[Disclaimer: The article is not a review of the film, it is a description of the author’s experience and what the author actually felt during and after the movie.]
At last I got a chance to watch the much talked about film The Kashmir Files. I saw it in a small city called Eindhoven in the Netherlands. I must say, the film must be making a lot of profit as I have literally not seen a Hindi film running full house back to back even after a couple of weeks of its initial release. I have been in Europe for several years now, but this was the first time I literally had to book Hindi movie tickets online in advance.
I went to the theater with a couple of my friends, I was very curious as to what Mr. Vivek Agnihotri had to convey through the movie. To be frank, I did not have much expectations from the controversial director, as from his previous movies, the only movie that I really liked was Buddha in the traffic Jam. You could watch the trailer here. Although, Tashkent Files was an intriguing subject, but I did not find the movie interesting, I guess there was very limited content available to tell. I will come back to why I called the director controversial, or is it even fair to call him controversial.
Within roughly ten or fifteen minutes after we reached, the theater was packed with people. It was mostly Indians; North Indians, South Indians, People from the East and West India. I could see only a couple white faces, that’s why I said, mostly Indians. There were murmurs and whispers, some of which I did not understand as they were in regional languages. I would say, it was a little noisy in the start.
Nevertheless movie started, the story started building up. The movie captures two different time frames, one around 1990 and one at present. The movie is a story of one single family; Pushkar Nath Pandit (played by Anupam Kher and I must say played quite well). The movie was full of disturbing scenes right from the very beginning and they were intense. Moreover the one good thing or to say a very good thing about the movie was that the intensity kept on increasing. The movie ended at the highest intensity. The last thirty minutes I don’t know the exact time, will break you, doesn’t matter who you are or how so ever tough you think you are.
By the way, what do you do when you are extremely emotional and feel vulnerable but do not want someone else noticing your tears or the face that is about to explode? I guess some people just lough at stupid jokes to rub off that feeling. That’s exactly what people in the theater were doing, throughout the movie every now and then some people were giggling at scenes in the movie as uncomical as the reporter being pushed on the sofa. It is not at all funny, I did not find it funny and was thinking why were some people doing it. Until, I tried to do the very same thing in the very end. I realized why!
The last thirty or so minutes of the movie were soul wrenching, there was complete pin drop silence in the theater, only some breathing noises. No whispering, no murmurs, no nothing – pin drop silence. Even when the movie ended, no body moved; the crowd that was noisy- whispering, murmuring and giggling in the beginning was silent as dead. Halfway through the closing credits still the same. I guess there was no trigger to break that flow. That was not at all good feeling for me, before my friends could see my face I had to make my own joke “did we pay 15 euros to watch the credits?” That was the best I could do. But it did help, all three of us laughed as if it was the funniest one liner ever. We got up and started moving as if nothing had happened!
I guess this is what the woke or not so woke people will do after the buzz of this movies fizzles out in a month or so; as if nothing had happened. I heard a lot of people saying, we didn’t know anything about this. This literally was the most frustrating and extremely annoying thing that I heard that day; even more annoying then Raliv Galiv ya Chaliv. Why? These people claim they were completely unaware of this, even in the last seven years. How were they forming their political opinions about anything if they did not know? Everybody I mean literally everybody has a say or strong opinion on Kashmir, 370, 35A, pellet guns, internet, JNU, Azaadi, Right Wing, Democracy, Jihad, liberalism, peace and a lot more, if they did not know about the content of the movie before hand how were they even forming an opinion? How?
To be fair, the movie does not tell anything new. What ever is in the movie is available on internet, free of cost. Moreover, the movie did not even touch upon something very crucial. I guess two hours and fifty minutes is far away from sufficient to showcase everything, a web series might do some justice. What happened to the terrorists who actually committed those brutalities?
Any guesses?
They were actually awarded or say rewarded by providing them with government jobs in the name of bringing the lost youth to the mainstream. You don’t believe me, read this article which I wrote in 2018 and was trolled and accused of spreading hatred: Entangled Kashmir: A web of poor and selfish decisions; I wrote that article after I read the following headlines in Times of India:
This article really shook me, I was literally finding it extremely difficult to digest the fact that people were actually not willing to see what had happened in Kashmir and they were OKAY with the state of affairs. How was a terrorist even eligible to apply let alone qualify to become an army man?
Must read: Entangled Kashmir: A web of poor and selfish decisions
I can understand for a fact that it was difficult to know about these types of genocides and exoduses before 2014, because there were strong efforts to cover these things and slide them under the rug. People didn’t know where to look, what to look for. But after 2014, there is a lot of talk about these things. Aren’t these talks the reason why BJP is called Hindutva Party or promoting hyper-nationalism or anti Muslim?
If anyone did not know about the contents of the movies, by content I mean just the outline not the exact dialogs or wordings or names, especially after 2014, and he/she/it voted, doesn’t matter who they voted, they are the biggest problem in today’s India. Because they are forming opinions based on whims and fancies. Why do these people not try to search the truth? Have they not heard about Internet? In this age of technology, ignorance is a choice. And..
Nothing in the world is more dangerous that sincere Ignorance and conscientious stupidity!
-Martin Luther King Jr
Also read: A busy Hindu only complains!!!
You must read these articles on Kashmir:
- Who let the “Pigs” in?? (Insurgency in Kashmir)
- After effects of abrogating 35A and diluting 370
- Weeding the Lawn – (Article 35A)
- The only way to get rid of terrorism!!!
- The Unsolicited FEAR
I am not done yet, there is a part two for this article coming soon. I will explain why Vivek Agnihotri is a controversial director. I glad that he made this movie. Please do follow my blog to receive the notification once the new post is uploaded.
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