Looking for Aditya Bhattacharya

Aditya Bhattacharya, son of the film-director Basu Bhattacharya (1934-97) and grandson of film-director Bimal Roy (1909-66) is known in India mainly for his first film as a director, Raakh (1989), which had Pankaj Kapoor, Aamir Khan and Supriya Pathak (image below).

Recently, I was searching for him for my book on Sonali Senroy Dasgupta (1928-2014), known for her love-story with the Italian film-maker Roberto Rossellini in the 1950s.

This post presents an overview about Aditya's life and works. Let me start by explaining why I started searching for him. (All the images are from internet)

Aditya's Sonali Connection

There was a big scandal in the 1950s when Sonali, wife of film-director Harisadhan Dasgupta, had left her husband and gone to live in Europe with Rossellini. Many books have been written about Rossellini.

However, Sonali was a very private person and conceded only few interviews during her life in the 1960s and 70s. Harisadhan lived in India and was not interviewed for the European books. Thus, both Sonali and Harisadhan are almost missing from those books.

Last year, I started to put together a book which could look at this story from the point of view of Sonali and Harisadhan, and their families. For this, I am looking for information about the texture of her days during 1980s-2000s, when the spotlights had moved away from her, leaving her to live in relative anonymity in Rome.

Thus, I thought that Aditya could have provided some information about this period since he had lived in Italy in the early 1990s. Sonali was his mother's cousin and I thought that while in Rome, he must have spent some time with his aunt and her family.

Through my search, I found Aditya and did write to him about Sonali but he did not reply to my message. However, since I had collected information about him, I felt that this would make for an interesting blogpost.

Aditya and His Family

He was born in Bombay in 1965. In a Times of India interview in 2001, he said that "an unstable home environment made him independent early in his life." He was referring to the troubled marriage between his parents, Basu Bhattacharya and Rinki Roy Bhattacharya, which had ended in a divorce. Aditya has two sisters, Chimmu and Anvesha. 

About the film-makers in his family, in an interview in 2007 he said: "I never got a chance to spend time with my grandfather. In fact, my first childhood memory is my grandfather’s death. I was three years old. I have few memories with my father too, as I’ve travelled a lot. I did not expect him to die in 1997. That’s the only regret I have, that I wasn’t there when he needed me and didn’t spend enough time with him. ... My father never shot his films on sets. He would shoot on real locations. Which means, he shot at home. So I would be in the middle of the shoot all the time. Anubhav, Avishkaar, Griha Pravesh and Aastha were shot inside our homes. I have worked with him in only on one film called Panchvati. It was shot in Nepal." (Something does not match here. If he was born in 1965, he would have been one year old in 1966 when Bimal Roy had died; perhaps, he was born earlier, may be in 1963)

In 1997, when his father had died, Aditya was busy with his first Italian film 'Senso Unico'. The film's editing and music were completed in India. He told in the 2021 interview: "Just 2 days earlier I had spoken to him on telephone while he was in the hospital. Finish your work before coming back to see me, he had told me categorically. After his death when I returned, I was unable to think of anything else."

Aditya's Early Works in Bombay

After finishing high school, Aditya decided that he did not wish university education and decided to become a photo-journalist.

In that period, Shyam Benegal asked him to play a role in his film 'Mandi' (1983), and film-magazines hailed him as "the most handsome actor". In the image below, he is on the left in the film's poster, behind Shabana Azmi.

Apart from a few small roles as an actor, he came out with his first film as a director (Raakh) in 1989, when he was only 25. About Aamir Khan, the hero of Raakh, he said: "Aamir and me were classmates in school. In 1983, we had done a short film called Paranoia. We, along with Mansoor Khan, also had a band together. So we were good friends. He did not want to be an actor, he was quite confused about what he wanted to do in life." In the image at the top, he is with Pankaj Kapoor on the sets of this film - Pankaj received a national award for it (the film had received 3 national awards).

During those early years, he was also visiting Prithvi Theatre, where he met Sanjana Kapoor, daughter of well-known Hindi film actor and producer, Shashi Kapoor. Aditya and Sanjana lived together for a few years, before getting married. The marriage lasted a few months and the couple divorced.

About this marriage, in his 2001 interview to ToI, he said: "I was around 18 or 19 when I started hanging around Prithvi (Theatre). Once Sanjana was asked to help with something, we hit it off, and that was the start, he reminisces. The initial spark led to a long term live-in relationship (six years) and later a relatively short-lived marriage. We were very young. We realised we were better a friends and decided to go our separate ways. But we never lost the respect, that caring for each other, at any time."

Aditya's family has many links to other well-known Bollywood film-families. For example, in 2023, his sister Chimmu Acharya's daughter Drisha married well-known actor Dharmendra's grandson and Sunny Deol's son Karan. (Dharmendra has always been close to the Bimal Roy family - his first film Bandini was with Roy and after Roy's death in 1966, he had helped the family by working free in a film called Chaitali). 

Aditya Leaves India and Arrives in Italy

Aditya came to Rome (Italy) in 1990. About his shift to Europe, he said in an interview: "Different people want different things in life. I never dreamt of being famous in Bollywood. I wanted to make films that would make my father and grandfather proud. ... It may sound strange but I wanted to make life difficult for myself ... So I went to Italy the next year and did odd jobs like being a waiter and later, a chef. I also did live editing of television shows in Sicily, a music video for an Italian band, ramp photography… I never called home for help. ... I always feared that I would become a useless guy if I did not struggle and earned things myself. It took me seven years to raise money to make a film. Going through everything there was important for me to become a fuller human being and a better film-maker."

In that same interview, he gave another possible reason for leaving India: "After Raakh, I did a film called Tapori with Mahendra Joshi (a person from Gujarati theatre background who was married to Aamir’s sister Nikhat). He died of a heart attack midway. He was a brilliant theatre person. I didn’t want to do anything for a while, and maybe that’s why I left India." 

About why did he settle in Italy, he said: "I was on my way to London, when I had a stopover in Italy for a week. I really liked the place and the people. So I thought it would be nice to write a story there. After making some money, I made a Italian film called Senso Unico in a place called Messina in Italy. No one had ever shot a film there. I fell in love with that place. To make a film in Italian language, in a place I didn’t know, to raise a lot of money and get a producer from London was a big thing for me. I was 31 years old then."

In another interview for an Italian newspaper in 2021, he had talked about watching Fellini's film '8 1/2' at the Film Institute in India and the huge impact that film had had on him and how he had managed to have a coffee with Fellini many years later while he was shooting his own film, 'Senso Unico'. In this interview he also spoke of leaving India: "In spite of the success of my first film, I was unhappy. I didn't want to follow the dictates of Bollywood and I didn't like the attention of some magazines ..."

Aditya in Messina, Sicily (Italy)

Soon after his Rome experience, in 1991 he shifted to the city of Messina in Sicily. Here, he married Maria Giovanna, a Sicilian, and they have two children. 

