An interview with the the director of critically acclaimed ‘Harud’…
More than a clearly etched out storyline, your emphasis seems to be creating moments which convey the claustrophobia of people trapped in a vicious cycle of violence… take us through the journey – how you conceived this film, your thoughts, the pre production process…
In 2003 mobile phone services were introduced in J&K. I happened to be in Kashmir at the time visiting my parents. I saw the euphoria first hand and initially found it quite odd that people who were dealing with violence on a daily basis, could get so distracted by a gadget. All conversations centred around the mobile phone and I saw long queues for application forms. Some of it was because people had this feeling of being left behind, post the economic liberalisation, which coincided with the militant insurgency in Kashmir. So I started mulling over this idea of a film about the introduction of mobile telephony in Kashmir. But since there was no clear plan to make a film and there were no timelines, the writing process took around four years. After writing the first draft, it took me a year and a half to revisit it and I didn’t like what was on paper. Also, I realised the excitement mobile phones generated had more to do with peace of mind rather than just a consumerist fad. For people to be able to stay connected to their loved ones in a strife torn place was like having a bullet proof jacket. The psychological damage caused by the uncertainty and security would get mitigated to some extent by the mobile phone. For example, if a violent incident takes place in some part of the city where you know your loved ones are, now, you could call them and find out their whereabouts immediately and that made a huge difference. So the idea, which started off about the introduction of this gadget, slowly evolved in to a film about this insecure state of mind that people have had to deal with in the past two decades.
Shanker (the cinematographer) and I decided to visit Kashmir and write one of the drafts there. For him this immersion was critical. Everybody has an opinion about Kashmir but it’s only when one has been there that one can experience the claustrophobia and the oppression. The writing was also about getting to the essence of this Kashmiri experience through a process of distillation. We never set out to explain the Kashmir conflict. We wanted the audience to feel the same sensations as the characters. The listlessness, the uncertainty, the elusive search for dignity. Not to give the audience what they expect out of habit.
The casting is quite striking… How did Reza Naji (an Iranian stalwart) happen? Was he your first choice? How was it working with him?
Casting Reza Naji… well all I can say is that it was on a whim. Naseeruddin Shah was supposed to do the father’s role but he could not leave Bombay during that period due to some personal reasons. We needed an actor who would look Kashmiri enough amongst the rest of the cast of local non-actors. I wasn’t confident enough to cast a non-actor for the role of the father because of post traumatic stress disorder that the character had to portray. I had done some research for Majid Majidi, the renowned Iranian filmmaker who had chosen Kashmir as a location for a project with an Indian producer. So I called up his associate Ramyar Rossoukh who is an anthropologist in Harvard, and asked him if it would be at all possible to get Naji. He had read the script. He called up Majidi, who in turn persuaded Naji to accept this role and about a month later, he was in Kashmir for the shoot.
In retrospect, it would have been a nightmare to shoot with Naseer on the streets in Kashmir. We simply did not have the resources to control the crowds. Nobody recognised Naji. In fact people would come up to him and start speaking to him in Kashmiri. The language barrier, (he can only speak Azeri, which is Turkic dialect of Persian and therefore had to communicate through an interpreter) helped in creating a level playing field with the non-actors on one side, a renowned actor on the other. My instructions to him were no different from the ones that I gave to the local actors, which were purely action based rather than trying to extract a performance. It was an absolute dream to work with him. Despite our lack of resources on what must have been a demanding shoot in an alien environment for him, he never complained, not once, about anything.
Considering the fact that the actors were all first timers, was there any workshop? How did you ensure that they were not camera conscious?
When I was casting for the film, I was looking for faces and personalities that would add to what was already on paper. I wasn’t looking for performers. Fortunately for me I found my young cast in one place. Naseeruddin Shah was conducting an acting workshop for young people with an NGO. Naseer asked me to accompany him since he didn’t know anyone in Kashmir. All these young boys and girls were absolutely raw. Their idea of acting was entry- dialogue-exit. But Naseer’s workshop (I myself have taken part in it) has nothing to do with dialogues or text. It is called the ‘Action Problem’. The idea is to perform an urgent action as accurately and truthfully as possible, so that the viewer can figure out your state of mind or your intention. The emphasis is purely on the action and to make sure that there is no illustration of your emotional state. Now all this was Greek for these kids and extremely frustrating for Naseer to get through to them. But for me, just the fact that these guys were now aware that they do not have to express or illustrate an emotion was good enough. That workshop proved invaluable for me as a director because now I could leave all the jargon, like, getting under the skin of the character or method or whatever behind, especially since I was dealing with first timers. I was quite aware of the fact that when actors turn directors, the emphasis on performance is huge. I did not want to get into that space. For me the big picture was more important.
There are no easy answers when it comes to Kashmir. But at the same time there is no political will to find any answers either. At the end of the day it remains a political issue. It cannot be brushed under the carpet by CBMs and the tourist influx.
