Tell them the tree they had planted has now grown, a powerful film made straight from the heart, is a cinematic diary of a Kashmiri revisiting Kashmir after a twelve year exile to witness the scars of a paradise lost. Through the film the filmmaker, a Kashmiri who was there last in November 1989 when militancy was just making its presence felt through random bombings and killings of the so-called 'Indian agents', mostly Kashmiri Hindus and leaders of the National Conference, returns to see if at all it was safe to return to Kashmir and to hear what people thought and felt about the long dark night that has reigned over Kashmir during this period. The film is repleted with personal memories of the people he meets (some new and some again) and places he revisits as he searches for a time now lost.

The film follows the filmmaker - Ajay Raina, an alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) and a Kashmiri, through his travails and he is occasionally seen on camera as he meets up with various people and revisits places from his past. He himself has also provided the narration for the film and recorded it in his own voice thus making it as personal a film a possible which is precisely the strength of the film. The filmmaker draws us into his journey as we meet his old acquaintances and visit his now empty house in Srinagar or his ancestral house in his village. Through this we feel for him and wonder along with him - will normalcy ever return to Kashmir? When will all these killings and violence ever end? Also to his credit, the filmmaker takes no sides in the issue of Kashmir but meets as many people as he can from all sides and lets everyone have their say thus getting a multifacted perspective on the issue and leaving the viewer with plenty of food for thought. One cannot be but shocked as one sees how resigned the people have become today to violence and killings as a normal part of their lives.

The camera freeflowing without being obstrusive in the least and often hand held moves smoothly with the protagonist and draws the viewer compulsively into the world of the filmmaker. The images of Kashmir stun you as what the filmmaker shows you is not the beauty of the landscape that one is accustomed to, but a land that looks ravaged and destroyed. This is no longer the Kashmir echoing with the cries of Shammi Kapoor's yahoo or Sadhana's bouffants. It is today a land of much destruction and mass killings.

In spite of its grim theme, the film has several moments of warmth and humour as well. The filmmaker easily interacts with the various people he meets to get them to talk naturally to him. In a sequence where he speaks to the neighbour's children, they ask him if Bombay has become Mumbai shouldn't Bollywood now be called Mollywood?!

The film began with a recce trip undertaken before the final shoot. It was this trip that brought the filmmaker home after twelve long years. It was tough, mentally very tough to gear up and face this so called 'homecoming.' Recalling his first impressions of revisiting Kashmir as he went to recce his film, this is what Ajay had to say...

"Since I was visiting Kashmir after a long period of uncertainty, I did feel a certain fear about my safety and apprehensive about the response I would receive from the local people and my earlier acquaintances, though I hadn't really accounted for this 'particular' emotion in my planning. In the first few days of my stay I was very guarded with the unknown people who I encountered. I thought it prudent not to let them in the know of who I actually was…(there were some interesting consequences). Gradually, I was able to overcome this guardedness due to the support given me by my Father's ex-colleagues and a Friend who was my junior at the Film Institute, Pune.

On the first day after my arrival in Srinagar I wanted to go to the downtown part of the city and just roam about to observe people. Being the last Friday in the Month of Ramzan, I was advised to visit the shrine at Hazratbal, where I was told I could expect to see a huge congregation of Kashmiri's. I went inside the shrine ( I hadn't been inside ever, while I was growing up in Srinagar) and took some stills of the people as they offered Namaz and as the chief Moulvi of the Shrine exhorted his people to join him in prayers for peace.

On my way back from the Hazratbal shrine, I took a detour through the down-town part of the city. This part of the city was the centre of militancy and highly volatile during the initial phase of militancy. I used to hear about lots of instances of clashes and firings and deaths from this area. The security bunkers have now gone (cease-fire sentiment). The pro-Pakistan/ pro-azadi/ anti-India banners have long vanished and have been replaced by banners advertising coaching classes for students and commercial services.

I noted that people in general, barring the intellectual and the political class were mostly fed up of the ongoing struggle and violence they had unwittingly become a part of. People overwhelmingly wanted to get on with life. They wanted the cease-fire to be extended indefinitely and the violence to end. But they also feared that the vested interests among the people - the "the 5% of people" - the militants/politicians/surrendered militants/and neo-businessmen (who have accumulated unaccounted wealth over the past decade) do want the uncertainty to continue, so that they can thrive. But the violence of the past decade has taken its toll on the psyche of the people. There is resignation to fear and violence. The institutions of society, of governance and of accountability seem non-existent. There is frequent load-shedding, but people do not crib or complain. People no longer share their thoughts with others in public places. Nobody bothered me or asked me who I was or why I had come, even though I could sense that they did know, I was one of them and had come to Kashmir after a long time.

Almost all the people I spoke to (in the privacy of their homes or offices) have been witness to police highhandedness and of death, - at the hands of militants or in the cross-fire - of someone near to them. This factor accounts for the major reason for their anti-India feelings. The fear of the militants is still palpable, I found it difficult to get anyone to speak about them, though a well respected Journalist, the editor and publisher of a Local Urdu newspaper was candid enough in admitting to me that "In the initial phase of the militancy, the fear of getting killed and the threats from the militants left us with no choice but to publish what they dictated us, but now the tables have turned…It is the papers now who tell the militants what to do, what course of action to take, though the fear remains."

