“Partition” has become a two-edged sword for filmmakers who often reveal an interest in holding up a mirror to the Partition of India in general and Bengal and the Punjab in particular presented through their cinematic lenses and personal perspectives. Professor Vazira Zamindar calls partition the “wound within, the mother of many millions of individual identity crises that seem never to go away."

Hindi cinema, much before it acquired the “Westernised” term “Bollywood” has made meaningful films set against the Partition of India. But many films are entirely mainstream filled with music, dance, romance and action and violence of which many such as Gadar – Ek Prem Katha, Border, Veer-Zaara (2004) and now, Main Wapas Aaunga directed by Imtiaz Ali. For example, there is no coyness in Gadar: Ek Prem Katha (2001), Anil Sharma’s chest-thumping and eardrum-shattering film about the romance between a Sikh man and a Muslim woman during the tumult of 1947. Zaara of Veer Zaara comes to India to immerse the ashes of her Sikh nanny. She falls in love with a Hindu pilot, who later crosses the border to find her. It is said that every Hindi movie about children or siblings separated from their family members is actually about Partition. Could the earthquake that splits the family of Kedarnath in Yash Chopra’s Waqt (1965) actually be an indirect reference to Partition?

But there are also films that blend commercial ingredients with tracts from the Partition in an aesthetically significant manner and Main Wapas Aaunga is a classic example of this blend of a solid storyline, aesthetic excellence and commercial prospects.

Garm Hawa however, is not a mainstream film. It was the first film to deal with the human consequences resulting from the 1947 partition of India. This action, ordered by British Lord Mountbatten, split India into religious coalitions, with India remaining Hindi and the new country of Pakistan serving as a refuge for Muslims. Is ‘refuge’ the right word for Muslims who did not wish to leave? Would they be accepted socially and economically by the original residents of the newly formed Pakistan?

Dr. Ira Bhaskar, ex-associate professor of arts and aesthetics at the Jawaharlal Nehru........

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