By Subhash K Jha
Sickened by the violence in his own film that ensues when a Muslim girl falls in love with a Hindu boy, Habib Faizal has decided to take a protracted break.
Says the discernibly upset director, “I’m an especially non-violent person. I knew there has been numerous aggression and violence in Ishaqzaade. I knew we had shot numerous violent scenes. It’s something to shoot them.
To watch them is very another. When I watched my two beloved characters encounter such violence my stomach churned. Such was the character of the topic. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. And the earlier we stop trying the simpler. ”
To solve the issue of the communal divide Habib Faizal feels we first wish to address the problem openly, which our movies fail to do in most cases.
Smirks Habib, “In that cast we'd to boot make government-sponsored DAVP (Directorate Of Advertising & Visual Publicity) short-films. ”
In Ishaqzaade the unabashed treatment of Hindu-Muslim relations has taken audiences abruptly. Never before have we seen characters from the 2 communities exchanging insults in keeping with communal differences, so openly.
In fact the Hindu hero Parma (Arjun Kapoor) refers back to the Muslim heroine Zoya (Parianti Chopra) as a ‘Mussalli’. Halfway through the film he decides to marry the ‘Musalli’ firebrand. In a graphic love-making sequence in an abandoned train Kapoor and Chopra are shown indulging in serious real-time kissing and making out.
Director Habib Faizal admits he was apprehensive of the way the censorboard would react.
“There’s such a lot Ishaqzaade that we as moviemakers and as a society within the larger context are likely to sweep under the carpet.
But if I as Muslim filmmaker shied clear of addressing the problem headlong in attempting a Hindu-Muslim love story, then I FEEL I’d have didn't convey what I had got down to.
The censorbard was exceptionally tolerant. The love-making scene isn't gratuitous. I shot it in an extended single-shot scene. If the censors had asked me to chop I wouldn’t has been able to, ” says Habib an afternoon after the film’s release.
As for the boy addressing the woman as ‘Mussalli’ Habib says, “In the start he means to rile her by calling her a ‘Mussalli. ’ Later it becomes his term of endearment for her. Why are specializing in the names?
The problem may be very deep. Hindus don’t even know the way to greet Muslims so a social level. They wonder whether they need to say ‘Salaam’ or ‘Namaste’. In my film when Zoya takes her lover Parma to her house he doesn’t know the way to greet Zoya’s parents.
The initiation of a dialogue between two cultures starts at the wrong note. ”
Habib thinks it's unrealistic to think the divide between Hindu and Muslims doesn’t exist. “It does. And to mention by addressing the palpable problems that arise when a Hindu boy falls in a love with a Muslim girl is consistent with me unrealistic.
Look around. The Hindu-Muslim divide is everwhere. In a so-called metropolitan city housing societies don't allow Muslims or Hindus depending on which area you’re house-hunting in. In reality I’ve witnessed more communal integrity in rural areas. ”
As a Muslim Habib became aware of how deep those differences were after the demolition of the Babri Masjid. “These differences are normally swept under the carpet. I don’t think that helps.
The fact is, we've not really progressed intellectually in understanding not to mention bridging the chasm between the progressive and regressive India. Just the opposite day a senior police officer in Bangalore publicly endorsed honour killing.
Why does a pair belonging to 2 different cultures or communities need to meet suureptiiously in public places? I’ll inform you why. Because every parent, regardless of how progressive outwardly, throws a fit if his or her child brings a mate home.
This is why I made the Muslim girl Zoya’s family an informed relatively sophisticated bunch of individuals. I WISHED to show, regardless of how educated people still be afflicted by lethal prejudices about inter-communal alliances. ”
What Habib didn’t need to show was the small-town UP characters getting abusive of their spoken language.
“I knew I had the licence to allow them to get abusive. But I don’t use abusive language in my speech and I’d be uncomfortable if my characters did the same.
Besides I LOCATE the generous use of BCs and MCs within the films set within the North Indian heartland distracting. Audiences laugh and snigger when a personality uses abuses. These days of ‘D. K Bose’ my demurral on expletives could be a bit of outdated. I’d otherwise be true to myself than trendy. ”
Habib says he watched some Hindi classics about outcast lovers as preparation for guiding Ishaqzaade. “I saw Mujhe Jeene Do and Reshma Aur Shera.
But it was Dharmputra made in 1961 where I DISCOVERED the problem of the Hindu-Muslim divide being so unabashedly delineated. Coincidentally it was the primary film that Mr Yash Chopra directed. Today I’ve directed another film at the same theme for Mr Chopra’s banner. ”
Habib can’t praise Aditya Chopra enough for giving him freedom to make the film he wanted.
“Not once did Adi question the hardhitting content and the dialogues. He left all of it to me. I GUESS it was my destiny. I wouldn’t have desired to make a movie at the communal divide without addressing the problem directly. ”
The director admits he needed to work very hard on his two actors, “Arjun Kapoor was placed on a six-month trial period to peer if he fits into the a part of Parma. To his credit he kept at it until he got it right.
As for Parinati I needed to take her native ‘punjaabiyat’ out of her and make her this Uttar Pradesh his mussalman ladki Zoya. I USED TO BE lucky with my actors. With the exception of Gauhar Khan I WISHED no known faces within the supporting cast. I stuck to my guns. ”
As did the gun-toting characters of Ishaqzaade.
