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The systematic and cold-blooded slaying of Bangladeshi bloggers who dare to talk about their religious and political views worries Taslima Nasrin. “Had the liberals of the country spoken up against the fundamentalists 20 years ago, none of this would have happened. It’s high time the rest of the world woke up to this reality. We need to write articles on the issue, make films on the subject,” she says. Nasrin would know what it is like to live in fear — a year after the publication of her fifth novel, Lajja (Shame) in 1993, she was forced to go to Europe, North America and India to protect herself from death threats issued by Islamic fundamentalists incensed by the book and her secular, feminist beliefs. Last week, a film about her separation from Bangladesh hit the screens in her adopted home, West Bengal.
Directed by award-winning filmmaker Churni Ganguly, Nirbashito (Banished) is the first cinematic exploration of the events surrounding Nasrin’s exile; the film, shot in Kolkata and Sweden, revolves around a single incident in the life of the Bangladeshi author. And though the protagonist in the film too has a feline companion (Nasrin’s cat is Minu, the cat in the film is called Baghini), she is not quite Nasrin. “She is a different person. The filmmakers have taken an incident from my life and have tried to bring forth certain themes. That’s about it,” says Nasrin over the phone from New Delhi, where she lives when she’s not travelling to America. In the US, she is helping the US government identify Bangladeshi bloggers who are under threat, to arrange for them to get asylum.
When writer-director Kaushik Ganguly, who co-wrote the film along with Churni, approached Nasrin with the script in 2009, it was meant to be a satire. “It was supposed to be a sharp commentary on the way the government functions. You can see certain elements of it in the film. I was sceptical about the changes that were made later, but Kaushik convinced me that this will be more effective,” says Nasrin.
Churni, who tweaked Kaushik’s script to give it a “universal appeal”, is certain that she never wanted the film to be a biopic. “It is inspired from Taslima’s life, but there are bits in the film which are completely fictionalised. I wanted to how how it feels to be abandoned by your own country, your own people. I wanted to also talk about the pain of leaving something behind. That’s what I wanted to focus on,” she says. The film won two National Awards (Best Bengali film and one of the Best Audiography awards) earlier this year.
In many ways, Nirbashito, indeed, is a safe film. It doesn’t quite explore the reasons behind the protagonist being banished from her homeland, it doesn’t examine the politics. Instead, it leaves it to the viewer to imagine the author’s persecution, the gravity of her situation. “I think that was a conscious decision by the makers. I feel they had to work under a lot of duress. They couldn’t mention my name, they couldn’t talk about specific incidents lest the government decides to ban the film,” says Nasrin.
She would have liked a film on her life to be as “unflinchingly and brutally honest” as her books are. “I have written about my life extensively and I have never skirted around issues. Initially, I was naive enough to believe people when they told me they want to make a film on my life. Mahesh Bhatt had approached me years ago, saying he wants to make a film on my life. I was excited, but nothing came of it,” says Nasrin.
All the same, she thinks Nirbashito is a brave attempt. “At least they dared to bell the cat. They risked a lot for this. Many filmmakers had promised to do the same but couldn’t. It took a brave woman to make a film on another brave woman. That’s what matters,” says Nasrin.
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