It was only natural for Nandita Das’ directorial debut to have high expectations from critics and the audience alike. As one of the more talented actors of the Indian film industry who is known for being a social activist as well, Firaaq does adequate justice to Nandita’s talent as a director. Her transition from actor to director has been seamless, in the sense that it does not seem like she is a novice. The amount of thought she has put into the film is clear. The subject, of course, is well-known and controversial: the aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat riots. As a study of the relationship and the changed dynamics between Hindus and Muslims in the month following the riots, it is deep and far-reaching.
Firaaq claims that it is ‘based on a thousand true stories’. At the Q&A following the screening of the film at the Times BFI London Film Festival a couple of weeks ago, Nandita admitted that the film started off as being the story of Anu (Tisca Chopra) and Sameer (Sanjay Suri), a middle-class couple who belong to Hindu and Muslim faiths respectively. That is a track within the film that seems to be especially authentic, perhaps because the characters are closest to the kind of people that most of us who live or have grown up in urban middle-class India, are familiar with. But Nandita opened the film up to other parallel narratives as well, because she believed they were all stories begging to be told.
In Firaaq, the riots have made strangers of two Muslim and Hindu friends (Shahana Goswami and Amruta Subhash respectively) and slowly takes away hope from an ailing musician who tries to resist the effect of the carnage on his way of life(Naseeruddin Shah). Yet it also gives a meek Gujarati Hindu wife, torn by her conscience for her cold-heartedness during the riots (Deepti Naval), the strength to strike out against her vile husband (Paresh Rawal, who is perfectly cast). The crux of the film, though, to me at least, is the character of little Mohsin (Mohammad Samad in an excellent role), whom the riots have left an orphan. As we follow his travails, we cannot help but feel the complete loss of innocence. The riots have forced him to grow up, and in a horrible way. The closing scenes impress this upon our minds strongly, and the horror of the riots is never more saddening.
If there is one question that I would have liked to ask Nandita, it is if and how her religious identity as a Hindu came into play during the making of the film. Firaaq is clearly a pro-Muslim film – it is, as it says in the beginning, the story of the 3000+ Muslims that were killed during and after the riots – a topic whose seriousness I am not denouncing. It would have been interesting, though, to see more thoughtful sketches of the Hindus. That would have probably been more difficult to execute.
All in all, however, Firaaq is a very thought-provoking film more than worth watching.
