Parzania

Scene 1: The radio announces Pakistan winning the cricket match against India.
Scene 2: A group pf Muslims bursting crackers in their lane (In Gujarat.)
Scene 3: Three hefty moustached guys wearing saffron stoles look disgusted over the sight of celebration. “These bloody Muslims, rejoicing on Pakistan’s victory and they call themselves Indians. Disgusting,” they say and turn towards the master plan to eliminate the Muslims from Gujarat.

An absolutely apt film for collecting critic’s awards, true to life performances and such a “brave” attempt to make a film from a true story.

Sadly, I don’t think so. The film stinks of hypocrisy and overpowering sense of pseudo secularism, to which I can’t get myself to subscribe to.

So you think I’m a bigot? Those that hate Muslims and think Hinduism is the most tolerant religion? Just to give a background on myself, I maybe married to my Muslim boyfriend in a few years and I my children shall find their identity in Islam.
I have also cried my hearts out (with my mother looking helplessly at me) during the Gujarat riots. In that respect, I think I have a fairly open view towards religion.
In fact I took over a week after I saw the film to analyse my views and see if I were in reality becoming a Hindu fanatic. NO I wasn’t….

The film was marketed as a film inspired from the life of a Parsi family stuck in Gujarat during the 2002 bloody riots. For once I thought it would be a non-partisan approach to what truly happened in Gujarat. However, it wasn’t.

There is no denying the fact there were more Muslims that were killed in the riots than the Hindus and that it was a cleverly devised attempt launch a genocide against Muslims. I have no problem with this aspect. However, I do have a problem when a particular community is shown in poor light while at the same time, the other is eulogized.

If I am a Hindu, I don’t want to come out of the cinema hall hating myself or hating Hinduism. Instead I want to feel a sense of regret for what happened and feel love for those that lost their lives.

The film however, evokes no such response within. It only infuriates me. How else would you explain that while the riots are glorified, there is just a meek mention of the Godhra train incident? It’s mentioned as a passing by statement announced by a radio presenter that some viewers might even miss hearing. In that sense there does not seem any reason for the riots.

Also, there is absolutely no depiction of a Muslim retaliation. A part of the reason why the riots grew manifold was because there was retaliation of some sorts. Attacks on Hindus by Muslim mobs in Modasa, Himmatnagar, Bharuch, Sindhi Market, Bhanderi Pole, and other localities in the city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat were perpetrated by Muslim mobs. The attacks have even been described as “retaliatory” by Human Rights Watch. However, in the film, a very sentimental Raj Zutshi (playing a Muslim) gives up the swords and hand grenades he and his men have so ardently collected to kill Hindus. And all this only at the behest of a five line speech by another nice Muslim lady.
All Hindus close their doors to Muslims neighbours, so they are saved. There apparently are no nice Hindu neighbours. Anyway….

For most, it must have been a film worth applauding as it talks about pregnant women being raped and slaughtered and bakeries being burnt. The same that were reported by all papers. Nothing new. It all just seems contrived to me.

Maybe that’s the different between a fine director who explores his film beyond what is the written word and those who just want to make a sensitive film about the much debated secularism!!

In the much hyped Black Friday, the director has tried to even explore why the Muslim bombers did what they did. For somewhere down the line they were normal people being misled into something they would have normally not indulged into.

But Parzania terms all Hindus as those who hate Muslims and those that should be hated. There is no attempt to try and understand who these rioters were? Nothing.
Ok you show the Chief Minister aka Narendra Modi, but what about those who actually killed people…who were they? Where did they come from? Were they just regular Hindus that yearned for blood or were they politically instigated? Zilch

I personally feel its very simple for people to call themselves secular, but not really try and understand what it means. For example, we all sympathise with those accused caught by the Mumbai police in the July 7 bomb blasts. They all seem to be innocent. So why don’t we feel the same about those that were arrested for rioting in Gujarat? Weren’t the crimes similar and equally heinous?

Or are we just pretending to be secular by bashing Hinduism? Why is it so difficult for us to look at things rationally without worrying that we would be branded as something that we are not. Its very simple to follow fashionable trends and equally difficult to voice an opinion against something that is in the opposite direction of the wave everyone else seems to be riding on.

There is a small incident that summarises the secularism of today.
A dear old friend who happens to be a Muslim posted a thread in a discussion forum on Parzania about how the film is the work of a prejudiced and amateur mind.
The next reply to his post (by a Hindu) was as follows: “You seem to be one of those Hindus that are responsible for the pogrom on Muslims. You seem like those fanatic Hindus that broke down the Babri Masjid. It is therefore not a surprise that you ddin’t like the film.”

So much fuss about secularism.....