Synopsis
Mirza
Salim (Balraj Sahni) is a middle aged shoe manufacturer in
Agra whose family like many other muslim families has been
in the leather business for generations. But Partition shatters
not only their flourishing business but also their family.
Following the exodus of many of their colleagues Mirza Salim's
brother, Halim, leaves for Pakistan with his wife and son
Kazim with the promise that Kazim would return to marry Salim's
daughter Amina (Gita Siddharth) after he had secured a job.
Their ancestral house being in the eldest son Halim's name
is declared evacuee property and claimed by a Sindhi Refugee.
Salim and his family are forced to shift to a much smaller
rented house nearby. Kazim gets a Scholarship to go to Canada
and sneaks across the border to meet Amina before leaving.
Their marriage is arranged but the police get a wind of it
and he is whisked off in the middle of the ceremonies. Faced
with stiff competition from the Hindu migrant traders who
enter the leather Salim's business suffers. His sisters husband,
Fakhruddin, is embroiled in a fraudulent transaction and skips
across the border to escape his debts. His son, Shamshad (Jalal
Agha), who has a soft corner for Amina and wants to marry
her, also leaves with his father. Salim is shattered yet refuses
to follow his relatives across the border. One day while going
to his factory he is embroiled in a fight with a hand cart
puller which turns into a minor communal riot. Salim's factory
is an easy target and is set on fire and Salim sustains head
injuries. Blamed for instigating the riot he is taken to the
police station for questioning but released for lack of evidence.
Meanwhile news of Shamshad's marriage to a girl in Pakistan
drives Amina to suicide. Hounded by the other traders and
called a spy Salim finally decides to migrate. But as he is
enroute to the station he is stopped by aprocession of young
people demanding jobs, bread and better education from the
government. Among them is his second son Sikander (Farouque
Sheikh) who has just graduated from college. Sikander refuses
to give up and leave and Salim turns back and joins the procession
of protesters.
The film
Garam Hawa remains today one of
the most poignant films ever to be made
on India's partition. Although Ritwik Ghatak
and other film makers had made films
touching on the Bengal Partition, this was
the first Hindi film to tackle this sensitive
subject in a direct and realistic manner.
Although it was released in 1973, in many
ways it is a precurser to Ankur and other
films of that genre that followed. For first
time director MS Sathyu it remains today
one of his best films. It was a bold attempt
to break out of the cliches of mainstream
Hindi cinema of those days. Inspired by
Satyajit
Ray and De Sica among others Sathyu
attempted to potray a slice of our history
that had effected everyone but had been
swept under the carpet in an attempt to
hide the pain and trauma. Sathyu's main
motivation was to potray the affects the
partition had on the ordinary family against
the backdrop of the socio-economic changes
that were an afternath of the division of
the country. It brings home to the viewer
not only the emotional trauma of losing
your roots but also the complete social
and economic devastation that follows. To
quote Sathyu,
"What
I really wanted to expose in Garam Hawa was the games these
politicians play...How many of us in India really wanted the
partition. Look at the suffering it caused."
Based on an unpublished story by famous
Urdu writer Ismat Chugtai, the story was
developed and scripted by Kaifi Azmi. The
original story centered around a station
master who watches the slow exodus of his
family and friends to Pakistan. Putting
his valuable experience as a union leader
with shoe factory workers to use, Kaifi
Azmi turned the protagonist from being merely
an observer into someone whose livelihood
and with it his entire world crumbles, thus
highlighting and personalising the trauma.
Made with a shoestring budget, the entire
film was shot on location in Agra. Except
for Balraj Sahni,
most of the other cast members had hardly
any film acting experience and were drawn
from the Indian People's Theatre Association,
IPTA. It is Sathyu's superb handling of
the actors that ensures that each character,
however minor, hold their own giving the
film a lyrical realism never seen before.
Dadi Amma, the old matriach of the family
who delivers an unforgatable performance
as Salim's mother was discoved in the Mohalla
where the story was filmed. Balraj Sahni
himself agreed to do the film for a pittance
and was so enthused that at the conclusion
of shooting he organised a strike among
the shoe factory workers of Agra demanding
better wages. When Sathyu was shooting at
location in Agra and was being harrassed
by bystanders, he diverted them with a fake
second unit using an unloaded camera!
Garam Hawa is dominated by Balraj
Sahni's remarkable performance in his last
major role, perhaps his greatest ever, Do
Bhiga Zameen, notwithstanding. Excellent
camera work portraying the lyrical quality
of the Agra monuments and the Art Direction
by Shama Zaidi with careful attention to
detailing add authencity to the film, rare
in Hindi films of those days. Although the
film was shot in the haveli of a Hindu family,
certain tiny details in the differences
in lifestyle between a Hindu family and
a Muslim family were incorporated adding
to the originality of the film. Ustad Bahadur
Khan evocative music helps lift the film
even more.
The film was held up at the censors for
eight months due to its politically sensitive
theme. However after it was passed it opened
to rave reviews and was a commercial success
at the box office. Contarry to apprenhensions
that the film would create communal tension
it was applauded for the empathetic manner
in which such a sensitive aspect of India's
history had been handled. The Film went
on to win a National Award for its contrubution
to National Integration. To quote Sunil
Sethi in the Junior Statesman dated October
27, 1973,
"The film remains one of the most sensitive
and evocative studies without the slightest
contrivance of a minority group in India...It
is the story simply of what a breaking up
of a nation does; not only to human relationships
but to individuals themselves, who begin
to crumble under the obtuse pressures as
things around them begin to fall apart."
Contributed by Priya Chandrasekar,
who is a freelance researcher, writer, director.
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