-ajay brahmatmaj
Garam Hawa
Director: MS Sathyu
Actors: Balraj Sahni, Jalal Agha, AK Hangal
Garam Hawa has a special place in the history of Indian cinema.
Told with simplicity and honesty, the film explores the conflict among
Muslims who did not leave India after Partition. Elegantly deploying the
inherent symbolism of the Taj Mahal and the Fatehpur Sikri in Agra,
once the capital of undivided India, the film tells the story of the
Mirza family.
Halim and Salim Mirza are brothers. Both, with their respective
families, live in their ancestral haveli, with their mother, who is
quite old. Halim is a leader of the Muslim League and also the legal
owner of the haveli. Salim runs a shoe factory. Salim has two sons –
Bakar and Sikandar. He also has a daughter Amina, who is in love with
her first cousin, Halim’s son Qasim. Their relationship abruptly comes
to an end when Halim leaves with his wife and son for Pakistan.
Qasim does come back with the intention of marrying Amina, but a few
days before the wedding, he is arrested for not having proper documents
to stay in India, he is forcibly sent back to Pakistan. He does not come
back. Saddened by the cruel twist of fate, Amina does not give up hope.
She accepts Shamshad, another first cousin (first-born of her father’s
only sister) who had been pining for her for years, and hopes to marry
him soon. This relationship too doesn’t culminate into marriage. Amina
kills herself. Father Salim refuses to leave India despite his
daughter’s death and the false accusations of spying for Pakistan
leveled against him. The atmosphere of callousness and suspicion around
him has no visible effect on Salim who believes that Gandhiji’s
sacrifice will not go in vain and eventually everything will be all
right.
Produced with the help of state-owned Film Finance Corporation, Garam
Hawa was the first film that explored the painful and torturous
consequences of Partition in a political context. MS Sathyu, who was
very active in IPTA (Indian People’s Theatre Association) circles, was
able to make the film within a shoestring budget by putting together a
team of like-minded artists and technicians. The film is based on a
story written by Ismat Chugtai. Kaifi Azmi and Shama Zaidi wrote the
screenplay. Azmi also wrote a ghazal for the film, portions of which are
heard during the first and last scenes of the film. Balraj Sahni plays
Salim Mirza. The supporting cast includes AK Hangal and scores of local
actors from the IPTA chapter in Agra. When it was released in 1973,
Garam Hawa was instantly recognised as a film that did not conform, and
sailed against the winds.
Satyajit Ray wrote about Garam Hawa: “In context of the
contextually-void Indian cinema, Garam Hawa has done full justice to
Ismat Chugtai’s work. The film, despite having a lot of other technical
issues and aesthetic shortcomings, remains a milestone in the history of
Indian cinema, purely on the basis of its subject. Yet, compared with
the other films released in India in 1973, Garam Hawa can be called a
small film that neither had any big stars acting in it nor a
conventional masala plot.”
Doubtless, numerous films were made on Partition before Garam Hawa.
But in none of them does one find the filmmaker scratching the surface
of reality to find deeper, truer meaning. Although in films like Lahore
(1949), Apna Desh (1949), Firdaus (1950), Nastik (1959), Chhaliya
(1960), Amar Rahe Tera Pyar (1961) and Dharamputra (1961) we encounter
characters affected by Partition, we do not see anything more than vague
references to the event and its fallout.
It is more than a decade later with works like Govind Nilhani’s Tamas
and much later, Chandraprakash Dwivedi’s Pinjar, that we saw stories
about deaths and mass destruction that Partition had brought in its
wake. In Pinjar, Dr Dwivedi’s fresh resolution to the emotional crisis
of Paro is largely inspired by the original thinking of the work’s
author Amrita Pritam. Anil Sharma’s Gadar (2000) is also set around the
time of Partition but the film appears to be blinded by notions of
nationalism. Without these exaggerations, perhaps the film could have
been called a creative success to some extent.
Garam Hawa is often seen as a film that ended the long silence
maintained by Indian filmmakers on the splitting of the subcontinent.
The writers and director of the film explored the thinking, dilemma,
perception of reality, and sociability of the average Muslim living in
India. Our country is yet to fully recover from the post-independence
socio-political horror. The havoc can be felt even today. To many,
Partition was a consequence of the hurry and mistakes on the part of our
political leaders at the time. In pursuit of power and ensuing clash of
egos, Nehru and Jinnah gave little thought to lives of millions who
were displaced, dispossessed and damaged forever. 66 years after
independence, the grunt of the affected men and women still stings our
present. Animosity and mistrust have become part of our psychosis.
