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Karachi, the erstwhile capital of an erstwhile portion of India, is a quiet, green, interminably slow city. A port town, it is marked by beaches of trash, soldiers in place of bathers, a cheery McDonalds, a TGI Friday's, the Karachi Press Club and numerous limestone structures that testify to the former occupancy of the Raj. It is here, in what I think of as the City of Jinnah, that I watched Jamil Dahlvi's cinematic tribute to the man last month.
Nishad is Karachi's English movie theatre. The hoardings atop the hall are lush replicas of those seen at Regal Cinema in Delhi's Connaught Place. The steps are occupied by a cluster of men smoking pipes and watching the procession of shiny Mercedes and battered Marutis pass. In Karachi, vehicles are either spanking new or appear as old as the country itself. Outside the hall there is an absence of security men, quite unlike routine practice in Delhi. (I think about what writer Bapsi Sidhwa wrote to me: "Karachi is a dangerous city, although the people who live there have learnt to cope with its criminalisation.") Inside, there are no blue-clad women ready to frisk you and rustle through your bag as you enter the massive, swinging wooden doors, and no thick carpet that makes you feel like you've walked into some plush Indian cineplex. The screening begins with a, uh, music video -- with Junoon, Pakistan's famed Sufi-rock trio, belting out the title song. Then an intermission, curtains swing across the screen, lights come on, doors open and five men burst into the hall armed with trays of hot coffee, ice cream, potato wafers and biscuits. One can either sniff and wonder aloud as to where the popcorn dispenser disappeared or be delighted at the railway station service. I opt to be sour and uppity.The story begins in 1948. Mohammed Ali Jinnah is lying, frail and coughing, in the back seat of a car, being rushed to the hospital. But it was not to be, he dies on the way, goes to heaven and there meets with an angel, or as some people insist on calling him "Narrator", Shashi Kapoor. "I've lost your files," says Kapoor, mammoth in a crumpled kurta pajama. "The best way you can account for your actions is to take me through your life." So, a dead Jinnah and a holy Kapoor view the former's political and personal milestones, particularly as he justifies his desire for Pakistan and the resulting holocaust that was the Partition. Jinnah undoubtedly lacks the scale and sheen that Hollywood big bucks and a renowned ensemble of actors gave Gandhi. With a budget of $3 million, the cast comprised, apart from Lee and Kapoor, lesser known faces like Richard Lintern as young Jinnah, Shireen Shah as Jinnah's devoted sister Fatima, and the gorgeous Indira Varma as his wife, Ruttie. The Quaid-e-Azam's house in Karachi, a beautiful limestone structure where Jinnah lived after Partition, has been wonderfully reconstructed in the film and many details right from Jinnah's penchant for cigars, his high buttoned shoes and his wife's miniature portrait which he always kept by his bedside, have been faithfully reproduced. During or even after the movie there were no emotional scenes, no clapping or stomping of shoes as many others who have watched the film in Pakistan have testified to, initial frenzy after Jinnah opened at 30 cinemas across Pakistan on June 2. In fact, the empty lower stalls and the baker's dozen in the upper stall are curiously silent. In the glow of the screen, faces are leaning forward, a child is glaring into the depths of his packet of wafers. After the film though, the stairs will fill with the voices of intense discussion. Comparisons are being made to Gandhi, "It was very fair," is the unanimous verdict. The words are a dig at the glorification of their neighbour's "Great Leader" in his self-named film.
In the City of Jinnah, what else does one do but pay homage to the man? First, stop by at his mausoleum -- a mound shaped white marble structure set amidst sprawling greens. The gardens are undergoing a face lift, I'm told. By the Quaid's birthday on December 25, they will be "like the Mughal gardens". Inside, guarding the grave are four of the navy's best (next week it's the army and then the air force, in rotation). Rehana Iftikhar, a freelance writer, tells me of how she used to bring her children on holidays to the mausoleum. "There so much place to play," she says. "My husband and I used to sit on the steps and soak the sun." There's also the Quaid's house, a stone's throw from the stately Hotel Metropole, another Karachi institution. The house is gorgeous, for lack of a more distinguished word. A two-storied building, it is filled with intricately carved wooden furniture, delicate china, mirrors and books. There are almost as many pictures here of Jinnah as there are of Fatima. After watching the film, walking through this silent home necessitates as John, of Ally McBeal would say, "a moment". And finally,
if Karachi had a "province picture", it would be that of the Quaid, straight
and stern in a black suit. This picture is seen at shops, offices, on
hoardings, in hotels and all government institutions. I even saw one in
a shop selling barize (chikan cloth) glaring down at women fingering
lengths of pastel. |
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