Aamir,a film about a man on the run, was released in June 2008. It was one of thoserare films that was praised by critics and liked by viewers. I did not like thefilm. I was in fact very upset and disturbed about it and thought about givingexpression to my angst in writing, but this outpouring of powerful emotionsnever materialised. I would probably have never gotten down to writing thispiece had Delhi6 not arrived on the scene.
I liked Delhi 6, but I was once again on the wrong side, well almost,aside from a handful of insignificant others like me, everyone - including thecritics - was panning the film. This set me thinking about this major disconnectbetween everyone else ranged against ‘the insignificant others including I’.Is it possible that I did not understand cinema or is it that both the popularand elitist perceptions have gone through a tectonic shift without me and theaforementioned handful realising this? I think the frame of reference haschanged and we are still stuck within a world that no one seems to remember,relate to or care about.
It is this feeling of extreme disquiet that has compelled me to revisit Aamirand to put forward my case about not liking it and liking Delhi 6.
To begin with Aamir. As already stated, this is the story of a man on therun. Aamir, a young doctor practicing abroad, returns to Bombay, to spend timewith his mother and siblings, the immigration officer asks him meaninglessquestions, casts aspersions on him, checks his papers again and again,eventually letting him go, albeit, reluctantly. Aamir picks up his stuff andasks the immigration officer, "Would you have treated me thus, had my namebeen Amar?" and walks off.
He steps out, his luggage is snatched, two bike riders zoom in, shove a phone inhis hand, the phone is ringing, they shout "talk" and ride off. The voice onthe phone tells him to follow instructions if he wants his luggage back. Aamiris now made to do a whole range of things: Go to a filthy chawl -- ‘a muslimchawl’ -- walk into the putrid and stinking toilet, is told that is how ‘weare made to live’ and that he has forgotten his roots, forgotten his faith,betrayed his people, etc. etc.
Aamir, blows hot and cold, says he worked hard, went abroad on a scholarship,made choices. He is told that his people have no choices, they are condemned tolive in these chawls in this filth, in poverty. Aamir insists that he wants noneof this. He wants his luggage back and wants to meet his family.
He is directed to a restaurant, ‘a muslim restaurant’, where people aregorging themselves on huge chunks of meat, everyone consumes phenomenalquantities. They eat like animals, he receives a phone call, is directed toanother place, then to another and yet one more place, while criss-crossing theMuslim ghettoes of Bombay, he goes through a meat market -- huge chunks of meathang on both sides of the street. Aamir walks to his next rendezvous: a seedyhotel. He is propositioned on the staircase by a prostitute. Once inside theroom, he is served a huge quantity of food, large chunks of meat, told to eat,rest and wait for instructions. Another phone call, he is told to deliver asuitcase of money at an address to be supplied to him, he is also told that hewould be a free man after he has run this chore, that his luggage will bereturned and he would be able to go back to his family.
He refuses, is made to listen to the cries of his mother and siblings and told:Do as you are asked or you will never see them again. Aamir agrees, sets off, isattacked, brief case is snatched, he wanders bewildered. The prostitute meetshim again, guides him to where his attackers are hiding: He barges in, beats upeverybody, takes his bag back. The phone rings again, he is asked to get into aspecific bus, sometime later he is told to slip the bag under the seat and getoff. He is told you only have two minutes. He gets off the bus.
The viewers and Aamir realise that the snatching was a charade, the suitcase isnow a bomb. The attackers, the prostitute, the bearers, the man on the phone,everybody is part of the network of terror. Something breaks inside Aamir. Herushes in, drags the brief case, rushes out shouting, "Bomb, bomb". People digging a trench jump out and run. Aamir runs to the trench, the briefcase explodes. End of Aamir, end of film. Teary eyed and clapping, the viewersdepart.
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On the face of it, it is a film about innocents beingdragged into the game of terrorists. Helpless innocent people - struggling torise above their meagre circumstances - being dragged down by the fanatics toserve their nefarious designs. And the heroism of the ordinary individualsacrificing his all to single handedly foil the well laid plans of the enemiesof the nation.
But this is only a disguise for very cleverly reinforcing every stereotype aboutthe Muslim. What is going on around Aamir is the actual message of the film.Every step that Aamir takes is reported back to the boss man at the other end ofthe line. The entire city, or at least the parts where the film takes you -- andit takes you to all the Muslim ghettoes -- for Muslims live only in ghettoes --has people in beards, dressed like the stereotypical Muslim of the DAVPhoardings, constantly talking in an agitated tone on the phone. They are thenetwork of terror, reporting constantly to the boss. Every restaurant owner,every bearer, every paanwallah, every chaiwallah that the hero talks to is partof the network.
Needless to say, they are all Muslims. Look at their faces, they are cruelfaces, faces of killers, faces of scheming little crooks. Great care has beentaken to select these secondary and tertiary characters. Except for Aamir andhis hapless family, there is not a single face that does not look like acertified killer.
In the perception of generations that have grown up in independent India,especially those growing up from the 1980s, this is what the Muslim representsand the film is crawling with these mausies -- the image of the killercast in iron. Children are told that Muslims are cruel because they kill to eat,meat eating makes them killers and in the film they are constantly eating meat,they eat huge quantities and they eat like carnivores.
There is a song in the film, shot in the meat market, to the beat of the cleaverchopping through flesh and bone. The montage of carcasses of animals, thecleaver, the face of the butcher, the harassed hero, cleaver, chunk of meat,hero, butcher, cleaver, on and on, all cut to the fast tattoo of the cleaverhitting the chopping block. Meat. Muslim. Mayhem. Stereotype becomes reality.
Aside from the apparent pitch about the innocent victims being sucked in byIslamic terror that might create momentary sympathy among the viewers, aided bythe fact that Aamir is an ‘outsider’ -- a doctor (who couldn’t have goneto a madrasa, he does not have a beard and dresses up ‘differently’) and aperson like 'us', he doesn’t even look like a Muslim. Pray, what does aMuslim look like?
Did Dilip Kumar, Mohammad Rafi, Sahir, Kaifi, Majrooh, Johnny Walker, Ajit,Madhubala, Meena Kumari, Waheeda, Zeenat Aman and Naushad look like Muslims? DoShabana, Farookh Sheikh, Javed Akhtar, Aamir, Shah Rukh, Salman, Irfan look likeone?
The major argument of the film feeds upon and justifies the stereotypes aboutthe Muslims being projected by the majoritarian discourse. The majoritariandiscourse has propagated this for a long time, but its adoption by cinema,especially the so called thinking cinema, is the most worrying part about thefilm. The other part that worried me greatly about the film was what I beganwith: the appreciation that the film received among both the viewers and thecritics.
The communal profiling, the condemnation of an entire community, the branding ofevery Muslim as a terrorist, the refusal to see Muslims as ordinary people andto portray them as lowlife that began with films like Parinda and wascarried on through Border and Sarfarosh and others of the ilk hascome full circle.
This is nothing new; the precedent for this was set by Leni Reifenstahl andothers in Nazi Germany. The ‘other’ in the Europe of the 1930s was the Jew,the other in the first decade of the 21st century are the ‘mausies’, notonly in India but all over the world, including among the survivors of theholocaust.
There is a difference though; a Delhi 6 is also being made. For more onthat, wait for the next piece, appearing in these columns, shortly.
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Sohail Hashmi is Delhi based, has worked in the media, walks in theunreserved forests and unprotected ruins of Delhi regularly, writes irregularly.Loves to cook and eat. This piece first appeared on Kafila