I spoke to a few well known local journalists who have covered the ongoing turmoil. The feeling among them, is unanimously in favour of peace, though they do not seem to expect much from their local political leadership, which is known to be corrupt and self - seeking, without exception. Their arguments for Independence and the genesis of the struggle are overwhelmingly weighed against India, barring a few from the older generation, who still think Kashmir's accession to India was in the good interests of the Kashmiri's. Among the intellectuals, I found a certain near-unanimity in their logic and analysis of the events that led to the start of the current turmoil and its subsequent unfolding over the past decade. I have a feeling that there has been much re-writing of the History of Kashmir in the past decade. The chasm of thought, the variances in the interpretation of events by the pro / anti India lobby has widened…perhaps, in the absence of any worthwhile debate due to the fear of the militants. Perhaps also, for fear of being dubbed anti-movement.

On the question of Hindu migrations…an ex-militant (of Hizbul Mujahideen) turned human rights activist wouldn't even agree with me that Hindus were ever threatened to leave. Very few people reluctantly admitted, though in private, and when pressed, that 'selective killings' of Hindus, exhortations from the mosques for Hindus to get out or even 'individual' threats could have left them with no choice but to seek safety outside the valley. I also spoke with the members of the Hindu families who had stayed back…They were going about their daily activities 'normally' and as 'freely' as their other neighbour…They felt safe from their neighbours, though reluctant to voice any contrary opinions in public.

I also had the occasion to spend time with four CRPF personnel manning the picket at the office where my father worked. There is a state of permanent and constant antipathy between the Security forces and the Local Kashmiri's, but they looked up to me as a representative of India, perhaps with a special regard, knowing that I was from Bombay and that I work in Films. In the course of our little political discussions about the situation and the probable outcome to the Kashmir problem, I came back feeling that the decade long violent attrition, constant fear of a militant attack, a sullen populace and also perhaps lack of any evidence of any change in the ground situation has left the Indian Jawan, manning the lonely pickets, at the mercy of his 'wits'. He has been placed in a situation where the gun in his hand is the only security he has. When he is attacked, or when any of his comrades is killed, he retaliates with 'wanton' firing. He is aware that innocents die…But he is also aware that the 'militant' is from one among them. He is brutal to all. He suspects all as "a matter of policy" to safeguard his own life…believing that thereby he is rendering some service to his country. But, even they want the violence to end. They want to see some signs of peace. They want to relax among the people they are supposed to fight. They offered me Rum in the night (since all wine shops and cinemas are closed), They offered me tea and food in the morning from their share of the breakfast, knowing that the restaurants would not be open due to the 'Ramzan' month. They took good care of me, even though I was more 'pally' with the people from the other side, but that was another reason, I was under 'suspicion' from both sides. The day I was to leave, One of the security guys was only matter of fact in admitting to me that he had been suspecting me all along as well…"How do we know who you are, or what you say you are is really true. How are we to know what your designs here are?""

Coming back to the film, one did feel however that Ajay seemed bound by the length of the film having a lot more to say (The first cut of the film was in fact two and a half hours in length!) and consequently he has crammed in as much into his personal narration as he could. But this tends to make the film too verbose and at times a bit diffcult to view the visuals and hear the voice over at the same time. At times one takes away from the other. Also to move personally with the filmmaker and his thoughts since it is him you are following through the film, perhaps one needed to see more of him and his reactions to the happenings around him in the film rather than just hear his voice over as cinema is much more of a visual medium rather than an aural one. On the technical side too sometimes the location sound was muffled and unclear. But these are minor complaints in an otherwise deeply moving film.

Tell them the tree they had planted has now grown has been funded by the PSBT (Public Service Broadcasting Trust) and Ajay is all praise for all the support given by producer Rajiv Mehrotra. But for his backing this film would not have been possible and indeed one must commend the PSBT for supporting this enterprise. The film has been shot on DV, a format being increasingly used by filmmakers the world over particularly for documentaries as this format makes it extremely easy to go with a minimum unit and manageable light weight equipment to far flung locations and shoot without difficulty. In fact the unit of this film comprised of just two people - the director himself and cinematographer Tanmay Agarwal. What's more the director and cameraman have also doubled up as sound recordists and have taken turns at shooting the film. Ajay maintains that even with this small unit, it would still have been impossible for the film to be made without local co-operation for which he is grateful. The film was shot over two weeks and has come down to its present edited length from over 40 hours of raw shooting material!

The film deservedly won the Golden Counch, Best National Documentary Award at the recently concluded Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF 2002) and has also been telecast on Doordarshan. The film is also scheduled to have a fresh round of screenings and will be screened at the following venues during March and April, 2002 - March 15, 4.00 PM at Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, 29 Rajpur Road, New Delhi; March 27, 6.00PM at Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi and on April 18, 6.00PM at Chauraha, National Centre For Performing Arts (NCPA), Nariman Point, Mumbai.