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Wapsi: The Return
WSN
Network
 In the times of yet another thaw in the relationship between India &
Pakistan, an Indian ’Lover Of Cricket’ manages to go across to the
other side of the ’Line of Control’ (LOC) ... to journey through the
heartland of Pakistan.
Much in the style of Al Biruni (973-ca. 1050), a scholar and
scientist, who visited this part of India more than a 1000 years ago
to encounter an alien culture which he had called ’Al Hind’ , this
is an account of the filmmaker’s travels through that part of ’Al
Hind', which is now a foreign country and a most bitter foe.
The journey to Pakistan is a journey of return of various kinds - to
nostalgia, hate, metaphor and reality. A song of hope, love, longing
and betrayal. A lament about how the ’idea’ of Pakistan has
tormented only the ’minorities’ in the Two Nations, which once were
one. Starting from India’s capital Delhi, it takes a detour via
Kashmir, Gujarat and Indian Punjab. It travels back and forth
between memory and history to explore the ’idea’ of Pakistan, the
story of its making, what it has become and how it affects Indians
and Pakistanis, who in spite of the divide, remain connected to each
other through Hate and through Love.
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Ajay Raina,
Alumni of Film Institute, Pune, a Kashmiri, has been making
documentary films for the last 12 years. His last film about his
journey back home to Kashmir, "Tell them, the tree they had
planted has now grown" won The Golden Conch Award, The RAPA
award and the IDPA silver trophy in 2002. It has had numerous
public screenings and has been screened at various festivals in
India and abroad. |
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Quoting from Al
Biruni’s preface to his book about India, this film is "nothing but
a simple historic record of facts... the theories of the Pakistanis
as they are ...and in connection with them, similar theories of
Indians in order to show the relationship existing between them..."
WAPSI grips you throughout its one-hour duration. The actual
handheld shots in Pakistan, about 70% of the movie, delivers live
footage of aspects of Pakistani life not seen too often. More than
that, some of the critical parts have been shot without the subjects
being aware. The absence of women on the streets, the fear in the
shifting eyes of the minorities caught on candid camera in Pakistan
and the existence of a vibrant sufi movement, these, and more, are
as evocative as the obvious pride in their flag, the brilliant
countryside and the honky-town night streets of Lahore.
The big message that WAPSI brought out is the various ways
minorities have been treated by their Governments in India and
Pakistan since 1947. If you do not recognise and assimilate fairly
the minorities then it is your majority community that settles down
into tunnel vision and regressive syndromes. This rather telling
synopsis of statements made during a free-and-frank, sizzling,
discussion (captured in this film) made on the streets of Lahore by
Pakistanis and Indians is so very apt in summing up the issue.
The simple fact that temples, gurudwaras and churches are regularly
knocked down or left to rot in Pakistan without much demur because
the system and the majority is Muslim while a single nationally and
internationally reviled Babri Masjid incident in India required and
provoked a national movement in India to precipitate matters is
brought out up front by comparing the status of mosques in Indian
Punjab with that of temples in Pakistani Punjab. In bright living
colour.
13 August, 2008
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