Dr. Sadaf Munshi
It was a breath of fresh air. I loved the movie – totally nostalgic. I cried quite a bit while watching, with a heavy heart, along with my family. We watched the film on the first day of its release on Amazon Prime Video last evening in my Texas home. The film brought many raw memories of my childhood and youth, my grandmother singing the popular folk songs when we grew up in the 80’s Kashmir, and us listening to the radio or watching the television.
The film is directed by Danish Renzu and produced by Ritesh Sidhwani, Farhan Akhtar, Shafat Qazi and Danish Renzu, with a screenplay by Danish Renzu and Sunayana Kachroo, and dialogues by Niranjan Iyengar. The lead character is played by Saba Azad (youth) and Soni Razdan. I found the film impressive, powerful and gripping. The quality of music, cinematography, song selection, direction, acting, choice of actors playing the role of the specific characters, and the subtle humor at places — it was all awesome.
The only aspect of the film that I did not quite like was the choice of the language. It would have made sense to choose Kashmiri as the primary language of the film, as that is what Raj Begum and her family would naturally speak. Kashmiri dialogs in informal settings would have depicted the true linguistic culture and everyday language use in Kashmiri households, especially the social class to which Raj Begum belonged. Except for a few sprinklings of Kashmiri words and phrases here and there, the film is primarily in Hindi/Urdu. Still, this is a shortcoming one can live with, considering the many strengths of the film, and the fact that it does not claim to be a biopic (though many assumed it would be), but rather a story “inspired by” the legendary Raj Begum.
I have had the rare chance of interacting with Raj Begum at Doordarshan Srinagar very briefly in the 1990s when I had delved into screenwriting as a career while still a college student, embarking on a journey full of personal and professional challenges. Raj Begum’s simplicity was obvious and attractive, her diction pure depicting the rustic and rural life of Kashmir, her dress traditional pheran with tila embroidery, and her voice that stood out with an unusual tonal quality. When I saw her sitting in a waiting area in the old building of Doordarshan Kendra Srinagar amidst the 90’s tension, she would exude an aura of utmost innocence and simplicity, still wearing her burqa every time she arrived at the studio. Someone told me this was to ward off attention as she would often be chased by naughty neighborhood kids when she stepped out of her home for work — to sing and to perform. I cannot confirm if that was true, but the image has stayed with me.
While artists of Kashmir have faced a lot of challenges in the face of a very conservative society and a turbulent political landscape, women artists and especially women musicians and performing artists from Kashmir have borne a major brunt of it all — often ridiculed, shamed, ostracized, vilified and at times punished. That the lead characters in the film are based out of Kashmir is a strong indication of that. The film is a reminder of the hypocrisy of our society treating women with a much harder and stricter set of social norms than men. At the same time it is an inspiration for aspiring women artists and musicians to continue their journeys despite the challenges.
On the artistic and cultural front, filmmaking is still a fledgling field in the contemporary Kashmir. Not many movies have come to the fore from Kashmir in the last many years that have made a meaningful impact on the audiences. This movie sets apart as an emerging new trend and I hope it carries forward with many more to come. I would like to congratulate the entire team wholeheartedly for a very successful film.
About the author: Sadaf Munshi (Ph.D.) is a Texas-based documentary linguist, creative writer, poet, critic, musician and visual artist of Kashmiri origin.
