing but a caricature of the horror these driven away mass experienced.

This is a Romeo and Juliet set in Srinagar and Agra please, not a Schindler's List on the ghettoed Pandits.

Vidhu Vinod Chopra, better withdraw all the blurb on his movie retrospectively.

It sucks, as Yankees would say.

Wikipedia lists this movie as one of the two commercial failures of Chopra. Well, on that score, Agnihotri has succeeded twice: once in sticking the Jaish e Mohammad dagger into your barren stomach as well as handing over a three hour horror genre supported amply by documentation.

 And still a box office smash.

Hats off Vivek. Every one other than Lutyens Andolan will thank you.