As I look around for inspiration and contemplation, the Indian movie trade of the second decade of the 21st Century mostly disappoints me. I'm almost half way through and the way things are at the moment, the next 6 years too look bleak. I don't boast of a Ph.D. in Film Studies. I also am not endowed with the fine craft of cinematographic scrutiny. However, I do have a thing for plots, ingenuity and skillful execution. Unconsciously, in the beginning of the decade, I scoured movies in foreign languages to placate my longing for content. Later, a conscious realization had dawned upon me that takers for "thinking" movies were so inconsiderable, the math just didn't add up to Mumbai's film-makers. Perhaps once or twice an year, however, bollywood would punch me in my face, thump a "Highway" or a "Swades" in my fist and wail, "Here's your ration for the next two years! Sob! Don't holler at me for my Dhoom, Krish(r's, s's and h's may be added at will) and Singham blockb(l)usters for another 20 months and let me create my demented buffoonery at ease". After letting go 'Yaariyan' and 'Humshakals' without a whimper, bollywood believed it was time for our semi-annual ritual. It handed me 'Haider'.
Haider is, self admittedly, an adaptation of Hamlet, the 17th Century Shakespearean play set in Denmark. The movie is set in Kashmir, and during the tumultuous 90s when insurgency was at it's peak. Haider, the son of a Kashmiri doctor, returns home on the news of his father's disappearance, only to see his mother, Ghazala, gleefully engrossed in the ceaseless adoration of Khurram, his father's brother. Struck by the nonchalant attitude of his family and unaffected by his mother's lamentation, Haider embraces the responsibility of finding his father. His love interest Arshia supports him, and suddenly one day, receives a message from one of Khurram's political rivals promising her the information that he was much in search for. Haider obliges and comes to know that Khurram played a key role in the disappearance and later, the murder of his father. Haider, now distressed and battered, vows to kill his Uncle to avenge for his father's death. Haider, still retains his sanity and coherence to find the truth about the involvement of his mother in his father's death. In a brief scuffle, he accidentally kills Arshia's father, pushing Arshia into committing suicide. Khurram sends Ghazala to convince Haider into submission and surrender. Ghazala fails to convince Haider. In the last scene, Ghazala, strapped in hand grenades, kills herself, as both Haider and Khurram run towards her in vain, to save her. Haider, still walking, gets a gun at Khurram's head but then leaves him alone and walks off into the darkness.
Tho movie deals with uncertainty, like the original. In the absence of evidence, Haider is led and lured by accounts and anecdotes. His inability to distinguish legend from the legitimate and the chaos that this confusion conspires is a spectacle to behold. As if to mock at the irony of life, the impermeable Himalayas, having seen and heard it all, stay still in the background, giving the incompleteness of truth, a veneer of poise. Though this remains the central theme in the Original too, to have wrapped the Shakespearean essence in an Indian setting within a hundred and fifty minutes of dramatic cannonade is where Bhardwaj flourished.
The film also succeeds in weaving the poser called AFSPA into the conscience of the classic. The ethos of Hamlet could only thrive in a coercive and absolutist setting with the presence of an indomitable system that could be "gamed" only by a closeted few. The AFSPA, convenience for some, contagion for others, plays that System in Haider. Bhardwaj parades the problems of AFSPA, most importantly, its prudery and obdurate inflexibleness. The AFSPA is not a custom made diwan-cum-sofa to fit into the drawing room of every purchaser. The AFSPA is a bulldozer. It is bulky, destructive and shrill. In the process of bringing peace to the valley, it razed through the life and enterprise of many households, spawning entire platoons of AFSPA-foes. Collateral Damage they might say, but what Bhardwaj has successfully done is to show the ridiculous ease with which an inordinately powerful organ can be used to settle personal vendetta.
When Hussain Mir, Ghazala's father-in-law sermonizes to an AFSPA-foe, "inteqaam sirf inteqaam laataa hai, aazaadi nahin" , Bhardwaj wraps the eclectic logic of revenge and freedom with the force of the stubborn system. When Mir eulogizes the virtues of tolerance, one is forced to ask the question, is tolerance the answer to a system that is possibly prone to misuse? Will the brick wall of intransigence give in to the snow melt of tolerance? The film does not give answers. Precisely, because there are none. This, true depiction of life where answers are not as forthcoming as questions makes the movie unprejudiced and genuine. Thanks to Bhardwaj for leaving life and its monstrosities away from the pungent oddities of bollywood.
The biggest revelation to me, however, remains the utterly suave and sophisticated manner in which the film nudges you to experience the delusion of love. Is love a stronger feeling than revenge? Perhaps Yes. Here's where Bhardwaj leaves Shakespeare to transcend into a realm of his own. Having plotted and played Hamlet's script, Haider evolves into a wider understanding of the logic of love. The high point is when both Khurram and Haider run to save Ghazala, the love of their lives, having known she's strapped to explosives. Haider hated her. Khurram loved her. She loved both. Each chose a path to gain love. This delusional aspiration drove them to unimaginable lengths, made them revengeful enemies and when they realized that all that was left of their love was just a pile of ashes, revenge seemed trivial. What is revenge without love?
Bhardwaj has succeeded in presenting before the audience, a convolution of a thousand emotions, skilfully knit into a dramatic maze of both color and despair. To unravel the maze is not Bhardwaj's contract. Neither should it be yours. As you are blown away by the detail of the art work and gape in awe at the bizarre habits of uncertainty, the movie etches in the back of your mind, vivid imagery that will continue to question you by both, its beauty and its ambiguity.
Haider is a must watch for the Thinking Woman!
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