THE KASHMIR FILES

If it had been an ordinary movie review, it would have been a breeze. But this is more than a film, with a lot of attention on it in the last couple of weeks. They said that they did not get permission to air the film but when they did, the CBFC had passed the film without a single cut and the PM also posed for a photograph with the team involved in the making of the film. 

People not keen on meeting people because of the covid protocol, took the trouble to go to theatres to watch the film and damned the pandemic. Some of them returned because the shows were going housefull. And then everyone has an opinion. And if you still had not watched the film, where have you been is the look given to you. It has become an emotion and after the film there were quite a few wet eyes. I watched the film at the Jubilee Hills Club, who have an awesome screen and a superb sound system. And by sheer accident since we are not members. Saraswati Raj Valabhneni, a friend whisked past even as we were talking about a dinner we are to host, saying that she was taking friends to watch the movie at the club. I said I would like to join and there I was with Murali. 

There was not a single chair left and thanks to Saraswati's ingenuity, she came in earlier and placed some dastis (handkerchiefs) for those of us who sauntered in. The smell of food, frying and barbequeing is quite the hallmark of this place. It is in the open air and there are a few round tables, where you can place your drinks, snacks and use a handkerchief to wipe a tear. But those of us not so lucky, sat on uncomfortable chairs, balancing a drink, a snack, passing plates and wiping the drips with paper napkins which would not absorb.

I know I am digressing because while I liked the film, I came out confused. I almost felt alienated from what I was watching, because when I put it altogether it came as a shock that it had happened in India, at a time when I was working as a journalist, albeit on the desk. I'd have a chief sub-editor walking up and down with a worried look and he would say because he had not got a headline for the edition. There would be days when he would come with a spring for he had just heard that 24 were killed in Kashmir.

There would be daily headlines about deaths in Kashmir, there was huge news that there was an exodus of Pandits from Kashmir and then there were these photographs of the Pandits staying in overcrowded tents. You saw this quite often, read the news but somehow did not do enough research on it. Just read the headlines and then skipped to the sports page and further on to the comic page and the crossword.

I feel so bereft without this knowledge and that a film has to tell me about what happened. It might not all be black and white and since it is a movie, maybe embellished a lot. As my Youtuber colleague and friend (he calls all mitrama or nestam. How lovely), Alapati Suresh wrote to me, "Kashmiri terrorists aided and abetted by Pakistan were the culprits, But Kashmir Files puts the blame on the whole of Kashmiri Muslims. It ignores the fact that more number of Kashmiri Muslims were killed by militants than Hindus there. It deliberately sidesteps the life of an average Muslim in Kashmir Valley. The movie is helping the hate filled atmosphere in the country to become thicker."

While the little that I know of Kashmir, I would tend to agree with Suresh but I kept racking my brain about the timing of the film. Why now? There are no elections till 2024, So how would they manipulate the public with all this emotion towards just one side?

My other journalist friend, now in Delhi and earlier in Patna, Indrajit or popularly known as Munna to all his friends said "It is all about manipulation. The film has been made with an eye on Gujarat polls to polarise the voters." Narendra Modi cannot afford to lose Gujarat, without losing his invincible tag.

Gujarat elections are to be held in 2022 December for the 182 assembly seats. Bingo! And so when I met Sunitha Krishnan, I told her about the film and she said that no one was discussing about how the film was made. Kashmir being such a sensitive and sensational subject, we all got stuck only on the subject matter. She being a producer for the Touchriver films showed me the trailer of Dahini, the latest by Rajesh Touchriver. 

And I told her that the entire film was dark. The beauty of Kashmir as Jahangir expressed "If there is a heaven on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here," is shown rarely or thrown at you as a curve ball, just as you begin to believe that there is nothing redeeming about this part of the country. Long shots of the Dal Lake, with a shikara slicing through its quiet waters, their wooden houses with a lot of wood carving. Their slim roads, dipping and rising as per its terrain, their graceful wooden furniture and lots more. But as I said it is all shown breathlessly, whereas the miseries meted out are stretched out a tad.

Darshan Kumar, who is the main hero of this film, the Krishna of this film, holds your attention for a  whole ten minutes while delivering a monologue, while you kick yourself for having no memory at all for anything. He leaves you spellbound with his dialogue delivery, even as there are weak protests from his colleagues. Theatrical at its best, but it makes you think and suddenly I was feeling so proud of Kashmir and my country India. 

They leave the film open, maybe for a part II. I don't know if that will happen, but the entire audience of  the Jubilee Hills Club was quiet after the interval. While there was no food available at any counter, the chattering ladies, the crying tots, the laughing teenagers were all quiet, watching the movie with a fascination because all of them were probably thinking `this happened in my country and how come I was not aware of this?'

I am still wondering about that......