Haider- A beautiful movie

Every year, there are a few movies made that take your breath away. Haider was one of those. I had the privilege of watching Haider in the 1^st week of its release. It was an extremely well made movie sure to get good numbers in revenues too. A rare combination these days. Hence, I was taken aback when I started reading about the vehement criticism that followed soon after. In hindsight, I should have guessed it. Anything related to religion touches our nerve, doesn't it?

I would like to describe what I saw in the movie. I saw a doctor trying to assist some terrorists. I saw the army take him away and make him “disappear”. I saw a pained boy, biased by his love for his father, fight all the elements of the society, first for his safe release and then to avenge him. I saw a mother, torn apart between the love for her son and her latent feelings for her husband’s brother, trying to make a ruined family work. It was a beautiful story regarding the conflicting human emotions. Oh, and it was a Muslim family and the story was set in Kashmir.

The last point had our pseudo patriots pointing their daggers towards the director of the movie. How could he show the army in bad light? How could his movies be sympathetic towards Muslims? Does he not recognize that he is trying to show Indian Army in bad light? How can he be allowed to do this?

The point which everyone conveniently ignores is the fact that Indian army is not even shown in bad light. The father was a supporting the terrorists. He is clearly the bad guy in the movie. The Indian army does the right thing by taking him away. As viewers, we know what he did was wrong. And he got punished for his actions. As the CIA revelations have shown, when it is a matter of terrorism which is a national security threat, sometimes even the innocent suffer the darkest of fate. And in our movie, it is clearly shown that the father is wrong. And so, I repeat, Indian army was right to take him away. Where then is the problem?

The problem is that the movie is shown through the eyes of his son. He simply cannot accept the fact that his father has been involved in terrorist activities. Again, a very realistic assumption. We all worship our dad’s, don’t we? And so, in his view, what happened was not correct. And so he goes about killing everyone who he thinks is responsible for the death. And mind you, even then the movie does not show that he has any agenda against the army. The hatred is directed towards his uncle, and no-one else.

Many a Haider have been born whose fathers have been innocent too. I personally would not mind a movie made on that theme too.

I hear that the critics question that why has Vishal Bhardwaj not shown the other side of the story too. The story of our great Indian army. But we already got those in the form of Border et al. In any case, as a creative movie maker, it is not his responsibility that he shows you the full spectrum of Kashmir. He showed you the one side that no movie beforehand had shown.

Not that I cared about any of it. For me, as I said before, the movie was about the complex interplay of emotions

And obviously, the breathtaking beauty of Kashmir.