The listlessness of Rafiq (played by Shanawaz Bhat) becomes a character in the film… we see him smile only twice… What was your brief for form?
Shahnawaz was an easy choice. My protagonist was never going to be a potential hero who would emerge victorious in the end. Besides his doleful eyes can erase all the dialogues from a screenplay. Initially, of course, he was very camera conscious and we rolled a lot of film stock on him. But that comes with the territory of casting first timers. You can’t expect them to hit the mark or give the right look straight away. Also Shanker’s camera tried to be as unobtrusive as possible as you can see, the film has an almost documentary feel to it.
The mother’s character is so resilient… we see her strongly deal with her husband’s breakdown, her son’s disappearance. Were you trying to give us a prototype of a Kashmiri woman or a woman caught in conflict?
Women in Kashmir are the most vulnerable set of the population, as is true in any conflict zone. The responsibility of keeping the family unit intact invariably falls on them. Women in Kashmir have been pillars of strength both in the private and public spheres. They’ve actively participated in the resistance whether against the extremists who tried to impose a dress code on them or against the state’s oppression. The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons was started by a woman, Parveena Ahanger, who was an illiterate mother whose son was one of the first cases of enforced disappearances in 1990. The APDP has performed its role as a thorn in the state’s conscience through the last two decades, through their silent protests every month. Their fight goes above and beyond the politics. Their fight is for basic human dignity.
In terms of images… the violence, beauty and a sense of ennui are quite palpable… extreme close up of eyes, barbed wires, the houses… what was your brief for Shankar Ramen?
Since Shanker and I wrote the screenplay together, we both had a clear understanding of what we were trying to achieve. My biggest fear was getting caught in a violent incident and jeopardising the lives of my crew members. So Shanker decided to shoot the whole film hand held. We had to be on our toes and be able to get out of sticky situations quickly. Also, since conditions were beyond our control, we could not approach it in a formal way or think about track trolleys and master shots and over shoulder close ups etc. We tried to bring the economy that we had exercised in the writing, to the shooting process. There was no make up and we decided to go with the available light in exterior scenes. There was no shooting the same scene from multiple angles. We did not want to shoot different options for a take, from which the editor would choose. Writing the film together helped a great deal to be in sync to execute this unconventional and to some extent risky treatment. But it did make the whole shooting process more organic and pleasurable. Even the editor Shan Mohammad enjoyed himself and did an excellent job in my opinion.
The shedding leaves, burning leaves are present throughout the film… what metaphor were you driving at?
The metaphor is the season, autumn with the Chinar leaf as the leitmotif. The season when everything around starts decaying, culminating in a slow death. The precursor to an even darker time, winter. The Chinar tree is pretty much part of Kashmiri identity and it sort of comes alive in autumn when it is aflame in red, yellow and orange. The leaves fall when they are full of colour, just like the young in Kashmir. The burning of Chinar leaves to make fine charcoal, used in Kangris (fire pots) that every Kashmiri uses in winters, reminds me of funeral pyres.
In terms of documenting the daily, the film is very Iranian in feel. The last scene of the sacrificial lamb reminds me of Karel Kachyna’s ‘Forbidden Dreams’ where the Jews were the sacrificial lamb… what have your cinematic influences been?
The last scene of the lamb and the couplet by Agha Shahid Ali in the beginning, “And I, Shahid, only am escaped to tell thee – God sobs in my arms. Call me Ishmael tonight” are in reference to the Biblical/Koranic story of Abraham, where God asked him to sacrifice what is dearest to him. Abraham was about to sacrifice his beloved son, Ishmael, when God replaced Ishmael with a lamb. We were trying to turn the story upside down. That’s the kind of place Kashmir has become. Where so many sons are lost, that even if God asked a father to sacrifice his son, he would refuse.
About influences, I really do not know. I rarely remember or am able to recall scenes from a film that I may have liked. But I do admire the economy of Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s films.
Considering the places you have shot the film in, what kind of hurdles did you face?
Filmmakers tend to exaggerate and romanticise their struggles and obstacles, but filmmaking is a complex and complicated exercise where one is dependent on several things to fall into place at the right moment. When one is trying to recreate reality or search for truth through a series of lies, it is always going to be a struggle. Kashmir is a difficult place to live in, so obviously it was difficult to shoot there. The biggest obstacle remains the trust deficit amongst the people. They don’t trust people coming from outside with a camera. This has mainly to do with their perception that they have been misrepresented in the news media and films.
Given the fact that the film doesn’t toe the patriotic line of an outsider, any problems with the Censor Board?