In 1995, after shifting to Messina, his name appeared in the programme of the Messina Film Festival as the director of a 1994 short-film "Fannan", about a local music band called Kunsertu. The festival booklet cites the following other works by him -  Indio (1991), Chootey Noì (1992), Contro (1993), Kunsertu Live Acireale (1994) and Mokorto (1994). Probably, these were all short films.

His Italian interview in 2021, also mentions a story about his connection to Messina: "Raakh was shown in a film-festival in Russia. In the festival he met a girl from Messina. Some months later, while in London for discussing some project, he had a stop-over in Rome, and he decided to visit Messina to meet her and some other local persons he had known. He was there for only one week but he knew that he was going to come back to that city. ... He lived there for seven years, working as a video-editor for a local TV station. Since then he goes back to Messina regularly." 

Aditya's Films & Work in Europe 

In 1995, he started working on the screen-play of an Indo-Italian film called Senso Unico (One Way), which was shot and released in 1997. Though this film was presented in some film festivals in 1999 and later became available on Amazon Prime in UK, it was never released in Italy due to some problems among its producers. This film was about Francesco (Lothaire Bluteau), the illustrator of comic books, who also repairs stolen bicycles, and who falls in love with Yasmin (Laila Rouass), an actress shooting a film in the city. The still from a meeting about the film shows Aditya in the left.

In 2005, he directed a Hindi film, Dubai Returned with Irfan Khan and Divya Dutta.

In 2007, he was involved as a producer in an Indo-Italian film, The Chase, with Vidyut Jammwal and Sidharth Malhotra. Some shooting for this film was done in Italy and it was being directed by Anubhav Sinha, but this film was stalled.

In 2009, he was planning to direct a film called Sandokan in Sicily but probably it was also stalled or the project did not take off.  

In 2012, he directed Bombay's Most Wanted (BMW) with Sarita Chaudhury, Jaaved Jafri, Samrat Chakrabarty, Chandan Roy Sanyal and Tannishtha Chatterjee. The film was about a New York journalist, making a film in Mumbai about 3 characters - an encounter specialist policeman, an informer and a bar dancer.

In 2012, he was also planning to make an English film with the actor Rana Daggubati, based in Los Angles titled A Momentary Lapse of Reason but this film did not work out.

It seems that BMW was his last film though recently (2025) he has been seen in UP in India, acting in a serial for his friend Sudhir Mishra, with whom he has already worked a few times. 

Conclusions

In 2025 Aditya is is 60-62 years old, his children are grown up. He continues to be active. For example, this year he is supposed to run a film-making course between October to December 2025 at the Catalunya School of Film-making in Spain, focusing on the South Asian diaspora.

Every time, persons make a decision which completely changes the direction of their lives, such as Aditya's decision to leave India and to start afresh in Italy and Spain, it is natural to wonder if they occasionally look back and ask themselves if they had taken another path in that moment, then how would be their life today.

Perhaps, Aditya also has such moments of "what if". However, in the 2007 interview, he had said, "I have no regrets. I have made films which have been appreciated. I have two beautiful kids. I have two homes in two parts of the world. And I have respect from my contemporaries."  

***

Searching For Lila

I came across the story of Lila Lakshmanan Biro by chance. Half-Indian and half French, she has worked as a film-editor with many of the famous French film-directors like Godard and Truffaut in the 1960s.

Born in 1935, Lila will be ninety years old this year. She lives in an old age home in a suburb near Paris. My artist friend Samit Das, whom I have found on the journey to find Lila, has confirmed to me that she is fine and keeping well.

I first met Lila in a book when she was called Lila Herman. Finding her reincarnations into other names was an exciting search. This is the story of that journey.

 My First Encounter With Lila

I came across her first when she was known as Lila Herman, while doing research about the Roberto Rossellini - Sonali Dasgupta story.

In December 1956, Roberto, well-known Italian director, famous for his neo-realistic films like Rome, Open City and Paisà, came to India to shoot a film. Sonali Dasgupta, wife of Indian producer-director Harisadhan Dasgupta, was supposed to collaborate with Roberto. The two fell in love and this created a huge scandal in India. Hounded by journalists and an upset family, Sonali looked for support. She found some support in Lila Herman.

At that time, Lila was married to Jean Herman, an aspiring film-director. Jean was teaching French in Bombay in those days, was one of Rossellini's assistants for his film. They had a son in Paris in 1955 and then come to Bombay, where they had stayed for 2 years.

That is how I started my search to learn more about Lila Herman, but I found very little. She edited some films in early 1960s and then disappeared. 

Lila Herman to Lila Lakshmanan

The search for Lila Herman was a little complicated because her husband film-director Jean Herman had also disappeared and had become famous as Jean Veutrin, a well-known French mystery-writer. 

She had disappeared because she and Jean had divorced. After the divorce, she had become Lila Lakshmanan and had continued to work as film-editor. However, after a few years, even the trail of Lila Lakshmanan also turned cold.

Lila & Atila Biro

Searching for Lila Lakshmanan brought me to her second marriage to the well-known French architect and artist of Hungarian origins, Atila Biro. She had become Lila Biro.

Her husband Atila was born as Attila in Hungary in 1931, studied in Germany and settled in Paris. As a painter, he chose to write his name as Atila. Many of his works are part of different European art museums.

Atila and Lila married in 1963. Together, Atila and Lila, travelled to Italy, Marocco and many times to India. Atila had a large number of exhibitions in different European countries and the two often travelled together for those events. I don't know if Atila and Lila had any children. Atila Biro died in 1987. You can check some of his works on the Facebook page of Atila Biro foundation.

Lila Biro's Book

In 2012, Lila Atila Biro wrote a book called "Atila, Le soleil des métamorphoses" (Atila, the Sun of Metamorphosis).

The preface of this book was written by Lila's first husband Jean Vautrin (Herman), who wrote about his admiration for Atila's paintings.

I think that Jean and Lila had separated because she was in love in Atila. She married Atila, soon after her divorce while Jean had his second marriage a few years later. However, the three of them, Jean, Lila and Atila, probably continued to be good friends. 

Lila Biro Interview in 2017

In 2017, an event was organised in Paris on visual mapping of modernism in Indian art. In that connection, some art exhibitions and talks were organised, in which clips from some of Lila's films were also included. On that occasion, in an interview to Bombay Mirror by Sumesh Sharma, Lila had shared some information about her life:

"Lila was born in Jabalpur in 1935, where her father Lakshmanan was the director of All India Radio, while her mother was French. As a child, she had lived in Delhi, Lucknow and Bombay. Then her parents separated and 12 years old Lila arrived in a boarding school in England.

She went to Sorbonne to study English Literature when she was 17. Lila successfully graduated and went to study at the French film school ID’HEC, where she met her first husband, Jean Herman, now better known as the French writer Jean Vautrin. She was studying editing as she didn’t think she was creative enough to be a director.

During her last year at the film school in Paris in 1955, she gave birth to her son. Lila’s mother, found a job for Jean Herman teaching French Literature at the Wilson College in Bombay, thus, they lived there for 2 years until the end of 1957.