Decades later the problems of India-Pakistan, now
India-Pakistan-Bangladesh, have remained roughly the same. The seeds of
these problems were sown during Partition.
Based on our reasoning and belief systems we blame one or the other
individual for Partition. Actually the real culprits were national
leaders. In an interview with Leonard Mosli in 1960, Nehru said: “After
years of fighting we were tired. Only a few of us would have agreed to a
scenario where we could be jailed – a strong possibility if we fought
for undivided India. Besides, we had all heard about deaths in Punjab.
The plan for Partition gave us a way forward and we accepted it. We had
hoped that Partition would be temporary and Pakistan will eventually
join India.”
These words may sound perplexing today but they accurately articulate
the prevalent viewpoint among the political class during that time. The
filmmakers before Garam Hawa never explored this failure of the
political class, though there exists in literature a sensitive and
realist portrayal of the trauma of Partition. Unlike filmmakers, the
writers in Hindi, Urdu and Bengali had made their views
known: they rejected the two-nation theory. Time and again these
writers brought to life on paper the pain and political neglect they saw
all around them. Surprisingly none of these great writers ever found
their work adapted for a film by a filmmaker.
Not only did Indian and Pakistani filmmakers stay away from the
subject, international filmmakers also overlooked the colossal human
tragedy. The inertia of the international film community that made
scores of films on WWII and other international events is, to say the
least, quite remarkable. In various television and newspaper interviews, Gulzar and Shyam Benegal have spoken about the indifference of the Hindi film industry towards Garam Hawa.
Not surprisingly the film ran into trouble. The officers of the
Censor Board felt that subjects like Partition were best avoided. Quite
on the contrary, filmmakers and well-informed social and political
activists were very anxious to talk about issues at the root of
Partition. The censors held on to the film for six months. To gather
support for the film a special screening was organised for political
leaders and members of Parliament. Finally on the initiative of the then
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, her Information and Broadcasting Minister
I K Gujral supported the film and it was passed by the censors to be
screened for general public.
The first scene sets the tone for the film. A scroll reads, 1947, and
the map of undivided India appears. Mahatma Gandhi’s photograph is on
the screen followed by a picture of him with Lord and Lady Mountbatten,
pictures of Nehru, Patel and Jinnah and the transfer of power, stills of
Nehru addressing the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort, people
dancing with joy celebrating independence followed by an image of the
divided sub-continent. The images of Partition move swiftly over the map
of the divided sub-continent. Three gunshots are heard, Gandhi’s
photograph falls, and in Kaifi Azmi’s voice we hear (in translation
below):
“The country partitioned and the heart came to pieces,
Tempest in every chest, over there and over here,
A funeral pyre blazing in every house,
Every town a graveyard, over there and over here,
No one read the Geeta nor the Kuran,
Religion stood perplexed, over there and over here.”
Azmi’s voice over the collage of the images of Partition gives the
film a tone of decay and despondency. The sadness that came along is
cemented by Gandhi’s assassination. Gandhi’s death stopped the riots in
many parts of the country, which is why perhaps in the film Salim Mirza
believes that Gandhiji’s sacrifice won’t go in vain, not knowing how
divorced this specter of hope was from the reality around him. Muslims’
loyalty was constantly questioned and the indifference towards them did
not lessen.
In many scenes we see this indifference. In one scene the tongawallah
hikes his rates from eight annas to two rupees. When Salim objects, the
tongawalla tells him, “If you want to go in eight annas, go to
Pakistan.” Salim doesn’t lose his temper. “Everyone is interpreting the
new found freedom in their own way,” he says. Salim’s brother decides to
go to Pakistan. In a family meeting, he says: “Do a BA or an MA or do
what you will, but a Muslim can’t get a job in India.” Later in the film
we see Salim’s son Sikandar being rejected at job interviews.
Salim stares fixedly at a departing train. With heavy feet he walks
back to a tonga. “So, who did you come to see off today,” the
tongawallah asks. Salim responds, “Elder sister… Her husband is already
in Karachi. Today his children have also left… How many healthy trees
will be felled in this hot wind?” To which the tongawallah retorts:
“Indeed the wind is quite hot, it will dry out all those who refuse to
uproot themselves.” The theme of the film is to be found in these lines.
