Actors: Urmila Matolkar, Manoj Bajpai, Priyanshoo Chatterji and Kulbushan Karbinda
Director: Chandraprakash Dwivedi, Producer: Lucky Star

While every other day the promos of Indian film capture our television screens either revolving around the current favourite themes such as ‘India Pakistan will always remain friends’ ironically by an army men narrative or the frivolous patriotisms mingled with male heroism usually with a soldier narrative again Pinjar is a film that can be called a relevant political comment we need at this point in time. It is a film which not only presents purely a human account of partition but also makes a very apt political critique on our history with an extremely moving wisely chosen women’s narrative.

Pinjar is a story by one of the greatest writes of the Subcontinent Amrita Pritam directed by Dr Chandraprakash Dwivedi about a Sikh girl Puro fabulously played by Urmila Matolkar who gets kidnapped by a Muslim man Rasheed equally well played by Manoj Bajpai to settle the account between the two communities during the turmoil before partition. Rasheed who himself is a victim to the political situations and which effects his life by making him dangle between the so called community loyalties and pure human emotions he tries to compensates all his actions after his misdemeanor of kidnapping Puro who gets disowned by his own father for the sake of her family’s life and honour. Her brother very close to her is shown as a young communist revolutionary against partition or communal violence but eventually gets victimized by the debacle of partition for being unsuccessful in the recovery of his sister regardless of his futile pleading before the state forces. Puro’s fiancé does not marry after her disappearance and both of the families related to her go through a deep social and emotional crises whereas she keeps on living her life with Rasheed as his wife with a Muslim name Hameeda. During that she adopts a child born by a lunatic mother. She raises the child with all her devotion who was almost a skeleton (a Pinjar) when picked up by Rasheed. However the child turns out to be a Hindu blood and despite of all the beseeching by her husband the community heads snatch the child out of Puro’s hands. After a while her story gets repeated when her fiancé’s sister Lajo played by Sandli Sinha meets the same fate as her and gets abducted by extremists while fleeing to India. Knowing about it Puro tries her best to get her released with the help of her husband and eventually reunites her with her family in a refugee camp in Pakistan. There she meets her long lost brother and her fiancé who asks her to come with them but she refuses to go back and decides to be with Rasheed who proved to be her last refuge.

Pinjar reveals the story of thousands of women in the most realistic manner whose bodies and souls provided to be a ground for the communal and religious hatred during the partition. This film successfully narrates the dilemma of all the generations who got scattered and broken in their ideals in numerous ways. The father, his revolutionary son who has a romantic vision of united India and eventually Puro who is sacrificing all what she has at the hands of bloody partition are depicted as victims. However the strong presence of each character and their well knitted roles in the story enhance the impact of the film successfully.

This is definitely not a film which should be judged on the box office rating criteria where films like Border are highly successful however it can be said without any qualms that Pinjar proves to be an equally skillful production as other brilliant partition films such as Garam Hawa and even better than Train to Pakistan, 1947 Earth and Gadar. Nevertheless this is a movie which should not be missed at least for the sake of remarkable work by the Pinjar team if you are particularly not a historical film follower.

Naveen Qayyum

[I have post graduated in media studies from Kinnaird College Lahore and last year got a certificate in Human Right and Peace studies from SAFHR (South Asian Forum for Human Rights)]