Regarding the Roberto-Sonali story she said: “I was with Rossellini, when he met Sonali Das Gupta. He was a man who had the accomplishment of perusal; he would be convincing and would get his way with people. When Sonali’s affair became public, she came and lived with me on Carmichael Road."

In the End

In late 1960s, Lila Biro continued to work as editor for different well-known French film directors. Thus, in the films she edited, her name appears as 3 different persons - Lila Herman, Lila Lakshmanan and Lila Biro. I think that she stopped working as film-editor in early 1970s.

About the impact of her work, in 2023, film producer Daniel Bird said: "Lila Biro is a remarkable character who witnessed Rossellini in India, played a key role in the cutting of key titles of the French New Wave, and was a close collaborator of the Hungarian émigré painter, Atila Biro. For me, however, she’s also the star witness in a crime against film grammar: the jump cut. The editing style of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless is now legendary, but I’ve always wondered what it must have been like in the cutting room when that revolutionary editorial decision was made. Thanks to Lila, that moment is vividly brought to life."

There was another Indo-French woman connected to the films - Leela Naidu. Leela was 5 years younger to Lila. In 1955, when Lila and Jean had come to Bombay, Leela was crowned Miss Femina. I wonder if the two had met and had been in contact in India or in France.

I am also curious about Lila and Jean Herman's connections with the films in Bombay, as the two had just come out of the cinema institute in Paris and must have been very interested to collaborate with Indian film-makers. It was the time when films like Mughle Azam and Devdas were being made.

To conclude this article, here is a romantic picture of a dedication of a painting by Atila to his "ma Lila cherie" (my dear Lila) from 1969 (click on the picture for a bigger view).

I wish I could talk to her and do a long oral-history chat to explore her memories.

***** 

Note: The first image of Lila presented above has been made from 2 images I found on internet. However, I could not find any picture of Lila and Atila together. The second image of Atila's dedication of a painting is taken from the facebook page of Atila Biro foundation.

Sonali SenRoy's Book

I had first heard about the Sonali - Rossellini story in 2008, when Dilip Padgaonkar's book, "Under Her Spell: Roberto Rossellini in India" had come out. 

Over the past 17 years, I have spent numerous days in libraries and archives, collecting information in English, Italian and French about their story. For example, you can (1) read my article about this story written in 2008, (2) the second article written in 2010, and, (3) another article from 2025 about Lila Herman who had played a role in this story. You can say that I am obsessed with it.

Today I received a book written by Sonali in 1961, that I had ordered. There was a surprise hidden in it. This post is about her book and the surprise. The image below shows Sonali from the back-cover of her book.

Let me start with a brief background about the Sonali-Rossellini story.

Brief Background About Sonali-Rossellini Story

The 1945 film, "Rome, Open City" created the legend of Italian film director Roberto Rossellini. At the end of 1956, Rossellini arrived in India to shoot a film. At that time, he was married to the Hollywood star Ingrid Bergman.

In India, he fell in love with Sonali Dasgupta, wife of film director Hari Dasgupta. There was a huge scandal. In October 1957, Rossellini and Sonali escaped to Paris with her younger son.

4 years later, in June 1961, Sonali wrote a book in French & Italian titled, Altro Mondo (the Other World).

Sonali's Book

I had heard about this book, but had not managed to lay hands on it. After so many years, a few days ago, while re-reading my old notes, I was reminded of this book and thought that now it might be possible to find it on internet. I found it straight away, and ordered a used-copy for a little more than three Euro.

Today morning that book arrived. It says that it was originally published in French and translated into Italian by Sonali herself, with the help of Mr. Dominique Aubier. It was published by Longanesi & C., Milan in June 1961. The cover has the picture of a woman from the Ajanta caves.

On the book, the author's name is Sonali Dasgupta. The first question in my mind was - why did she use this name for her book?

Sonali's maiden name was Senroy, and after her marriage to H. Dasgupta, she had become Sonali Dasgupta. When she had reached Paris in the beginning of October 1957, Roberto was still married to his second wife, Ingrid Bergman, and their legal separation was ratified in Rome in early November 1957. At the end of November 1957, their daughter Raffaella was born.

Thus, her choice of publishing her book as "Sonali Dasgupta" in 1961, probably meant that she and Roberto were not yet formally married. May be, at that time, her divorce with Hari Dasgupta was not formalised and thus she was forced to use that name, because it was on her official documents?

Surprise in the Book

I was surprised that the used copy of the book I have received, has a hand-written note in Italian by Sonali (click on the picture for a larger view): 

 "Questo libro non è l'opera di uno scrittore ma l'esperienza di una donna. La sincerità in esso racchiusa è la prova della simpatia e amicizia per tutto e tutti. Maggio 1961, Roma, Sonali Dasgupta."

(Trans.: This book is not the work of a writer but the experience of a woman. The sincerity in it, is the proof of my goodwill and friendship for everything and everyone. May 1961, Rome, Sonali Dasgupta)

Sonali and her elder son Raja

The book is dedicated to Ragia (Raja), her elder son. In the book, the spellings of Raja are "Ragia", because Italian does not have J and it uses "gi" for the J sound. It is possible that she had given verbal instructions about the dedication and the person transcribing it had used the Italian spellings of the word. I feel that she must have been disappointed that her son's name was not spelled properly.

When I had first read about the Sonali and Roberto story, I had been greatly struck by her leaving of her elder son, Raja, in India, who was around 5 years old at that time. It had seemed to me like a "Sophie's Choice" kind of situation because a mother had been forced to take one child and to leave behind her other child.

I think that by dedicating this book to Raja Dasgupta, she was expressing her regret and pain at that separation.

Contents of the Book

The book is composed of 13 chapters. The first chapter starts with her days in Bombay immediately preceding her departure from India for Paris, with her young son Arjun (later he changed name and became Gil Rossellini). A couple of chapters have brief glimpses of her life in India such as about her birth in Banaras/Varanasi and her father's work as a doctor and about her journey to Europe.

Rest of the book is about her encounters with Europe, first with Paris and Saint Remy in France and then about her life in Italy. These encounters include linguistic difficulties, challenges of adapting to the western clothes, and the curiosity of people about the sari-wearing woman. In the parts about Italy, there are also different episodes of dealing with journalists and other curious persons.

The book does not touch on her love-story with Roberto and her life with her first husband. It reads like a series of vignettes, as if she was talking to someone about what it means for her to be an exotic Indian in Europe and to explain the peculiarities of India to the Europeans. The first draft of the book was probably written by that interviewer (Dominique Aubier), at a time when she didn't have a good command over French or Italian.

The book also shows her desire for dignity and privacy, for not giving in to journalists looking for melodramatic stories and scandals.

Conclusions

To find this book with her handwritten words in my hands was an incredible sensation. Suddenly, I could touch the words she had written and imagine her sitting at a table in a bookshop, writing dedications.

It seemed to me, as if across time and space, she has decided to extend her finger towards me, daring me to touch her.

