Firaq

“Saat Suron main itnee Taakat Kahaan, jo inki nafrat se lad sakein”

I not only watched this movie because it won several awards or it was of my interest but moreover because it was directed by Nandita Das.

The movie is based on Gujarat riots. The unfortunate yet true post Gaodhra genocide is portrayed in a very decent manner through two isolated segments of good/bad Muslims & good/bad Hindu. It focuses not on showing violence but more of emotions and one’s psychology at a given point of time.

The movie starts on a slow note , but gains pace as it depicts mixed emotions of fear, hatred, anger, suffocation, disparity, revenge, aloofness, concern, curiosity and above all the pain of alienation from your own country.

The blank face of a lost orphan child touched me deep. I felt the confusion surrounding Sanjay Suri and was by the depth of Nazruddin Shah’s musical score that made everything appear meaningful.

In February 2002, I was in the same country, in fact adjacent to the victim state. Chilling my teenage with the excitement of Valentine’s Day, in my very own world. And today I get goose flesh not because I get to know all this, but to realize how emotions have died, how humanization hardly exists.

Nothing has though changed much; an old Narendra Modi is replaced by a young Varun Gandhi.

It’s strange & in fact suffocating to see criminals as leaders of our nation, proudly taking pledge and appealing for “say no to criminals in politics”, & we being too fond of their progress stories.

We have seen a surge in demands for implementing the provisions of 49 O in our election voting procedure. But i fail to understand that why do we need to demand an option as “none of the above” in our voting ballet?

Than what is the use of being a part of the democratic structure, which can’t provide us with a set of true nation leaders from a lot of one of the world’s most populated countries!

Definitely we have come too far.