Disclaimer: I have NOT seen Shikara 1, nor do I even intend ever viewing it. However, I have read Sri Rahul Pandita’s ‘The Moon has Blood Clots‘ – which is a beautifully secular version of what happened to Kashmiri Pandits (KPs) of Kashmir, probably because of, hold your breath, RSS and Hindutva! Buwahahaaaaa! Um, well, mostly. I am exaggerating of course, but dammit, this is suppose to be about a fillum!
But, I must admit that, it was a reasonable book on KPs, but rather kinda filmi. Neither too much of factual content nor completely fictional stuff either. But a page turner, none the less. Also applauded by Rumourchandra Guha types. (there are better books, more authentic ones on KPs – but we are discussing fillums here, dammit!)
But it did not touch and sear my heart, the way Tej Tikoo’s book did. Anyway…
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But, as my own humble contribution to highlight the plight of KPs, I do want to outline as to how we can do a sequel which would be even more stellarly politically-correct. With a lot, whole lot more of peace and love. Mush. Melodrama. Good cinematography. Music. Good performances. Immensely entertaining. Hope giving. In other words, it would be a fillum, not about history so therefore about twistory.
Actually, it could be in the style of a typical Bollywood/Tamil flick – with Secular actors like Kamal Hassan and Kushboo, Secular music director such as AR Rahman and Secular Social Justice Warrior Director such as, whatever, I forget his name. Say, some usual, lousy fillum director from Tamilnadu, specializing in subalternist nonsense and let us just leave it at that, please!
Um… But, would that be Pa Ranjith? Anyway, it could be produced and financed by the stellar DMK leader MK Stalin’s poor son, Udhayanidhi Stalin.
These are my humble suggestions, based on my full reading of the Preamble of Indian Constitution. And because, what better way is there to unite India, than having Southie Dravidians rallying to the support of Northie KPs, eh?
Now, for some highlights for the story treatment of Shikara 2.
First. All human characters would only be based on Kashmiri Pandits. They will be the heroes, villains, lovers, haters, losers, oppressors, oppressed, Hindutva religious fanatics & Islamophobes. All in one. Apart from the main secular actors as recommended above, the rest of the characters will all be played by trained Kangaroos from Perth, Australia, just to avoid possible casting controversies. And, they would still be KPs.
Second: There won’t be any mention or representation of anything else, in terms of human beings. No Muslims would ever be shown. At all. No need. How convenient! But, this a fillum sequel about KPs dammit, not about some secular Muslims! Oh my.
Guns would fire, but who presses the trigger will be left delightfully vague and hazy. There would be eerie and wailing broadcasts from some distant tower like structures adorned with loudspeakers, lost in the swirling mists of space and time, but nothing would be ever decipherable. We will only show some psychotic KPs who would be very illogically terrified at the screeches emitted by towers. (remember the opening sequence of ‘The Shining?’)
A segue-way into a Psychiatrist’s couch, where a drug-addicted paranoid KP would be subjected to therapy. Problem: he hears voices in his head, asking him to convert, die or leave Kashmir – leaving behind his pets, some of which could be his family members. He can also leave behind the ladies in the family. Now, we all know that the secular ‘voice in his head’ is actually doing it in good faith, lest the lady folks are violated in anyway on their way out of Kashmir or exposed to random dangers… But the Shrink thinks otherwise, because he is also a KP, and he suggests some counter-hallucinogens which create even more intractable unsecular, Hindutva problems.
This KP (taken as a typical one) would then be projected as a morbid guy who, under the effect of substance abuse, hurls abuses, teams up with RSS & assorted Hindutva riff-raff, plots against Islam, schemes against his secular neighbors, spies for Pakistan etc etc. He even tries to tilt at the infernal towers and manages to actually raze one and build a Hindu temple on it, OMG!
After all the mayhem, he even tries to unfurl the Tiranga atop his home, oh my! This gets the goat of his otherwise peaceful, loving, considerate, secular neighbors! They are also goat loving, I must add.
First version in Shikara 1 was a love story. It would get repeated in Shikara 2 as a farce. And, may be finally in Shikara 3, as a tragedy. This KP saga in three parts, will provide a comic relief to the audience from across the country, for sure.
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Coming back to the highlights – in the midst of snowflakes angelically descending down, there would be long, lovely & leisurely panning shots of threatening posters & notices – but who plasters and dishes them out will be Kafkaesquely vague. When a zoom-in happens on a representative poster, it would actually be containing the wordings such as ‘Ishwar Allah Tero Naam…’ + with a figure of our beloved frugal Gandhi in the background… This poignant scene would make the audience wonder, as to what exactly was going on in 1980/1990s Kashmir – because everything was apparently so loving with splending displays of the epitomes of brotherhood, sisterhijab and what not, in Kashmir!
…That, surely, KPs were demented criminals who hatched yet again, an elaborate scheme to blame the Kashmiri Muslims for the former’s own self-created problems & strategies for the 100% takeover of Kashmir… would soon dawn on the audience.
In Shikara 2, KPs would of course have secular neighbors, but only their pet dogs and cats would be shown. While secretly going to mainland India to plot against Kashmir, KPs habitually handover their house keys to the aforesaid dogs which will promptly chew them up and/or swallow them. So, there would be no way that KPs could return home. Oh the tragedy.
All the secular neighbors would want amity & peace and hence plead with the KPs to get back home. But the silly KPs, will insist on getting their keys first. But the dogs would have simply vanished in the night along with the keys! Remember that every dog has only its day, not the night. Doggone it. So, the recalcitrant & unruly KPs would have to be tamed and silenced, for their own good, in a secular manner.
In all the confusion, some KP women would of course get gangraped sexually assaulted, it is all their fault oh dear, but it would be the anonymous penises that would do the raping, but the not the whole bodies of the rapists. (Remember? Only guns kill people, people do not kill people!)
That night would belong to long knives… KPs obviously invited the massacre on themselves. Many KPs would be secularly hacked to death, but… yes, you guessed it – it is only the swords which do the cutting and slashing, not people. Amidst the rhythmic chants of ‘There is no life but knife.’ Bullets also do their duty, it is them bad things that kill KPs. Not seculars. Sorry.
Everyone would happily die ever after. Thanks.
So, the amoral of the story of Shikara 2 would be:
Fillum has no religion, it has only box-office collection.
Amen. Or Masha allah, as the case may be.
Credits roll along with cut-off heads of KPs. Audience would laugh hysterically.
Curtains.
