It took me around three weeks to watch the movie Parzania. I’ve had it for a long time on my laptop. Since Alka was not interested in watching it I watched it in tiny bits of 5-10-15 minutes.
Parzania is a stark movie and I understand why it faced hostility in Gujarat and from other “Hindu” parties. The movie almost ends up telling you that
- All Hindus are ugly and repulsive
- Most Hindus are corrupt, timid, or simply evil
- Muslims are generally peace loving and hence victimized
- All non-Hindu Indians are somewhat elite and “modern” in thought
- A foreigner is more brazen while showing anger against injustice while Indians can simply bemoan and cry helplessly
Does it all sound overly biased? It does. And it surely seems like a propaganda movie, but you know what? The times of riots do transform the dominant societies and turn them into inconceivable demons. If you have been at the receiving end of a state sponsored riot you can relate to the views expressed in Parzania. In the movie the policemen laugh while the Hindu mobs butcher defenseless civilians and set on fire pregnant women. If it sounds inconceivable, it isn’t. It happened during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots too. Even small children were set on fire while the policemen looked the other way, cheered the murderers and even participated actively. There were orders from above to act like this. So if Parzania looks biased, there is a big chance that the film shows a reality and sometimes reality repulses you, revolts you, and even makes you feel ashamed of your existence. Atrocities against life (human, animals, even plants) happen all over the world but all hell breaks lose when they happen as an act of genocide. Watch Hotel Rwana if you get a chance. You should even watch The Pianist to see what humans are capable of if they decide to be inhuman.
Parzania, I discovered, is not a name of a girl. It is pronounced with a western accent, like, the “a” between z and n is said the way you say the “a” of plate. So it’s not Parzaania. Parzan is a Parsi boy of about 10. He lives in a fortress type of chawl with his parents. There are mostly Muslims in the chawl with I guess just one Hindu family and one Parsi family. His parents are Cyrus (Naseeruddin Shah) and Shernaz (Sarika).
One day after getting scolded by his teacher for listening to cricket commentary in the classroom, on his way back he talks to his sister about this imaginary place called Parzania where you can do whatever you feel like doing and you don’t have to do thing you dislike. It is a fantasy world totally happy, fully content, no fear, no hatred.
The story mostly comes through Allen (Corin Nemec — an American actor) who is in India to study Gandhi and spends a lot of time talking to Cyrus, smoking, drinking and cursing.
Life is full of happy puns and laughter for the all the families of the chawl. They talk about inter-religious marriages. There’s a jovial talk about a Muslim girl meeting a Hindu boy on the Internet and getting married and Muslim men talk about this good-humoredly. Interestingly, all the families have a somewhat European, or rather western attitude. They even say fuck this and fuck that during conversations, just like Americans.
Things only turn murkier and ugly when they show the teeth grinding, saffron aprons-clad Hindus planning nefarious things behind the doors or conducting “surveys”. They reek of only hatred and they seem to be devoid of any civilized emotions. The only purpose of their existence is terrorizing and killing non-Hindus. They are always planning an orchestrated, well-targeted violence.
So there is a typical light and shadow effect here: there is a community that talks about relationships, religion, philosophy, art, cinema and romance, and then there is another society always wandering in the dark taverns of hatred conspiring murders and rapes.
Then they announce the Godhra train burning incident and all hell breaks lose. The chawl is attacked and then everything that happens during riots in India happens. The rampaging mob cuts women and children to pieces and the Hindu neighbors refuse to help, and the chief minister (Narendra Modi, of course) keeps on saying that everything is under control. In this turmoil, while Cyrus is at work, Shernaz tries to save her two children by requesting her Hindu neighbor to take them in and leave her outside. They don’t open the door and while running helter-skelter Parzan is lost. She keeps screaming that she is not Muslim, but nobody listens to her.
The policemen are shown laughing while a crowd in front of them pours kerosine on a pregnant woman and sets her own fire. They have shown the mob violence in its purity. As an after thought they have also shown a Hindu rioter sparing a sacred Muslim woman and throwing a saffron apron upon her so that she looks Hindu.
Their Hindu servant saves Shernaz and her daughter and when Cyrus meets them the quest for their son begins. The rest of the story revolves around their fruitless search and a thoroughly corrupt Hindu administration.
Despite a one-sided portrayal of the situation, it’s a good movie to see. A world ahead of those overrated and silly Ram Gopal Verma and Karan Johar flicks and in fact they should learn something from the makers of Parzania.
Sarika has acted exceptionally well in the movie and she deserved the award she got for this movie. The script is very tight and the story moves fast. Sometimes it makes you cry. It makes you cry because beautiful, blissful lives are ruined due to some distant follies of others. It makes you ashamed of your country.
It will be difficult to watch the movie if you have strong politico-religious feelings and it may even seem revolting at some places. But when communities turn communal and instigated by politicians and granted impunity, no outrage seems far-fetched. Having witnessed the 1984 riots, I could easily believe whatever was being shown in the movie. Still, they could have stuck to the reality and still shown some normal, human Hindus, rather than showing all of them sub-human. As I said, as an after-thought they try to show some good-intentioned Hindu, but you can easily see it’s a charade. Nonetheless, if you haven’t seen the movie just because you don’t agree with its content, you are missing a well-made, good movie. It can be compared to any internationally known movie. In that sense, I think it is quite underrated in India.
[tags]parzania, gujarat riots[/tags]
