Chronicling actual events, Mehreen Jabbar’s “Ramchand
Pakistani” (2008) is a quiet movie about waiting. Will the family get reunited?
When we wait, we hold our breath. When we hold our breath, we wonder when we
can breathe again. In Hollywood movies, we expect an ending that allows us to
exhale. In indie movies and foreign films, the drama heightens because we do
not know any more than the characters themselves. This film is from Pakistan,
by a first time filmmaker, about Indians. Meaning, unless you watch those
legendary Pakistani serials, you have no idea how things will end.
Ramchand (played at different ages by Syed Fazal Hussain and
Navaid Jabbar) is a wide-eyed 8-year-old boy living in a small village on the
Pakistan side of the border with India. There are hints of electricity, but not
much more. Pens and notebooks are few. The land is mostly beige, the clothing
is colorful, the people live as pastoral nomads working for feudal lords and
speak with polite manners.
He likes to explore the terrain of hills and trees. Urban
8-year-olds have a backyard or park or street corner at best; at worst, they
have an iPad, a dozen apps and Adderall. Ramchand, however, has a wide open
world almost without borders. Almost.
One day he wanders into Indian state territory and is
imprisoned by border patrol soldiers, suspected as an agent. The officers
charging him do not flinch at his age, as though their anger in defending the
state against him is something mechanical. His father (Rashid Farooqui),
looking for him, also gets arrested.
His emotional mother (Nandita Das) waits. She looks for
them, but cannot find them. She keeps preparing meals as though they are almost
home. She becomes Penelope from Homer’s “Odyssey,” holding on to hope, while
all others give in to despair, moving on with life. As the days become months,
weeks and years, she struggles to give up on her child and husband. This opens
a subtle romance, through symbols (in this case cooking), which morally modest
Pakistani dramas are fantastic in capturing.
That border fascinates me, both in its form and meaning. In
sharp contrast to every other national border I’ve ever crossed, there is no
fence here; we see a few white markers. The terrain does not change as it does
between many nations because of construction and development. Indians and
Pakistanis are genetically the same. We might see Pakistan as the Muslim state
while India is the Hindu state, but our main characters are Hindu Pakistanis,
taken in by Hindu Indian forces. The difference here is a political difference
far greater than the people incarcerated.
In that way, the film is a criticism of the nation-state,
disrupting the lives of so many men (and this little boy) found at the wrong
place at the wrong time. He is in prison not for a crime, but for suspicions of
espionage, as dictated by the officers’ training. We find the same stories in
the news, with our TSA, when an agent detains a baby suspected as a terrorist
or humiliates a woman into sharing her breast milk to make sure it is not a
chemical weapon. These are the problems of such protocols of investigation: for
all its attempts at maintaining order and defending terrain, the exercise of
the nation-state is one of forced order, and eventual dehumanization. A member
of a nation is not a human, but a citizen. A foreigner, however, is something
less. It’s a trade we all make: we give
up on the primordial freedom of a world without borders, in favor of career
opportunity, social stability and imperfect systems of justice.
The film contrasts that stale, drab—boring—bureaucratic
environment with the lush Hindu culture.
The prison world has little color, save for the mix-matched attire and
olive green of the soldiers. The villagers, however, worship, sing, perform and
cook. They live. While the officers work, the prisoners whither, but the people
persist.
And of those officers: the sole female (Maria Wasti) takes
custody of Ramchand, tutoring and mentoring him, while she memorizes Bollywood
films. She becomes his de facto mother. Again, the state replaces true humanity
with artificial relationships. Again, the contrast: true Hindu culture is so
full of life, meaning and zest, while celluloid Hindu culture is as plastic,
time-passing and meaningless Hollywood Christianity. To be fair, the culture
does have its own rules. Religion in general also has its history of
dehumanization either through doctrine or tribalism; Hinduism is no exception,
and the film briefly explores it.
Considering that this film is Pakistani, I wonder where
Jabbar stands regarding her own nation, for there is not much Pakistan in this
film, save for the land, and there is not much Islam, save for a funeral in the
prison. Pakistan now has a Nobel Peace
Prize Winner in Malala Yousafzai who gained popularity for persisting through
life despite being shot by the Taliban. She had the bravery to speak against a
previous Peace Prize Winner—President Obama—about our Drone program. While she
might give inspiration to a country, others within the land attempt to remove
Islam from the Pakistani vision, seeking a secular state. Others still have
written off the nation as a failed state. At the very least, the filmmaker
clearly loves the people and the land.
Speaking of those Pakistani drama serials. Every year some
long form drama (akin to the Mexican novellas) unites the diaspora, either
through satellite television or YouTube episodes. Jabbar shot this film on
video, recalling those serials. At the same time, however, the video adds
something real-worldly to the film, and makes the green of Pakistani greenery
so much more vivid.
And about that ending. I will not share if Ramchand makes it
home. I will say, however, the film starts quietly, and ends quietly, which
seems to reflect the life stories of both villagers and prisoners.
