Like dipping your feet in the shallow end and taking the
temperature of the water, the first viewing of Haider is simply meant to
take all the Shakespeare out of your system. The second viewing, in the wake of
an unfounded wave of nationalist protests demanding to #boycottHaider,
gets a whole new meaning.
The film begins with a doctor, fulfilling his duty towards humanity by
operating a militant just like any other patient, being ratted out and detained
for being an accomplice. His house is set on fire, and his wife is a mute
spectator as he is taken away by the authorities, only to disappear later. The
sequence that precedes this one, is of the doctor leaving home holding an
identity card and joining a line of hundreds of locals that walk, under
supervision of armed guards, to part-take in a drill to identify the
accomplice. The only time we have seen such a visual is when films are
portraying the anti-Semitic regime rounding up the Jews in Nazi Germany. And
no, we did not expect something of that nature to happen to citizens of our
nation.
The doctor is Haider’s father. He returns to his village and is detained
for referring to his home town by its alternate name – Islamabad. His
girlfriend comes to his aid, rescues him and drives him home. On their way, she
explains how she negotiated with the officer and describes Haider as “woh
militant nahi, poet hai…” This line is a part of a large dialogue and comes
and goes like a silent whisper. But, thereon, it echoes throughout the film.
She means to say that Haider does not pose any danger as he is only a poet. The
question to be asked is, could Vishal Bhardwaj have elucidated it more
elaborately that when tortured, a poet can be far more lethal and
dangerous than a militant. Haider himself knows, from having researched on the
revolutionary poets of British India – be it Bismil or Faiz, that the poets
were the most dangerous minds of that era. If only it were that simple for us
to comprehend.
After learning that his father was taken into custody by the army before
he disappeared, Haider makes it his life’s mission to find his father no matter
which prison he is held captive in. And in a conversation with the two Salmans,
he casually remarks that “poora Kashmir ek qaidkhaana hai.” Nobody is
free here. A scene with a befuddled Kashmiri standing outside his own house,
unwilling to enter without being frisked, further emphasises Haider’s remark.
He speaks of how the AFSPA, a tool to facilitate the safeguarding of the people
had turned on them, with the army abducting the smallest of suspects dumping
them into our lite-versions of Guantanamo Bay and torturing them. Chutzpah, a
Hebrew word, illustrates the politics of double standards and highlights how
the Kashmiris have been left hanging between a hard place and a harder place.
“The nationalists having a problem with the film’s portrayal of the
armed forces is justified,” is something someone who hasn’t watched the movie
would say. In a region of perennial unrest since 1948, vengeance has been the
emotion that is as common as snow in its winter. The oppressed take up arms for
freedom, and the two oppressors, as it were, have arms for the sake of safety
and counter attack. There are militants and armies of two nations fighting in
Kashmir since the birth of the nations. On ground zero, it stops being a
political issue. A father disappears, a mother is raped – a child picks up a gun.
Similarly with the army, the law and order aside, if a man who you share a
bunker with, who wears the same uniform do, who is the only friend you made
since your posting in Kashmir from some other part of India is killed – the
first thing on your mind will not be mother nation and national pride, it will
be revenge for a fallen brother. And Haider’s fault is that it shows it.
The commanding officer who orders the RPG strike on the doctor’s house mouths “no
militant dead or alive is worth the life of my soldier.” Nowhere does he
say “kill that terrorist for ruining the peace in my beautiful country.”
Haider, disillusioned by all this and more, loses his mind, and so do
we. With every passing scene, the film makes you uncomfortable as you find all
this is happening too close to home. The gunshots fired in Kashmir can now be
heard from your bedroom window. You don’t like it. You regress into thinking
that the film is about Shakespeare’s Hamlet. You want to re-focus your
mind to thinking about how this is a story about one man’s revenge. How this is
about a story about family, deceit and bringing peace to the dead one. How it’s
about a son and his overly attached mother coming to terms with life without
the father. But Haider doesn’t let you do that. It feeds you a large spoonful
of Shakespearean tragedy and before you gulp it down, stuffs into your mouth
another spoonful of a national issue which has either been neglected or
portrayed trivially even in the finest of our films (read Roja).
And that is Haider’s fault. It is the film’s fault that you
cannot separate Hamlet from Kashmir anymore. It is the film’s fault that it
tries to show “Jhelum laal laal hua” to a people who have convinced
themselves that “aaj blue hai paani paani” and, it is the film’s fault that the
people are who blinded by the “sunny sunny sunny din” completely overlook Faiz’
“laajim hai ke hum bhi dekhein, woh din ke jiska waada tha…”
Whether bad films create bad audience or whether bad films are created
because there is bad audience is an endless conundrum. But one thing is for
sure, we are a bad audience. We do not like politics in politics alone, how
could we be okay with it showing up in our films. Nowhere in our collective
idea of entertainment does an honest political drama have a place. Therefore it
is necessary to #boycotthaider
The song 'Bismil', which was a revelation in the second viewing, when
taken out of context of the plot of the film, has a hidden message - a plea.
The people of Kashmir in particular and the people of India in general, are the
bulbul-e-bismil, who are innocent and naïve. The gul refers to our first Prime
Minister and “khushboo-e-gul mein ishq bharaa tha” refer to the promises that
were made to J&K by the government of India – promises that weren’t quite
fulfilled. So on and so forth.
“Khushboo-e-gul mein zeher bhara hai” is the warning and the final plea
to the people is to come to their senses and see what is happening, which the
film so eloquently showcases. Hosh mein aaja, hosh mein aaja, ae
bulbul-e-bismil.
