Haider

I was in Bombay for 10 days, 8 of which I spent in a hotel and a fair part of the remaining 2 were consumed by sleep. So I could hardly spend any time with my family and friends.  On Saturday, before I had to leave for the airport, my parents and I watched Haider at a cinema which is only about 7 kilometres away from home. But the traffic on the way back was so bad - the movie ended at 19:00 and we arrived home only at 21:00 - that gave us a scare that I might not make it to the airport in time. But the movie was so good that it was worth running that risk! 

One of my friends had told me that he had chosen not to watch the film because it told the story only from the viewpoint of the Muslims, and ignored entirely the plight of the Kashmiri Pandits. I had read it in the papers that the film was seen as being anti-India. I found the controversy surrounding the film to be entirely bogus. 

The story, to my mind, is not so much a criticism of the Indian military, as it is about the human struggle of finding one's identity; it is also a story about human choices. The fact that the characters are Muslim does not in any way undermine the atrocities that the Kashmiri Pandits may have suffered. The film is not about communal identity, but is about human identity.

It has been such a long time since I have enjoyed a Bollywood film so much. Haider maintains its intensity throughout its 162 minutes, and made me feel for each character - not only the protagonist - for her/his inner struggle of choosing between the material and the ethereal, between revenge and compassion. To be or not to be. That is the question the characters seek to answer for themselves - and answer differently.