Ramchand Pakistani: A Film that Begs to Differ

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Aisha Sarwari reviews the new film by Mehreen Jabbar

When India makes a movie about Pakistan it’s about how bad the Pakistan Army is, and when Pakistan makes a movie about India it is about how bad Hindus are. Between Lollywood and Bollywood you have a mesh of equally shallow, intellectually famished products that have more song and dance or appeal to violence, than it has a story line.

Mehreen Jabbar has chiseled away the Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan straightjacket at the onset of this directorial masterpiece in Ramchand Pakistani. Pakistani cinema moves its way up to showcasing complicated topics palatable enough to be played when crisis after crisis hits the Pakistani political scene. It is difficult to imagine the treacherous paths directors such as Jabbar and recently Shoeb Mansoor in his film, Khuda Key Liye faced when seeing these films to completion.

Needless to say that Pakistani directors have a formidable challenge simply because the Pakistani cinema-going populus is not mature enough and also because it hasn’t apparently hit critical mass. Yet, with a star cast like Nandita Das and Maria Wasti, Ramchand Pakistani will follow Khuda Key Liay and make record sales at the box office in Pakistan and abroad.

Sadly, unlike say, the Iranian cinema, thanks to Majid Majidi, Pakistani directors had until now failed to take the Pakistani identity to a global level. The Pakistani point of view either got stuck in a web of liberalism or conservatism, where women were tools for either objectification or honor.

Mehreen Jabbar being a woman herself has trademarked a depth of seriousness without leaning on any of the topics where woman are object of either abovementioned concern. She has so subtlety and ever so gently waged a war on the conflict itself, between India and Pakistan that no diplomat or politician has so far done. She has asked for introspection into the Indian psyche of presumed non-violence when it is the 4th largest military in the world; into a peacenik brand, when untouchables are unanimously and culturally sanctioned to remain below economic status and into the state infrastructure shining when it cannot handle mere paperwork.

There are three features that are outstanding in this film. The first is the simple authenticity of the project and its materials used. A Dalit trible in Thar desert in Pakistan has a blue hard plastic shopping bag, a red designed bread cover, hard plastic slippers that stopped fitting ages ago, a shrub for a door netting and complacency that comes with the territory.

The second is the portrayal of Nandita Das who plays Champa the mother and wife left desolate for 5 years when one day her son and husband are captured across the India-Pakistan border during war-like tensions. For someone who came from a Muslim-dominated Pakistan with a double minority complex since she belonged to the lower caste Hindus, she fought hard though emotional turmoil and insanity, against a patriarchal tribal culture and against her own nature as a woman as she waited for her husband to return.

The reason I used the word palatable in describing the film was because it was in praise of Mehreen Jabbar’s wisdom of the Pakistani psyche and its limitations as well. Had Champa been a Muslim, and had she dared to desire a man not only other than her faith but also other than her missing husband, she would not be empathized with as a character. Instead she would spark a virtual riot of stoning the adulteress (be it emotional adultery) under the Zinna Ordinance by men of honor.

Jabbar marks the double standards of almost all facets of society with such ease and tact; it ends up not hurting self-engrossed viewers at all.

But think a little harder and she calls out all ugly parties in South Asia for racism, classism, sectarianism, corruption, sexism and poverty.

Lastly Jabbar brings together all her core film team to commit to simplicity, not only in dialogue, but in picture, emotion, theme and perspective. This she achieves by keeping Ramchand, both the 5 year old and the 10 year old, in the center of the story, and keeping him as protagonist thought the movie.

Ramchand’s separation from his mother beings a uniqueness to the screen because it shows a child raised by his father for 5 years. His father played by a very gifted actor, Rashid Farooqi casted as Shankar, is known for his versatility in playing any role from an eunuch to a regular Joe, and he does this so well that he leaves everyone moved beyond the usual appeals to emotions.

It is for this reason, that though the separation of Ramchand from his mother is heart wrenching, it is the scene where he has to leave his father that melts the matter and consolidates the actual theme of extrication from ones fatherland.

Ramchand Pakistani is a breath of fresh air. Rather than attempting to unscramble the past and the partition that birthed Pakistan, Jabbar celebrates the resilience of the people and their need to seek order based on its boundaries and because of its boundaries.

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Tags: Cinema, Film, Hindu, India, Mehreen Jabbar, Muslim, Pakistan, Ramchand Pakistani, Tharparkar