25th June, 2024
A profound voyage through the ‘Little Terrorist’ [2004], an Indian short film, directed by Ashwin Kumar escorted a couple of vintage frames to my mind. On August 15th, strolling down to the apartment basement, my eyes quickly settled for the perfect shades of bliss over the volleyball court. I found the tricolor depiction of our nation elegantly high in the air. I could sense the confluence of tranquility and serenity in my veins. Loyalty embraced the chambers of my soul-hub, and I found myself floating in a jovial ambience. Greetings, warm hugs, and ‘laddoos’ made the day sweeter. On the spur of the moment, I found myself estranged within the vicious legacies of the era of displacement, ‘the great divide’. I think, though the wounds get healed with the passage of time, that passive incident still actively revolves around the chambers of our heart. The short film the ‘Little Terrorist’ which got nominated for the Academy Award [2005] for ‘Best Live Action Short Film’ gives a glimpse of love beyond borders. Zulfuqar Ali (Jamal), Sushil Sharma (Bhola) and Megna Mehta (Rani) were the leading casts of the same.
Jamal, a 10-year-old Pakistani Muslim boy turns out to be the protagonist of the film. The frame in which the plot unlocks, he was playing cricket with his friends near the India-Pakistan border. Abruptly and in a sense lamentably, the cricket ball is tossed over to the Indian side of the border. Jamal crosses the fence, the territorial boundary, to fetch the ball. In this context, I felt ‘emotional proximity’ overlapping with ‘geographical barriers’. The juxtaposition of these two images often pushes me into a bewildered state. Back then in my teens, while curiously diving through the ‘Mano Majra’, a fictional border village, depicted in the novel ‘Train to Pakistan’, I found myself most often in a perplexed state. Khushwant Singh was portraying the horrible realities of 1947 political scenario, but through bringing up the social composition and the cultural perception among the natives. The villagers, predominantly Muslims and Sikhs were peacefully living together in Mano Majra. But a sudden gust of wind strikes, that government is planning to transport Muslims to Pakistan. The obvious question followed the line, ‘does we have anything to do with Pakistan!’. They couldn’t figure out the logic behind those uncertainty graphs they were forced in, neither do I!
In the film, Jamal got spotted by the guards, but somehow, he managed to escape. He was provided shelter by Bhola, a devout Hindu Brahmin, though initially they were a bit hesitant. Both Bhola and his niece, Rani, were dubious and befuddled about providing shelter for a Muslim boy in their home. Later, when the security forces came out looking for Jamal in the village, they had an option of betrayal to get their stand safe, but instead they saved him. Rani shaves Jamal’s hair off, so guards won’t recognize him and stood in defense when guards were constantly questioning Jamal. These were the frames, where I found humanity venturing beyond the demarcated boundaries of diversity and stratified shades of inequality cum injustice. But still there are mobs that spread hatred backed up by amoral politics. While reading ‘Train to Pakistan’, my heart got through a roller-coaster of emotions. I found my brain cells disturbed by the thought, ‘what was the purpose of this divide!’. The news reports suggests that certain areas were marked as ‘communal zones’ and people were ruthlessly killing each other in the name of faith or religion. But who were those people! What kind of manipulation led to the massive destruction where the whole system collapsed like a house made of cards!
The end of the thread pops up with an art of delight that Jamal managed to get back to Pakistan without getting caught by the guards. This wouldn’t have been possible without the help of Bhola and Rani. The warm hug they had before Jamal moving back to Pakistan melted my soul. When my heartbeat merged with the rhythm of aesthetics, the scenes from the documentary ‘Taangh’ directed by Bani Singh was whirling and twirling in my head space. In certain instances, I found my mind roaming around lovely but heartbreaking tale of Juggut Singh and Nooran as depicted in the novel by Khushwant Singh. Juggut Singh was Sikh man, who fell in love with Muslim women Nooran. As per the plot Nooran was forced to leave to the refugee camps for her safety. From refugee camp they will be eventually shifted to Pakistan. One day a group of agitators came to Mano Majra and convinced a Sikh local gang to attempt for a mass murder as the Muslims leave on their train to Pakistan. Juggut, knowing Nooran is in one of the trains, acts on instinct and sacrifices his life to save the train. In the film, Bhola also risked his life while providing shelter to Jamal. Those humanitarian actions required too much courage. His life itself was the cost of the action. Every-time when I attempt to skip to the best part, it kept me locked in the dreadful ambience. The more I tried to forget; the more I ended up remembering.
[image credit: https://www.giffonifilmfestival.it/sezioni-film-2007/1363-little-terrorist.html]
aww! afaah said so! 
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