We see Salim refusing to uproot himself and his family and drying away
slowly with the impact of time and circumstance.
At one point in the film Salim explains to his son that money doesn’t
ask a man’s religion. Yet everyday in the city the mistrust and
suspicion against them grows. A frustrated Salim asks: “Why are those
who have stayed back and want to stay back being punished for those who
have left?”
Only in one scene does MS Sathyu show us the face of the person who
rejects Salim’s family. It is a merchant refusing them credit. In rest
of the scenes we don’t see the faces of the oppressors: the bank manager
who refuses Salim a loan, the landlord who refuses him a house for
being Muslim, and the interviewer who rejects his son Sikandar, are all
hidden from the camera. Only their voices are heard. There is no face to
the sudden social pressure faced by the Muslims in India. Sathyu
displays a lot of cinematic skill in depicting this faceless
socio-political monster. The message is clear: the situation is not
favourable for Muslims.
Ever since its release, a section of critics have consistently
refused to consider the film as fair portrayal of the consequences of
Partition. According to them the film makes no mention of the Hindus who
stayed back in Pakistan. According to them the characters in the film
are never seen criticizing their community for what happened. This
incorrect and inconsistent reading of the film in the name of balanced
depiction has led to marginalization of Garam Hawa in the sphere of
public discourse. The film therefore did not spark the kind of debate
and discussion it was expected to in the four decades since it was first
released.
Garam Hawa impresses at many levels. The minute detailing stands out.
Every character is well developed and has a motive and the way each of
them move in their respective trajectories to tell the story is not just
brilliant but is also an excellent example of how great stories can be
transformed into greater screenplays. The casting of the film is also
near perfect and it is difficult to imagine any other actor playing any
of the characters. The film doesn’t take an emotional route to show the
extent of damage in the Mirza household. At no point in the film does
Sathyu try and create sympathy in the mind of the audience for a broken
Salim either. Dealing with the absurdity around him Salim doesn’t look
visibly disturbed. He doesn’t even pay attention to people’s comments.
He blames everything on the situation rather than poisoning his own
mind. The character Sathyu makes us sympathize with most is Amina. We
are shocked by her suicide. Eschewing melodrama Sathyu shows Salim react
to Amina’s death with nothing more than a slight movement of the eyes.
Salim belongs to the generation when men looked at matters outdoors
and women indoors. The women in his family have a very different
understanding of Partition. For them their world is the haveli they live
in. Salim’s mother for instance doesn’t believe Partition has taken
place and that soon the Indian government will confiscate her haveli
where she had been living ever since she came in as a young bride in a
palanquin. The mansion’s legal owner Halim Mirza has gone to Pakistan.
At the time of leaving, the old woman hides herself in a corner of the
house.
By now Salim’s wife understands Partition better. In hushed tones she
talks about going to Pakistan but doesn’t openly oppose her husband’s
better judgment. After Amina’s suicide, when Salim finally decides to go
to Pakistan, his wife complains that if Salim had made up his mind
earlier, their daughter would have been alive.
The climax of Garam Hawa is both symbolic as well as political. Tired
of the social opposition, Salim says: “People don’t cross paths with
me. They get up and leave when they see me come in. People turn their
faces away when they see me. There is a limit to everything. I now know
that it is impossible to live in this country.”
Salim decides to go to Pakistan with his wife and son but Sikandar
opposes him and says, “We should not leave India but stay here and fight
for our rights with the common man.” Salim pays no attention to his
son. The next day we see him at the Taj Mahal with moist eyes as if all
his pain is flowing with his tears. Finally he sits in a tonga to go to
the station with his wife and son. On the way they see a public
demonstration. A slogan is heard: “India wants food, shelter and
clothing.” Salim now accepts what his son had said earlier. Salim says:
“Go on son, I won’t stop you. Man cannot live alone for long. I am also
tired of this isolation. Take the tonga back….” Sending his wife back home on the Tonga, he too joins the demonstration with his son. Again Azmi’s voice is heard (translated below):
“Those who witness the storm from afar
For them the storm is there and here too
Join the flow and flow like one
That’s the call of the time there and here too.”
Ajay Brahmatmaj
is Film Editor and Film Critic with Dainik Jagran. He writes
extensively on Hindi cinema’s relations with Indian society and Hindi
literature
This piece has been translated from Hindi by screenwriter and columnist Mayank Tewari