Firaaq - The Separation & Anxiety

"Firaaq": Urdu term meaning "Separation", "Distance", "Anxiety" (according to context).

Watched Nandita Das' movie, Firaaq, today (Das is both, the scriptwriter and the director of the film).

I came out of the movie hall feeling shocked, stunned and sorrowful but most importantly Ashamed - Ashamed to be a Hindu in view of the atrocities committed by my co-religionists and for probably the first time I thought of giving up the passive, non-ritualistic form of Hinduism I practice and becoming a proclaimed atheist.

The movie captures and portrays beautifully the insecurities, fears, anxiety, the feeling of alienation in their own land and the resultant angst in the Muslim community during communal riots. It is a strong and honest portrayal of how low we can stoop in the name of religion when none has even seen the "God" or "Ram" in whose name they kill or the "Shiva" whose Trishul they believe they weild - a portrayal so direct that we, as moderate Indians cannot turn our backs on. It forces one to take cognisance of the horror and the mindless violence brought against some for no reason better than their religion...and associated perceptions - nothing more than mere perceptions of past injustices by the other community when those who are alleged to have committed those faults are no longer alive...

While this movie has used the 2002 Gujarat riots as its backdrop, it may be safe to say the emotions portrayed and the atrocities wrought by the majority Hindus is very much the same in almost all communal riots that our country has been cursed by since the painful separation at birth in 1947.

It paints a very sorry picture indeed of a nation that proclaims itself as "India Shining", and a State whose tagline is "Vibrant Gujarat". Far from shining and vibrant, the respective entities come across looking more like a fascist State of old - better placed probably in the 1930s than in the new millenium as an aspiring World Power and its "developed" Industrial Hub, respectively.

Let's hope this country awakens into the heaven of freedom that Rabindranath Tagore prayed for...