I had written to her once to ask for an interview, but it was a time of bereavement and she had withdrawn from all public contacts at that time. She died in 2013.

I have been obsessed with this story for almost 2 decades. I have already written about it a few times and have been in contact with Raja Dasgupta, her elder son, as well as with a few other persons who knew her.

With all the material that I have collected about this story, I know that one day I will write a book about it. When I saw her handwriting today, I felt as if she is herself asking me to do it.

***

Mantra Photo Exhibition in Schio

During a recent evening walk, I visited a photo-exhibition at the beautiful Toaldi-Capra palace of Schio. The exhibition was titled Nel Mantra (In the Mantra) and it had stills from a short film made by a film-maker from Schio, Rocco Zaupa.

Photo-Exhibition

Many of the images in the exhibition were blurred, expressing motions and emotions, though from them it was difficult to make a rational idea about the film. At the beginning of the exhibition, a note explained that the underlying theme of the exhibition (and the film) was repetition, and thus the title, Nel Mantra, because a Mantra has to be repeated many times.

The images were from a short film about a film-shooting, in which a director named Gerda is directing two actresses. He makes them do the same scene again and again, till they are too tired to go on. This day of repetitions creates a kind of deep relationship between the director Gerda and one of the actresses called Anna.

Rocco Zaupa and Aurora Verducci

I had a brief interaction with Rocco and Aurora, two members of the team associated with the short film and this exhibition.

Rocco is from Schio, while Aurora is from Tuscany. They both met at the film school in Lucca (Tuscany).

They explained the basic idea of the film about repetition and how they can lead to the discovery of deeper meanings and connections. The images presented in the exhibition have been created from the videos they had shot for the film.

Comments

I can understand the idea of repetitions, by making you think and rethink of something, can lead you to see it from different angles and understand it better. It is a tiny idea and I am curious to see how they have translated this into an understanding of the relationship between two persons.

I think that even a decade ago, making a short-film on such a "tiny-sliver" of an idea and making an exhibition out of stills made from the video, would have been much more difficult, but today the technology helps to simplify everything and it is possible to take a wisp or a whisper, and make it germinate into something more substantial.

However, I am not sure if Mantra is the right word to express the act of repetitions leading to deeper or a different understanding, since Mantras are more about the sounds and not so much about meanings.

Credits

Photography & Post-Production: Federica Galiero

Graphics & Poster: Aurora Verducci

Photo Backstage: Federico di Malta

Video footage: Same Studio

Sound designer: Leonardo Santini

Text & Direction: Rocco Zaupa

***

The Kashmir Story

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been reading about the film “The Kashmir Files”, its box-office success, its impact and the heated discussions it has generated. Perhaps, after a few weeks, it might become available on some streaming platform and then I will be able to watch it, though I am not sure that I will – from what I have read, it has some very graphic violence and I have no stomach for watching violence.

However, reading about “The Kashmir Files” has reminded me of another film about Kashmir and the Kashmiri Pandits – the film was “I Am” (2010), and it was directed by Onir. I think that it was a good film that merited greater attention. I had translated its subtitles into Italian, when it was shown at the River-to-River film festival in Florence.

The Kashmir Story in “I Am”

“I Am” was an anthology of four short films, loosely connected with each other. Among those four stories, the Kashmir short film was the second story of the film. It had beautiful performances by Juhi Chawla as Megha, a Kashmiri Pandit, and Manisha Koirala as Rubina, as her childhood Kashmiri Muslim friend.

This part of the film started with Megha’s journey to Srinagar to sell her house. Rubina comes to the airport to pick her up and is happy to see her old friend. Megha is by turns, angry and anguished, at the memories the return has brought back. She is unwilling to give in to romantic nostalgia about the city, and maintains some distance from her friend.

During the 24 hours of Megha’s stay in Srinagar, there are only a few scattered moments of nostalgia for her childhood home. A visit to the ruins of her uncle’s home who was killed by neighbours, brings back the memories of her terror of those days when they had abandoned their home and ran away to the refugee camp.

An encounter with a group of youth on the road, brings out that the story of the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits has been changed and retold by the locals. In this new retelling, they were the cowards and villains, who had run away from the valley.

At the same time, Megha’s dispersion of her father’s ashes in the river, brings out the attachment of older generations for Kashmir and their dreams about the day when they will return to their original homes.

Those 24 hours also show Rubina’s changed life in the Kashmir valley – she is lonely, living closed at home and is unmarried, while the guy she used to love has left India. Her brother, who had become a militant, has repented and come home, but is disabled and a shell of his former self. Police comes to their home frequently to check because they are a militant family. The city is divided by barbed wires and check-points, which gets deserted as the evening falls and people rush to their homes.

Megha’s righteous anger and resentment at the fate of Kashmiri Pandits, has one final moment of push back from Rubina. A brief exchange between the two friends, brings out the tragedy of changed lives of Kashmiri Muslims, especially those of the women and youth. The awareness that in the end there were no victors among the ordinary persons on the two sides plants a little seed of mutual understanding.
Impact of “I Am”

“I Am” was a film dealing with other difficult themes along with the Kashmir story. Perhaps that is why its Kashmiri section did not receive proper attention. It had a strong impact on me because in the process of doing its Italian subtitles, I had spent a lot of time with each of its scenes.

This part of the film gave precedence to the view-point a Kashmiri Pandit. It was shot in dark and drab colours. It showed a Srinagar of barbed wires, road-blocks and sad people, and not the romantic town of lake and gardens from 1980’s Bollywood.

The whole sequence of Megha visiting the ruins of her killed uncle’s house, had a very strong impact on me. Its background score was filled with the shouts of slogans by angry people asking all kaffirs to leave Kashmir or be killed. I could identify with her refusal of Rubina’s sympathy, when she responds, “Don’t worry, I am not going to cry”.

The film also shows the impact of the events on the other side, through Rubina’s family. They have also suffered and continue to suffer due to the militants on one hand and Indian army on the other. However, I felt that it was more difficult to empathise with them, because their pain was closely linked to issues related to militancy and its violence.

For example, there was a sequence when Megha is accompanied by Rubina’s mother to a neighbourhood shop for buying saffron. The elderly shop-owner remembers that he had accompanied Megha’s pregnant mother to the hospital when she was born. However, their discussion also brings out that it was that same person’s son who had killed Megha’s uncle and later, died as a militant. Megha comes back from the shop full of indignation – “You only had that shop to take me, whose son had killed my uncle?” she asks bitterly.

While I could see the dismay, regret and frustration on the faces of the local Kashmiris, I also had a feeling at the back of my mind that “it was their sons and families who did it”! I think that is the biggest difficulty when we look at victims of Islamic terror, that we are less willing to acknowledge the pain of its Muslim victims.

The Elephant in the Room

I remember talking to Onir in Florence about the Kashmir portion of the film, expressing my appreciation and saying that it was a great pity that this episode of our recent history had been allowed to be forgotten.

