"Firaaq" a movie by Nandita Das

I'm back, thank you, everyone, for the holiday wishes, we had a great time and there are pictures on FB should you wish to view them. But now, on to the Toronto International Film Festival and the brilliant film I saw yesterday titled "FIRAAQ"

Firaaq has been directed by Nandita Das, prominent Indian actor who has appeared in such films as Deepa Mehta's Fire (96) and Earth (98). Firaaq (08) is her feature writing and directing debut.

Here's a small introduction to the movie from the TIFF site

Onscreen, Nandita Das has proven herself the most soulful of actors, capable of combining emotional expressiveness with unshakable integrity. Off screen, she has maintained an ongoing commitment to social justice in India. Das brings these two worlds together in her feature debut, telling the story of one of India's great wounds with both sincerity and passion.

Conflict between Hindus and Muslims continues to flare into violence in India, and is often stoked by political interests. Firaaq begins in 2002 in the state of Gujarat, where three thousand Muslims died in communal riots. In an early scene of almost Shakespearean gravity, two Muslim men dig a mass grave for the victims. From there, the story jumps forward one month, away from the direct physical effects of the conflict to the more amorphous – but increasingly persistent – inner discord.

When Hanif and Muneera return to the modest home they had fled during the violence, they find it ransacked. With their lives shattered not simply by vandalism but by betrayal from their neighbours, Hanif seeks revenge. Elsewhere, middle-class Hindus Sanjay and Arati were untouched by the hostilities, but are met with new moral challenges. Serene older musician Khan Saheb (Naseeruddin Shah) has tried to transcend religious differences, but as a Muslim living in a Hindu neighbourhood, he now finds this stance more complicated. At the same time, Anu and Sameer, an intermarried Hindu-Muslim couple, finally face the tensions they have long suppressed.

Das interweaves these stories over one twenty-four-hour period, as characters of both faiths and from many levels of society grapple with the new, post-violence reality. Through it all, a young boy named Mohsin embarks on an urban odyssey from his refugee camp towards a better future, wherever he might find it.

Firaaq is an Urdu word that means both separation and quest. Like this courageous and essential debut film, the word acknowledges divisions while pointing a way forward to hope.

My thoughts: There were several things I loved about Firaaq. One, neither the Muslims nor the Hindus were made out to be the villains of this sorry affair, rather, the movie seems to place the onus squarely on the shoulders of the police and the state of Gujarat and I, for one, am inclined to agree with that determination. Also, the movie poignantly explores through the character Samir (ably played by Sanjay Suri) what it might feel like to be a Muslim in India. Is it right for one to have to live in fear just because of one's name, one's religion? It also explores how fear eats at you, eats into your relationships, your self-worth and changes the kind of person you were meant to be. No one should have to pay for the sins of another, but as a society isn't that what we're doing when we paint an entire community with the same brush? There can never be peace or justice for as long as we keep doing that. I think this movie forces us to examine our racial prejudices, hopefully it will make us see people as individuals and not tag them based on their names, castes or religion.