Wapsi review

REVIEW by Veeresh Malik
(www.chowk.com)

For all I know, taking a video camera into Pakistan is not banned, nor does shooting tourist home movies get you into any sort of trouble or fame there. But then, the end product from those amateur efforts can hardly qualify towards holding any form of serious interest.

WAPSI, on the other hand, grips you throughout its very precisely edited one-hour duration. The actual handheld shots in Pakistan, about 70% of the movie, delivers live footage of aspects of Pakistani life not seen too often. More than that, some of the critical parts have been shot without the subjects being aware. The absence of women on the streets, the fear in the shifting eyes of the minorities caught on candid camera in Pakistan and the existence of a vibrant sufi movement, these, and more, are as evocative as the obvious pride in their flag, the brilliant countryside and the honky-town night streets of Lahore.

But the revealing points have to be the rather evolved history lessons prefered by the guides and authorities at the Museums and tourist spots. And the clips from typical popular Pakistani movies where the stereo-typed blatant Hindu villian is blamed for everything is a revelation to me. Cut right away to the status of Hindus in Kashmir and you wonder - what sort of people are these Islamist fundamentals who emerge from Pakistan? Were these the ones that Jinnah, and now Musharaf, wished on the world?


The big message that WAPSI brought out for me as a dispassionate observer who watched this movie repeatedly with friends and relatives including many who are from the communities known as minorities where they live (Indian Muslims, Indian Parsees, Indian Christians, Pakistani Christians, Kashmiri Hindus and Pakistani Hindus) was this:- What comes out very calmly in Ajay Raina’s movie is the various ways minorities have been treated by their Governments in India and Pakistan since 1947. And the progress or lack thereof that both countries have made therein, related to this important aspect. Chilling shots of Hindus in the Kashmir Valley are very relevant, for example,to the way the Indian Government has failed with its minorities..

In other words, if you as a country, as a Government, use fundamentalism as a tool to subjugate minorities then it is your own majority people who will remain backward while the minorities get ahead or leave the country or the weakest ones get left behind. If you do not recognise and assimilate fairly the minorities then it is your majority community that settles down into tunnel vision and regressive syndromes. This rather telling synopsis of statements made during a free-and-frank, sizzling, discussion (captured in this film) made on the streets of Lahore by Pakistanis and Indians is so very apt in summing up the issue.

The simple fact that temples, gurudwaras and churches are regularly knocked down or left to rot in Pakistan without much demur because the system and the majority is Muslim while a single nationally and internationally reviled Babri Masjid incident in India required and provoked a national movement in India to precipitate matters is brought out up front by comparing the status of mosques in Indian Punjab with that of temples in Pakistani Punjab. In bright living colour.

At the same time, the simple and open love that the man on the street Pakistani has for his Indian visitors and guests is captured intact, with the warmth coming through genuinely. My favourite part of the movie has to do with one Indian in Lahore telling the camera things to the effect that if you ask any Pakistani for vegetarian food then they will take you home and cook it for you and make you stay at their place too. This is something I experienced in Pakistan, too, the basic open and unqualified love from the man on the street.

However, their own truths about riots against minorities are discussed openly and frankly without fear of being documented by Pakistani and Indian Muslims while the Pakistani Hindus and Sikhs look around shiftily and pretend there is nothing of the sort. The confidence with which Indian Muslims discuss their problems in India versus the hesitation in the voice and face of the Pakistani Hindus and Sikhs has to be seen to be understood.

Juxtapose this with the brightly lit Food Street, Gawalmandi, CooCoos, and Motorway shots. And nothing beats the surge in a Punjabi heartbeat as the golden fields of The Punjab come into focus on a brilliant shot while crossing the Ravi.

Yes, it pre-supposes an interest in the subject. No, it does not pontificate. And maybe it puts forth, tentatively, some directions for a solution. But most of all it leaves a sadness as the poetry brushes gently past the remnants of non-Muslim Lahore.

Shot on location in India and Pakistan with a variety of hand-held cameras and camerapersons, WAPSI holds your attention whether you agree with it or not. However, there is seldom denying the truths that come on the canvas of the screen, and the slick editing as well as fast transitions back and forth in time and location make this documentary into a fast-paced revelation.