To write this post, I watched again the Kashmir portion of “I Am”. I think that there is an aspect of the Kashmir situation which had remained untouched in the film – the rise of more conservative Islam which was linked with militancy. Traditionally, the Kashmiri Islam has been moderate and open, and it had a history of a peaceful co-existence with Hinduism. Over the past couple of decades, the more conservative version of Islam has become more common, but its role and significance in the Kashmiri Pandits' exodus was never mentioned in the film.

Whose sufferings need acknowledgement?

As far as I understand about the events in Kashmir, the problems worsened with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at the end of 1979. To counter that the Americans started supplying money and arms to Mujahideen through Pakistan, which contributed to strengthening of the more conservative ideas of Islam in the region and reached Kashmir through Pakistani militants in the 1980s. Apart from the militants, it impacted different groups of persons, such as -Militants from Pakistan along with radicalised Kashmiri youth killed many Kashmiri Pandits and provoked their mass exodus in late 1980s and early 1990s.

Militants and hardliners from Pakistan along with their companions in Kashmir started killing moderate Kashmiri Muslims and those seen as sympathetic or collaborating with India, starting from early 1990s and continuing even now. Around 7000 Kashmiri “political opponents” have been killed, though some say that the Kashmiri victims have been many times more. They specifically target the intellectuals and they can abduct or rape their families.

Since the 1990s, Indian army has been fighting the Kashmiri separatists and militants and once again, a large number of victims have been reported, not only among the militants, but also among the civilians. The army rule has also affected general life.

Each of these groups have their own stories to share. I have read of Kashmiri Pandit families weeping at the shows of The Kashmir File - they are happy that finally their sufferings have been acknowledged through cinema. Onir’s film “I Am” did not show that violence directly, it focused on its aftermath.

I think that one of the good films about the impact of army in Kashmir was Shaurya (2008), which touched upon the human right abuses.

Stories about the situation in Kashmir involve different and complex issues. The views of the Islamic hardliners and militants may not be acceptable or understandable for most of us. However, I think that our cinema needs to explore these different areas and view-points so much more. For example, little is known about the violence against moderate Muslims in Kashmir and it would also benefit from a greater exploration in literature and cinema.

River to River - Festival 2020

River to River (RtoR) film festival was started by Selvaggia Velo in Florence (Italy) in 2001. It was the first festival entirely dedicated to Indian films held outside India. For many years, while living in Bologna, which is not far from Florence, I regularly visited this festival. Some years ago, we shifted to Schio, about 350 km to the north of Florence, so participating in this festival became difficult for me. However, the December 2020 edition of RtoR was held online due to the on-going Covid-19 pandemic. This gave me an opportunity watch some of the festival films. (Below a still from "Berlin to Bombay", one of the films in the festival) (Click on the images for a bigger view)

My main interest was in watching documentary and short films in the festival. Thus, I watched only one full-length feature film - Kadakh. This post is to share a few impressions about some of the films which I liked in this festival.

Kadakh

Kadakh was the opening film of the festival, directed by Rajat Kapoor. It is a black comedy centred around a dead body in an upper-middle class drawing room in Mumbai, which is full of guests for a Diwali party.

Sunil (Ranvir Shorey) is the owner of the house while the dead guy is Raghav, husband of his office colleague Chhaya, with whom he is having an affair. Raghav has discovered their affair and comes to talk to Sunil. He is trying to be mature about it, but continues to get too angry to control himself and during one such loss-of-control moments, shoots himself. Soon Sunil's wife (Manasi Multani) comes back home and finds her husband with Raghav's corpse in their drawing room. He confesses his affair but there is no time to deal with the marital infidelity as they know that soon their guests for the Diwali party are going to arrive. So the husband and wife hide the dead body in a box, cover it with tapestry and get ready to welcome the guests.

The guests include Chayya, the wife of the dead man. You can imagine the comic-horror kind of mixed tension which drives this film. The last part of the movie is its most cynical and damning part, with the whole gang of friends (except Chaya, who has left) helping Sunil in getting rid of the dead body. When the film was ending, I almost expected it to show the whole lot going to the chautha (funeral) ceremony of the poor guy and express condolences to the widow.

I do not like the genre of dark comedy, but the film is well made and well-acted. All the actors are good. I especially liked Manasi Multani, who plays Sunil's wife Malti and Palomi Ghosh, who plays Chhaya. I also thought the guy playing Raghav (Chandrachoor Rai) was good in his brief role.

The Newly Weds, short film (5 min.) by Prataya Saha

You can watch this short film on YouTube. The film has a young man (Mahesh Gowda) and his wife (Suvin Valson) and it looks at the way they relate to each other, mediated by technology. When together, they hardly talk to each other and their eyes are constantly on their mobile phones and laptop screens. At night, a laptop stays in the bed between them. However, they expresses their love in the messages they write to each other, in which they open their hearts.

The tiny film presents the role of tech in a young couple's life as a kind of caricature. I felt that it could have been more relatable as a depiction of a long-married couple who does not have much left to say to each other. It felt a bit unrealistic for a young newly married couple, because it seemed to ignore their need for physical touch and sex. Their messages express a yearning, which is inexplicably missing from their real lives.

Berlin to Bombay, documentary film, 51 min. by Marco Hulser

For me, Berlin to Bombay was the most enjoyable film of the festival. It is the story of an Indian origin boy Abu Chaka Khan, raised in Berlin (Germany) and his fascination for the world of Bollywood. Abu works in a restaurant but his dream is to go and act in Bollywood. He does not want to work in German films where he can only play Indian or Pakistani roles - he prefers the idea of Bollywood heroes with their songs and dances.

He makes and sends his videos for auditions to India but when they do not get him any offers, he goes to Mumbai. The film shows him trying to negotiate his way through the barriers surrounding its film world, full of people who are waiting for bakras like him, selling them dreams and taking their money. Abu pays but finds himself playing an extra in a film. After his dreams crash against the hard realities of the Bollywood, Abu comes back to Berlin and to his restaurant.

Though film's storyline is an old theme, Abu has an expressive face and he comes across very well with his ingenuity, hope and dreams.

While the film ended, I was thinking of today's YouTube and TikTok stars. Now, people with dreams of making it in Bollywood, have some alternative pathways to become famous, even if that fame does not last very long. I think that I would like to watch a similar documentary exploring the worlds of the YouTube-TikTok stars.

The GesheMa is Born, Documentary, 56 min., by Malati Rao

Geshe Ma is the title of a learned Buddhist nun who has reached the highest level of religious knowledge. Rao's documentary is a glimpse into the hidden world of Buddhist nuns. I liked it because it showed a world which was unfamiliar to me.

Though ancient Buddhism spoke of nuns, modern Buddhism did not have nuns. It was Dalai Lama who had established the first nuns' order some 40 years ago. He had also proposed allowing the nuns to study religious books. This idea was discussed in the international council of Buddhist leaders from different countries, but some countries were against the changes. Finally in 2012, it was accepted that the nuns could study to become the learned teachers (Geshe).

