Chennai: "Two nations poised for war. One family
torn apart," reads the tag line for the
soon-to-be-released film Ramchand Pakistani.
While this dramatic description would seem to fit
the bill for any of the numerous war movies
Bollywood has produced, RamchandŠ is a film
project with a difference.

The first-ever film from Pakistan whose main
characters are from the country’s minority Hindu
community, Ramchand seeks to emphasise the
commonality between the people of the two
countries rather than focus on the differences
and the violence, as many Bollywood movies have
tended to do.

"While the story is very sharply drawn in a
political context of extreme polarisation, what
it attempts to do is to project the unifying
human dimension," says Javed Jabbar, former
Pakistan Cabinet Minister and Senator, who wrote
and is producing the film, where the characters
speak Urdu and Hindi.

The film, which is directed by his daughter
Mehreen Jabbar and stars Nandita Das, tells the
story of how an accidental border crossing
affects the life of a poor Pakistani Hindu
peasant family. The two Hindus find themselves
imprisoned in India as unwelcome trespassers.

Inspired by actual events, the narrative attempts
to depict the heavy irony that underlies the
relationship between Pakistan and India.

Many parts

Mr. Jabbar, who was born in Chennai and lived
here with his mother before migrating to
Pakistan, is a man of many parts: a leading
figure in the advertising world, who ran a
successful ad agency, MNJ Advertising, for 22
years; a film-maker who created Pakistan’s first
English language film Beyond The Last Mountain,
which was shown at the first Bombay International
Film Festival in 1976; a political figure; and a
highly articulate public intellectual. His 1972
documentary for Pakistan television, Moenjodaro:
The City That Must Not Die, (the title is a play
on ’Mound of the Dead,’ the Sindhi term for the
celebrated Indus Valley city), won several
international awards. He is also known in the
adve rtising world for his memorable line on the
Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-daro: "Miss Mohenjo-daro:
Her Age is Her Great Attraction - 5000 years."

Mr. Jabbar was recently in Chennai to render
fattehha at the grave of his maternal
grandfather, Khan Bahadur Sharif Mohammad Ali, a
senior police officer in the 1940s.

The director

Mehreen Jabbar, who is in her mid-thirties, is an
acclaimed independent film-maker (see
www.jazbah.org, www.mehreenjabbar.com).

Her interest in theatre and film began in the
advertising agency; her first play, Nivala
(Morsel), was based on a short story by Ismat
Chagtai, the Indian Urdu writer; and she studied
film at UCLA (University of California Los Ange
les). Her portfolio ranges from short art films
to tele-plays shown on television in Pakistan and
abroad, including Putli Ghar (Puppet House),
Farar (Escape), Pehchaan (Recognition) and New
York Stories. She is known for her fresh voice,
her original style of story telling, and her
themes focussing on the everyday lives and
dilemmas of women in Pakistan.

Ramchand Pakistani is Ms. Jabbar’s directorial
debut in full-length feature films.

Mr. Jabbar, the writer, notes that this story of
difference ultimately seeks to convey a message
of universality, but without compromising the
inherent differences in identities of self,
religion, or nationality. "While we are
respecting the diversity and plurality of
identities, we are trying to find the commonality
of human values."

Larger issue

The larger issue within which the film is
situated is the ongoing peace process between
India and Pakistan. "Fortunately we have been
able to release several hundreds of prisoners on
both sides,“Mr. Jabbar points out.”But the
unspoken, unexplored tragedy is that for many
prisoners, whether they are Pakistani prisoners
in India or Indian prisoners in Pakistan, when
you are held for just having crossed the line or
overstaying your visa, you become a part of the
larger morass of it all. This film will attempt
to make a small contribution towards this process
of improved appreciation of each other."

Part of this process is portraying Pakistan’s
Hindu community in a different light. "Pakistani
films have so far dealt with the Hindu community
in stereotypical terms," explains the former
Minister and three times elected Senator.

"This is a country where 97 per cent of the
population is Muslim. If you happen to be Muslim
and poor, that is bad enough. But if you happen
to be Hindu and come from the lowest caste, then
you are completely at the bottom of the bottom.
We wanted to show life from their perspective."

Director Mehreen Jabbar believes that despite the
location of the film’s message so far from the
mainstream in Pakistani and Indian cinema, it
will be received well by the public in both
countries. "I don’t think the religious aspect
will be a negative factor," she told The Hindu
over the phone from Mumbai. "It is more a human
story with universal themes."

The collaboration between Pakistani and Indian
artists during this project speaks to the same
sentiment Ramchand invokes. While a majority of
the actors are drawn from Pakistan’s thriving
television industry, the film stars Na ndita Das
and features the musical talents of director
Debajyoti Mishra and singer Shubha Mudgal.

Support

“I wanted to support the message of the film,”
Ms. Das told The Hindu over the phone from New
Delhi. "It is a small way of dispelling the myth
and perception that Pakistan is our enemy. There
is this whole idea tha t Pakistan is another
country, but I don’t feel like an Indian living
in Pakistan. In fact, to do a film in Malayalam
and Tamil is in some ways more difficult than
doing one in Pakistan." Ms. Das hopes that the
film will start a cinematic ’revolution’ in
Pakistan, noting that it will be "quite a big
leap" for such a film as Ramchand to be shown in
Pakistan’s cinemas, "which is something we take
for granted in India."

The poor quality of films usually screened in
Pakistan has resulted in declining audiences and
the absence of a movie-going culture as in India,
according to Ms. Jabbar. After the 1965 war,
Pakistan and India banned the exhibition of each
other’s films in cinemas.

Recently, Pakistan exempted films such as Taj
Mahal, Mughal-e-Azam and Awarapan. It is also
common for Pakistani cable operators to show
pirated Indian films.

The plan, according to Mr. Jabbar, is to release
the film - which is in the post-production stages
in Mumbai and New York - commercially in India
and Pakistan some time after October, after it
goes through the film festival circuit. Mr. 
Jabbar hopes that such a cinematic collaboration
will be the precursor to greater cultural
exchange and political cooperation between the
countries.

He says: "Recently there has been another step
forward. A Bollywood film, Awarapan, has just
been released in Pakistan, and a few films from
Pakistan are going to be released in India. So
these are all very good signs."