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The war-like political scenario which emerged after the Mumbai terror attacks became a fitting background for my watching P T Kunjumuhammed's 'Paradesi' for the second time. The still festering wounds of partition have pushed a community to the edge of victimisation. The attacks gave a chance to the OCD-affected ultarnationalists of the country to be seriously suspicious of 'the shifting' allegiance of Muslims in the country. Significantly, the council of Imams (Muslim clerics) asked the members of the community to celebrate Eid-ul-Azha (Bakrid) on a low-key mode, wearing a black band around their fists, if possible. Even the orthodox Muslim factions have come out in the open, condemning the attacks. But none of these measures seems to have placated the 'nationalist' gods.
*Valiyakath Moosa (Mohanlal), Paradeshi's protagonist, is a staunch nationalist, who often boasts that his father Ahmed Sahib has sacrificed his life for the freedom of the country. But, for the state, he is a Pakistan spy. The prototype of an outsider dangling like a Democletus' sword atop the fragile s
ecurity of the 'peaceful' motherland!2
Valiyakath Moosa represents a class of Eranadan Muslims who bear the brunt of the Partition. They had been part of the unified India, belonging to the country's typical working class, when India's struggle for freedom was in its climax. They migrated to Karachi, then a busy commercial centre, to eke out a living mostly by selling beedis. The country was in the orgasm of freedom struggle and of the behind-the-scenes political mechinations.
The sharp sabre of imperialsim cut the country into two pieces. Pakistan was born (or miscarried). A people who had remained a single entity unified by the common factor of nationhood saw in one another an outsider. The pen which wrote the history of the sub-continent in blood rewrote the destiny of the those hapless Eranadan emigrants in Karachi. Most of them being illeterate, either they were untouched by politics or they conceived its emotional part (Like Kayi Abdul Rahman- Jagathy Sreekumar). Passport, a few papers of identity, crept into their inocent lives unawares.
Some of them decided to settle in Pakistan, possessing a Pak passport ( like the husband of Kaddesu- Lakshmi Gopalaswami). Some either tore them into pieces or burnt them into ashes. For them the soil of Eranadu was like the womb of their mothers.
The consequence of their choices becomes their destiny. Moosa and others like him live as fugitives. Buckled by the old age and a strong determination to brave challenges, they exist by giving tips to corrupt police officers. Kadeesu, left alone after her husband marries a Pakistani girl, leaves Karachi and, commits suicide, when she is forcibily deported. Kayi Abdul Rahiman and Usman takes a safer shelter of lunacy. Rayankka, a frail old man, is shot dead, when he decides to go back on the border.
Moosa's sharp memory pieces together the harrowing tales of this fraternity. Usha, a freelance journalist, file them togethr, only to be burnt by the authority. If something you write can ignite the inflated lies of the power that be, it will try its best either to sensationalise your journalism or to convert it into ashes. This is the film's short reminder on the media activism. Moosa's destiny ends nowhere, as much as the film doesn't end conventionally anywhere. The same destiny hovers around the Muslim community in the country in defiance of the will power and prayer of some patriotic Indians.
The charectors in the film are not fictionally fabricated. They live in Malabar, reminding us that the scars of the partition won't heal fast. That P T Kunjumuhammed took years to make the film, gathering valuable legal and other documents adds to Paradesi's credibility as a visual historic document.
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I saw the film in company with my sister-in-law, who is an 8th standard student. From its beginning to end, she kept asking me several questions adout its plot. Despite my repeated explanations, she couldn't understand what the film was all about. Once it was over, I heard her heaving a sigh of relief. " It doesn't come anywhere near TwentyTwenty," she said.
We can ignore her comment as childish. But a majority of school children this writer talked to had almost the same opinion. Don't they belong to a community of viewers who should have roots deep in the history? Must their sense of history not grow at more rapid a pace than the life and technology? Shouldn't films on stunning historical facts do justice to their sensibility? Why can't the film have as much appeal on them as it has always on me?
Technically speaking, the creative indiscipline in sequencing scenes and shots in the film makes its narrative rather complex. For a school child, watching the movie is almost like reading a history textbook. It's a challenge for directors of daring works to make them accessable to all classes of viewers, irrespective of their age and erudition.
When I argued that 'Paradeshi' is one of the best 10 Malayalam films in the last 50 years, some of my friends tried to smother their giggles. But I believe none can ever counter my argument.
By Shameer KS