The film follows a group of nuns in a monastery in Nepal who became the first group of women admitted to the Buddhist theological studies. The film focuses on the story of Namdol Phuntsok, who had earned the top marks in these studies and received the title of Geshe Ma in 2016.

The film moves forward and backward in time, with some interviews and unobtrusive observation of the lives of the Buddhist nuns. They talk about the setting up of the first nunnery. It looks at their celibate lives, their shaving of heads and their determined animation during theological discussions, where a raised leg-movement and clapping of hands in stereotypical gestures, looked like a dance to me.

GesheMa Namdol talks about her childhood and her family's opposition to her idea of becoming a nun, her desire for studying the Buddhist religious texts and how they must argue and debate their ideas and defend them against questions. The film concludes with the group of the nuns holding the coveted yellow head-dresses in their hands, which are a visible sign of their learning, walking in the room full of monks. They all don those yellow head-dresses, signifying a new beginning of the role of the women leadership in Buddhism.

Buddha of the Chadar, 28 Min. by Jean Whitaker

This film can also be watched on internet. It is about a father and son from Ladakh making a long winter journey on the frozen Zanskar River - a route known as the Chadar. They carry a heavy gold-plated statue of Buddha, which they plan to offer to a Buddhist monastery located at the top of the hill near their village.

The film brings out the solitude and difficulties of the long journey on the frozen river surrounded by beautiful snow-covered mountains. It also shows the on-going construction of a new road by the Indian Border Road Organisation, so that in future, the Zanskar valley will also be connected through a road and it should be possible to complete that same journey in a vehicle.

The film has beautiful photography and makes you reflect on the human urge to choose a tough journey as a part of a spiritual quest.

Silence in the Wind, 13 min. by Gautam Baruah and Ballav Prajnyan

This short film is about a father remembering his son, his desire to see him married and his initial rejection when he discovers that his son is gay. His initial reaction is of rejection. Then he remembers the day when his young son had risked drowning in the river and his desperation. The memory of that desperation helps him to say to his son that he does not understand but he will accept.

It is a beautiful film.

The Ashram Children, 67 min., by Jonathan Ofek

India is seen as the land of spirituality. It has many famous gurus with their ashrams, and followers coming from all over the world to seek their guidance. This film shows a hidden aspect of this spiritual quest - the feelings of the expat children about those Gurus.

The director of this film, Jonathan is from Israel and he feels scarred by his childhood experiences in an ashram in India. He feels that it was a cult which had gripped his parents. His parents, especially his mother, do not take his complaints very seriously - for her, it was not a cult and she was only going to the ashram for some months every year.

She tells him that he could have told her that he did not want to go and she would not have forced him. However, Jonathan feels that saying no was not easy for him, because he had grown up inside that experience from early childhood. The whole issue of obedience to the Guru in the ashram was experienced by him as something absolute, he had learned to not question anything and was afraid to express himself.

During the film, Jonathan goes to look for other expatriate children that he had met and known in the ashram during his childhood. Most of them agree with him that their childhood experiences of the ashram were negative for them. Most of them, now grown-ups, try to hide this part of their past lives and do not talk about it. One of these guys also talks about the hypocrisy of the Guru, who taught the lessons of detachment and spirituality to his followers, but also loved wearing gold, luxury watches, and using costly perfumes.

This film forced me to see how the spirituality-and-guru industry of India can be perceived by young children who are pulled in to this experience by their parents. I had never thought about it before in these terms. For me, many of the ashrams and their jet setting Gurus, who run their spirituality businesses like money-making exercises, are persons who profit from human frailties. At the same time, I believe that some of the non-commercial persons can be great spiritual teachers.

Conclusions

There were some other short and documentary films from the festival which I had watched but they were similar in terms of themes and treatment to others that I had seen earlier, so I am not writing about those.

In the past RtoR festival had been an opportunity for me to meet and talk to persons from the world of Indian films - persons like Onir, Rahul Bose, Aparna Sen and even Amitabh Bachchan. That was no longer possible with an online festival. I hope that in future, after the end of the Covid-19 pandemic, River to River festival will continue to offer the possibility of online participation.

Documentary Film - Allah Loves Equality

I think that I had first met Wajahat Abbas Kazmi, then a young film-maker from Pakistan, about a decade ago, at the River to River film festival in Florence. I had even done an interview with him about his film "The Dusk" in 2011. Thus, when he invited me to see his new documentary film "Allah Loves Equality", I was curious. (Click on the images for a bigger view)

Theme of Allah Loves Equality

The film looks at what it means to be a person of alternate sexuality or a LGBTQ person in Pakistan today. It starts with some examples of more accepting views towards alternate sexualities, especially towards cross-dressing, gay men and transgender women, in early Islamic society and in the Indian subcontinent, even during the Mughal period.

The film moves between 3 main strands - 

(1) The traditional communities of transgender women (Khawaja Sira or Hijra communities) and their accepted roles in the mainstream society;

(2) The struggles of gay persons (and a few lesbian persons) to live their sexual identities and their difficulties of coming out of clandestinity;

(3) The efforts of a few NGOs fighting for the rights of LGBTQ persons.

Moving between these 3 strands, the film explores their challenges, alliances and solidarities, as well as, what it means to live the porous and dynamic boundaries of different queer identities in contemporary Pakistan.

The violent reactions of a conservative patriarchal society are shown through a few social media and news clips. There is the vivid story of Alisha, a transgender woman, shot 6 times, forced to wait in the hospital because they could not decide if she should be treated as a man or as a woman and in the end, treated in the corridor of the male ward, in front of the lavatory, till her death.

The fear of violence is omnipresent in the film, expressed in the furtive gestures and anxious glances of film's testimonies. Bubbly, the guru/matriarch of a traditional Khawaja sira community, explains the importance of her traditional role in a soft and gentle voice - there is no other safe space, no space where you can find friendship and support outside their confines. She is reassuring and yet frightening because she underlines the perils of being an individual on your own in a society which does not accept you and can easily kill you.

Bubbly Malik has created a NGO called Wajood (Identity) for safeguarding the rights of transgender persons in Pakistan. She says "To live in a Daire Dari, the traditional home of Khwaja, you have to accept its rules. You get the love and support of a family but you must obey its rules."

Anaya Sheikh a young transgender stand-up comedian or Hannan Siddique, a well-known gay make-up artist, talk about the difficulties of living their sexual identities. Anaya can only be safe as a part of the Khwaja Sira and Hannan must wait for his companion, who is under family pressure to get married.

The crowd of young men dancing with joy in a private gay party or the transgender woman dancing at a home accompanied by a traditional musician are both facets of the same reality.

The lesbian women are a hidden world, briefly mentioned in the documentary for the violence they must face. "They can't even accept that lesbians exist here. To accept that would mean that women have a sexuality. So many women in rural areas are circumcised, they can't be allowed to have a sexuality."

