Finding lost identities

In the city for a seminar- cum-film festival ‘Cinema Against Communalism’ at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII),both of them feel that the common threads binding people on either side of the border will go a long way in eradicating hatred from the lands. “The partition was not a happy moment for anyone. People lost their identities overnight and found themselves in lands seething with indifference and violence,that had an obvious traumatising effect on them. While it was true that artistes on both sides refrained from writing or making films on the same,the truth is these stories need to brought out and told to the younger people. This will make them aware of the problems and curtail the promotion of hatred in the current crop of people.”

Hasmi,who is also a writer and a painter,feels that all the talk about promoting peace on the national level will take forever to work out. In the meanwhile,people with common interests or hobbies should get together on both sides to form communities that will quell this hatred. “It could be something as simple as sharing stamps or even flying kites and rearing pigeons together,but the important part is that it brings people from both sides of the border together. That itself is promotion of peace. As far as the rivalry on the cricket or the hockey field is concerned,we must remember that was something given to us by the English and so it is natural that there is going to be bitter rivalry associated with it,” she says.

Mokammel’s film The Promised Land deals with a sensitive issue of the displacement of the Urdu-speaking Muslims,not once,but twice. Once during the creation of East Pakistan and then the creation of Bangladesh. “It is very easy to comment on the fact that these people are still leading hard lives with no identities to fall back on,but what is even more important is the fact that people,mostly youngsters,learn about these things. And rather than nurturing hatred over the supposed mistreatment meted out to either their previous generations or communities,they should resolve to work towards curtailing the devastating effects of these mass human genocides,” he says wisely.