Frankly, I find the censor board an absurdity in this day and age. There is nothing that people cannot access on the internet, so who are they trying to protect? Besides there is no consistency in their decision making. To give you an example from ‘Harud’. There is news footage of protests in the beginning of the film where you hear slogans of ‘Azaadi‘. They asked me to remove those but they were ok with “We want freedom”. There was a lot of to and fro over a couple of months before we got our certification. Then after clearing the film without any visual cuts, we were asked to remove a shot from the trailer. That just got my goat and I withdrew the trailer without getting a certificate for it. There was an utter lack of common sense on their part and on top of that, they wanted me to pay a fee and appear before a revising committee to defend my position. If a viewing committee is not authorised to grant a certificate to a film set in Kashmir, then why are we asked to show the film to them? Why can’t we go directly to a revising committee?
What about distribution? The show timings were bad, the film ran at just one multiplex for one show, for one week… How do you intend to reach out to a larger audience, given such limitations?
I can’t call it distribution. At best it is a limited release. But I can’t complain. The distribution for independent or art-house films is non existent. I had no hope of a release till a couple of months ago. But the fact remains that independent films cannot compete with mainstream films in the multiplex space. We need an alternate space where the audience knows that a certain kind of content is available. Otherwise films like ours, that don’t have publicity and marketing budgets, will disappear without a trace. Our next step is to bring out a DVD. There is an audience of Kashmiris who are quite anxious to see the film. We hope to reach out to them and others who could not see the film in cinemas due to the limited release.
You have dedicated the film to your uncle. Tell us about your growing up years in Kashmir.
My uncle Shamim Ahmed Shamim was a writer/journalist and a politician. He had warned the Indian Parliament as a member about the disillusionment of Kashmiris with the Indian state and had predicted the kind of scenario that we are witnessing now. He was a well know anti-establishment figure in Kashmir and even though I was only ten when he died, I am greatly influenced by his personality and his writings. It was because of him that I grew up in an environment where I was politically aware from a very young age. He was evicted from his home by the then ruling state government as an act of political vendetta and he died in his sister’s home at the age of 45. I have inherited my anti-establishment world view from him. But other than this, my childhood in Kashmir was a happy one where I spent a lot of time amid nature. Whether swimming in lakes, climbing mountains or skiing down them in winters.
Where and how does an independent filmmaker fit amid the 100 crore clubs of Bollywood?
There is no comparison between the two. One has to do with truth and the other with money. One is a passion project, the other a business proposal. The only way they can fit together is when an independent filmmaker is co-opted in to the mainstream and his next film is with stars.
I find it difficult to reconcile the sensibilities of a film like ‘A Wednesday’ with ‘Harud’… what are your current acting assignments and what is the criterion for selecting a film?
I would like to tell you the criterion is a good script but I haven’t read any for a long time. So I end up saying no to a lot of people and eventually yes to one because I need the money. After ‘A Wednesday’ I’ve been offered the same clean cop roles. I’ve resisted saying yes, but for how long? So you might see me in Khakis again soon at a theater near you. Or it might be the end of Aamir Bashir, the actor. Who knows…
What’s next on the directorial front?
Currently I’m applying for development funds for another film set in Kashmir, tentatively titled ‘Winter’.
There’s one dialogue in the film, somewhat like ‘Jannat ka rasta Pakistan ho ke nehi jata’… and then there is the heavy Indian military presence. You avoid giving easy answers. How do you see the Kashmir situation panning out? Not to forget the Indian media which is trying hard to portray a picture of normalcy…
There are no easy answers when it comes to Kashmir. But at the same time there is no political will to find any answers either. At the end of the day it remains a political issue. It cannot be brushed under the carpet by CBMs and the tourist influx. Look at the interlocutors report. The Kashmiris were skeptical about the interlocutors from the beginning. They didn’t see it as a serious attempt by the government to find some solution. And now the government itself has come up with contradictory signals about the report. It’s probably gathering dust in some closet in Raisina Hill. The thing is, the central government has dragged its feet from day one. They’ve treated it as a law and order problem. But when you have 70,000 people dead and close to 10,000 missing, it can’t be just law and order that is at stake. More than 6,000 unmarked graves were found in Kashmir, many of them had bodies of civilians who were picked up by the security forces. Can you imagine the furore this would have caused in any other civilised country on the planet? But in India, it is of no interest to the state or the media. Both of them morph into one entity when it comes to Kashmir. Look at the way the media grills the establishment when it comes to issues like corruption etc. But when it is Kashmir, if the media is to be believed, the same corrupt system has nothing but noble intentions. Let’s face it, the illusion that the media is neutral and unbiased in a free market scenario is just that, an illusion. We saw it in Britain with News Corp. We’ve seen it in the American media as well, how they filter news for domestic consumption. News is a product in the market, like any other.
No matter how many tourists come to Kashmir, the conflict will continue to simmer because almost everyone there has been affected by the state’s assault and oppression. The first casualty during an assault is one’s dignity. The new generation has seen nothing but oppression by the state and for them it is a fight for their dignity.