In the film one person says, "It is better to have the traditional identity of Hijra or Khwaja Sira, it has a role in the society and it keeps us safe. Calling ourselves gay or transgender exposes us to violence." However, as Khwaja Sira, the opportunities for living are limited - you can beg or dance during marriages and births or sell your body for sex. There are no other options.

The NGOs, even if they are talking about HIV screening and prevention, need to be careful in what they say and how they are perceived. The film explains the efforts of Qasim Iqbal, who is considered the father of the movement for the LGBTQ rights in Pakistan.

If you wish to contact Wajahat Kazmi and to organise screening of this film, you can contact him through his website.

Conclusions

The parts of the film about Khwaja sira community reminded me of my (limited) interactions with the Hijra and Kinnar communities in India. Though many of the prejudices faced by persons with alternate sexualities are similar in India and Pakistan, I think that in India the LGBTQ world is much more ahead in raising their concerns and sharing their ideas.

The film does not talk of transgender men and other queer groups, showing that probably these groups are without voices in Pakistan and were not available to share insights about their lives in the film.

Some years ago, I had written about Parvez Sharma's film "Jihad for love" in which he had talked about the difficulty of reconciling the alternate sexualities with being a good Muslim. Wajahat's film briefly touches on this theme but does not go deeper. I guess that it is a difficult area to present in a sensitive way.

A few years ago, Wajahat did his coming out as a gay person and has been very active on social media in promoting the rights of young persons, especially Muslims, to live their sexuality without fear or repression. There was a period when I was worried that some radical Islamist group will kill him.

I can imagine that making "Allah loves equality" and shooting in Pakistan for this film could not have been easy. It is a hard-hitting film and shows aspects of alternate sexualities in Pakistan that are usually hidden from public gaze. Allah may love equality but some of his people do not love it. Wajahat has a long fight ahead of him, his film is a courageous step in that direction.

Film credits: 

Made by Il Grande Colibri, 2019, duration 55 min., produced by Elena de Piccoli, Michele Benini and Pier Cesare Notaro, directed by Wajahat Abbas Kazmi

*****

#lgbt #documentaryfilm #alternatesexualities #pakistan #lgbtpakistan

Pink Boy and Tom Girl, the world of fluid genders

When BJ, his great aunt and adopted mother, asks Jeffery, "What would you like to be when you grow up?", he thinks hard and says, "I think that I want to be a girl." BJ, her companion Sherrie and the boy Jeffery, are part of a short film on gender fluid children called "Pink Boy".

This post is about some short films on gender fluidity, about persons who are not sure about their genders. You can look at it as a kind of free film festival on gender fluidity - all the films mentioned here can be watched free on YouTube.

Gender fluidity - some concepts

Majority of children are born with male or female genitals. Most of the time, children born with male bodies think of themselves as male and most of children born with female bodies think of themselves as females.

However, sometimes, the bodies and feelings do not match. Thus, a child with male body may feel that he is a girl and a child with female body may feel that she is a boy. Often during childhood, such feelings can be fluid, in the sense that these feelings are not fixed, and they can change. For example, some children born as boys, who may have thought of themselves as girls for a certain period, as they grow up, finally decide that they prefer to be boys, while others decide that they are girls. Some can even decide that they would prefer to be some times girls and some times boys or none of the two.

These children (persons) who are not sure about their gender are called "gender fluid".

We human beings are incredibly complex and some of us do not fit into any label. My explanations about gender fluidity are only a simplified version of this complex reality.

Short film 1: Pink Boy

It is short film (15 minutes, 2016) directed by Eric Rockey. It looks at the challenges faced by a lesbian couple in raising up a gender-fluid boy. The film is told mostly from the point of view of BJ, a masculine lesbian woman. Jefferey was the son of her niece and she had adopted him when he was 2 months old.

BJ explains her initial difficulties in accepting that Jeffery wanted to dress like a princess and to play with barbie dolls. Then she decides to provide acceptance and support to Jeffery, in whatever decisions he is going to make about his gender identity. Aware that he would have to face bullies, discrimination and violence, she decides to enroll him in a martial arts training so that he can defend himself.

You can watch Pink Boy on the Vanity Fair YouTube channel and you can also check the film website for more information about the film and its background. An interview on the Vanity Fair website explains that Jeffery has now become Jesse.

Short film 2: Tom Girl

"Tom Girl" (14 minutes, 2016) is by director Jeremy Asher Lynch. It is about a seven year old boy called Jake. It has his mother and father, as well as some other persons from his life, including a psychologist, talking about what it means to have a gender fluid child and how important it is to accept the child as he is. Jake himself is incredibly clear about what this means for him.

You can watch Tom Girl on YouTube.

In the film, at one point, Jake's mother says that probably there are many other children like Jake, but we as society force them into specific gender roles.

I think that our process of guiding our children towards specific gender roles starts very early and in unconscious ways. When a one year old son is taken to a shop and if he points to a doll or a pink cap, his mother or father, just shake their heads and instead nudge him to another kind of toy - that boy is already learning that he is not supposed to like dolls or pink caps.

However, having said that, I do not think that all stereotypical ideas about male and female preferences are only a result of cultural influences, at least some of them of them are in-born.

Short film 3: It is a stereotypical day

The 4 minutes long film (2015) by Alex Harrison can be a good introduction to understanding your feelings about some of the issues surrounding gender fluidity.

The film is about 3 mornings. On the first morning, the adolescent hero wakes up, goes out and meets some people on the way to school. On the next day, he sees the same persons but some switch has been flipped and people are behaving contrary to their expected gender roles. On the third day ... you can watch it on YouTube to find out the surprise ending.

Short film 4: I am Oliver

The 4 minutes long film by Moustache Geek (2015) is about being a transgender teenager. The film looks at the life of an adolescent facing problems in school, her desire to be boy and the sympathy s/he gets from a classmate. All these things are shown through the role played by social networks and internet in our lives. The film is a personal testimony.

Short film 5: I am a boy

The 11 minutes long film by Just Sammy (2016) is about a transgender boy and his journey to accept himself. The film starts with Sammy dressing up as a girl, putting make-up, and not feeling happy about it. She does not want to be a girl. She considers cutting the vein in her wrist and committing suicide. Her family has not been supportive and has asked her to not to talk about her desire to be a boy.

Instead, Sammy decides that he is a boy and to live like a boy. He uses an elastic wrap around his breasts to hide them and puts a sock in his pants to camouflage genitals. He talks about his daily struggles with his peers, and his fears and desires about his gender identity. This film is also a personal testimony.

Short film 6: Trans guy problems

The 10 minutes long film by Isaac Eli (2017) is a wonderful film to get a glimpse into the lives of transgender boys/men (persons born as girls who feel that they are male). It is also a personal testimony.

It is a simple film - just Isaac sitting in front of the camera and talking about his problems, like what it means for him to have monthly periods; the difficulties of using public bathrooms and how he wishes for gender-neutral bathrooms (which can be used both by men and women); the difficulties of going to a swimming pool and not being able to go open chested like other boys; the love/hate relationship with binders to hide his breasts; the endless waiting for everything from top-surgery (to remove breasts) to the treatment with testosterone; and his disgust when someone talks to him as if he is a girl or is talked about with a female pronoun.

