First-time director Shashi Kumar was inspired by the Gujarat riots to retell the story of the victims of 1984 and the deep psychological scars they bear.

NEW DELHI: July 29, 2004
FROM UTPAL BORPUJARI
DH NEWS SERVICE

Chand Bujh Gaya, a film based on the Gujarat riots, recently ran into trouble with the Censor Board for depicting a character purportedly based on Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Events post-Godhra have now inspired a film that looks into the deep psychological and societal impact left on the victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

Kaya Taran (Chrysalis), a Hindi film by first-time director and noted television personality Shashi Kumar, attempts to dissect the minds of those affected by the riots that occurred following Indira Gandhi’s assassination in an adaptation of noted Malayalam author N S Madhavan’s novel When Big Trees Fall.

The Rs 1.5-crore film, that was premiered in the capital recently by the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust, also offers a look into what Mr Kumar calls “increasing majoratarianism” in both society and the media.

“I decided to make this film quite some time ago, but since the story was set around the events of 1984, I asked myself why I needed to (return to that time). But when the 2002 Gujarat riots happened, I suddenly had the justification,” Mr Kumar told Deccan Herald, saying the humane aspect in communal violence was an important subject at any time.

The film’s protagonist Preet, a journalist in Delhi and a victim of the 1984 riots, goes to Meerut to do a story on religious conversion just after the Gujarat riots. There he meets the nun who had saved him and his mother from rioters 20 years ago by giving them shelter at a nunnery.

Using a non-linear mode of storytelling and some surrealism, Kumar’s film, that stars former Indian cricket skipper Bishen Singh Bedi’s son Angad and actress Seema Biswas, raises disturbing issues — including why the media
has “surreptitiously” divided along political and communal lines — even as it tries to tackle what the director calls the “challenge to our country’s multiculturalism”.

“Majoratarianism is a big worry, especially when it starts coming from unexpected quarters, like relatives and friends. The film is also a kind of self-reflection on how the media’s perspective has changed. Today it is polarised and is about the Right, Hinduvta, the Left, and so on. I tried to reflect upon the changing trends of the media also. It is important because the media persuades people to behave in a particular way,” Mr Kumar says.

Right now the director, who hosted Doordarshan’s cultural show “Taana Baana” and the economy-related programme “Money Matters”, is in the process of entering his film in several international film festivals while looking for a distributor for its release in India.

“For me a theatrical release is very important, as it is not good enough that it does the festival circuit. Because, however people may react, I want them to watch the film because of the importance of the subject,” he says.

Interestingly, unlike recent films dealing with the issue of communalism, such as Govind Nihalani’s Dev, Kaya Taran takes a totally unsentimental look at the sensitive subject.

“I have always been a strong votary of anti-sentimentalism, because I think the bane of good cinema is sentimentalism,” Mr Kumar says. “Once you get dewy-eyed and lachrymose, it becomes a very predictable experience.”