I liked this video very much. Compared to the other films, this film made me think of so many different ways our genders influence everything we do in life and how that can create challenges for persons like Isaac. I also liked it because Isaac has a very nice dog and I love dogs!

Conclusions

I hope that you will watch the films I have included in this list. If you do, please make constructive and supportive comments under each of these videos. To be an adolescent is tough, to be an adolescent who does not fit and conform, can be heart-breakingly tough.

Persons with gender fluidity issues have high rates of depression, suicides, alcoholism and substance abuse. Often they face rejections from their natural and adopted families. They also face a lot of emotional, physical and sexual violence. If you are a parent or a relative or a friend of a person who does not conform to his/her gender, be accepting, be loving and be supportive. They will have to fight the world for a life with dignity, at least make sure that they don't have to fight their families as well.

You can also read more about this issue. For example, the Gender Spectrum website has lot of good advice and information for parents and families on this subject.

I do not support the idea of puberty-blocking drugs and any kind of definite solutions in gender-fluid minors, because too many of them change their minds as they grow up.

All the films mentioned in this post are from Europe and USA. I looked for similar films from India, Asia and Africa but did not find any. Perhaps there are but they are in other languages! If you are aware of any good short films on this theme that are available on YouTube, please tell about them in the comments below.

For a long long time, in the developing world it was difficult to get any information about trans issues. Now, thankfully technology is changing the situation and hopefully more persons will be able to share personal testimonies, find strength in sharing their stories and experiences with others and build supportive virtual communities that can one day spill over in the real world.

***

The adventures of the Indian Tintin, Jagga Jasoos

Like every year-end, magazines are coming up with the lists of major things that happened in 2017. Among these, are the articles about the disappointing films of the year. One such article wrote, "Big Stars like Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif delivered a dud like Jagga Jasoos, a criminal waste of resources that should have never been allowed." I feel bad that Jagga Jasoos did not do well at the box office, but do not agree with this assessment. I think that it was one of the best movies of 2017.

This post is about why I loved "Jagga Jasoos" and why I am going to watch it again many times in future.

Good films and bad box office

It has happened many times in the past that a good movie is not appreciated by people when it comes out. Some times, the film even gets good reviews from the critics but people stay away it. Yet, with time people come to recognise that the film was good and thus, sometimes the box-office failures turns into a cult films.

"Jagga Jasoos" got mixed reviews, but people didn't like it. Some critics loved its magical ambiance, its music and its whimsical approach. But would it ever become a cult film? I hope so!

BTW, the last time that I had really loved a movie, which had received bad reviews and had a worse box-office run, was "Jhoom barabar Jhoom". After years, it remains one of my favourites, but I have to say that it was never "rediscovered" and did not become a cult movie.

Jagga Jasoos story

The film is about an orphan boy Jagga (Ranbir Kapoor), who is adopted by a man he calls Tuti Futti (Saswata Chatterjee) and then left in a Boarding school in Manipur. Jagga's only contact with his adopted father is an annual video-cassette with his birthday greetings. In the school, teenager Jagga is known for his observation and deduction skills and helps to solve murder mysteries - first the mystery of the clock-tower and then the mystery of the giant wheel.

A mix-up of his birthday video-cassette with another cassette exposing an international arms smuggler called Bashir Alexander, alerts him to the danger to his adopted father's life. He asks the help of Shruti (Katrina Kaif), a journalist whom he had helped while solving the mystery number 2. Together, they go to Africa, manage to save his father and to expose the arms smuggler.

In terms of Jagga's characterisation and ambiance, there is a clear inspiration from the Tintin comics.

Why I liked the film

It could have been a regular action film but instead the director Anurag Basu has opted for an animation film kind of approach, with a teenage hero who is still studying in school. All the events in the film unfold in vivid colours, often with a painting-like effect, with an occasional present-past-back-to-the-present swing. The boy-hero has some serious stammer, so he hardly has any dialogues but has plenty of songs (great music by Pritam).

The film has a rich canvass, full of small details, which you may miss in the first viewing. Apart from the saturated colours, especially in the shades of green, the film has some of the most unusual locations including a Kayan tribe village from Myanmar, an underground river flowing in a cave and the relatively unknown Manipur. It even has a bit of Assamese Bihu dance. It also has a rich presence of African animals including a a puma, some zebras & giraffes, some marmots and a wild escape riding on the ostriches. Visually, I found it difficult to take my eyes off the screen.

As usual, Ranbir Kapoor is wonderful and he does manage to look like a slightly overgrown schoolboy. Even Katrina is ok (except may be in the song "Daru pi kar chale gaye", where she is bad). However it is the all the other supporting actors, from Saswat Chatterjee (father) and Rajatava Dutta (Police inspector) to Sayani Gupta (classmate and friend) and Saurabh Shukla (ex-policeman and conspirator) to the bit-part players like the nurses and doctors in the hospital, everyone is good. Sarvajeet Tiwari playing the young Jagga has the right mix of vulnerability and curiosity, and is perfect for the role.

The film's opening scene with a pied-piper like figure leading a row of artists, shooting a film in Purulia, shown in a painting like effect, sums up the film - in spite of the Jasoos (spy) in its name, it is not a thriller, but a musical dipped in magic realism, to be enjoyed with a child's wide-eyed innocence. It did touch the child inside me and that is why I liked it so much.

Though the film has Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif, there is no real romance between them. Their relationship is more like a school boy's crush on his favourite school teacher, which was inevitable since Jagga is shown studying in a school while Shruti is an affirmed journalist.

Jagga's logic in involving Shruti in the search for his father - "She is so clumsy and unlucky but every time she has bad luck, it brings good luck to me" - is at best, contorted logic. The film is full of such contorted and yet exquisite moments and ideas.

Things I would change in the film

The film should have been shorter by about 40-50 minutes.

The film moves from one episode to another in quick bursts, without really any time to feel the thrills. For example the lovely scene of the Kayan village, followed by an encounter with arms smugglers, is resolved in a one minute long escape down an amazing waterfall gushing out from a hill. Or the scene of the car chase with the shooter who keeps on missing the targets, ends before you understand what is happening. So many scenes are brief and terminate abruptly. A little longer build-up and follow-through of scenes, would have been better. So how could they reduce the film's duration?

The film is so beautiful visually, that I think that if I was in Basu's place, even I would have had difficulties in deciding which scenes to cut from the movie. Still a slightly lesser number of events with longer and more emotion-filled conclusions would have helped in creating a better connect with audience.

Conclusions

I think that Jagga Jasoos will be among my favourite films - films that I rewatch every now and then.

If you didn't watch this movie when it was released, if you have the capacity to feel a child's wonder, and if you like reading comics, then my advice is - do get hold of its DVD and watch it! Better still, watch it with kids.

Note: The images used in this post are from the publicity material of the film.

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