Traces of conversations with people don’t vacate my working memory very soon. And one of the recent, with a Pakistani woman who after marriage moved to India, still sits at the edge. From Karachi to Mumbai, we talked about all the happy changes that the shifting brought alongside. And though far from complaining, but the difficulties that an individual has to face when in the ‘enemy’ country, reflected in subtle undertones.

It is beyond our imagination, the impact of the stringent laws. But when she talked about her interactions with the people whom she meets professionally, and in her personal life, somewhere the weight seemed to have lifted off. And reading about Nandita Das’ experience of her recent trip to Pakistan, struck the same chord in my head – it is possible that people of either country do away with the animosity driven thoughts and see each other minus their nationality tag!

Nandita, who recently participated in the first Pakistan International Film Festival as part of an Indian delegation, wrote in an article for Scroll, “The last time I went to Karachi was nine years ago, with Firaaq, to the Kara Film Festival. When I returned then with the Best Film award it was strange how the news focused on me winning a “Pakistani” award as if it were a crime. And this was before anti-national medals were bestowed on anyone who wanted to build bridges rather than walls.”

The force behind this new venture is Sultana Siddiqui, a feisty woman who, with limited resources and time, put this festival together that was organised by one of the Pakistan’s leading television channels, Hum TV. The Indian contingent comprised 22 delegates including Baahubali director SS Rajamouli, the film’s producer Shobu Yarlagadda, Rekha and Vishal Bharadwaj, Vinay Pathak, and scriptwriter Anjum Rajabali.

She wrote, “for many of them, it was their first time visiting Pakistan and they were surprised by the overwhelming warmth and hospitality we were received with. I have always felt that our perceived sense of animosity would dissipate if we made the effort, or rather if we were just allowed, to meet, in flesh and blood.”

Gathering from Nandita’s written thought, the festival has a long way to go, but it was not bereft of intent or passion. Both Indian and Pakistani film fraternities came together on various panels to explore ways in which they could collaborate and passionately discussed issues of common interest such as the shrinking space for independent cinema and how to navigate through various genres of films. The idea of a South-Asian Forum for people in films and television, too, was floated and found support across the board.

The Indian delegation at the Pakistan International Film Festival. Image Source.

Beyond the festival, Nandita also wrote about her thoughts on traversing the India-Pakistan boundary, “Mumbai to Karachi is an hour’s journey but there are no direct flights because of tense relations between the two countries that have only worsened in recent times. For us to fly to each other’s country, we have to go via Dubai. Moreover, we only get restricted city visas that are not valid for the whole country.”

But this time, the delegation got visas for Karachi as well as for Lahore, a bonus for Nandita as it gave her the opportunity to meet the daughters of the great writer of the subcontinent, Saadat Hasan Manto, on whose life she is making a film. “They have been a constant support, both in terms of access to information that one would not find in books and more so in the way they have showered their affection on me. It was an absolute delight to spend time with the Manto family whom I last visited almost two years ago. Yet, it felt like no time had passed.”

And the Lahore trip also allowed her to meet Saeed Ahmed, a one of his kind Manto enthusiast who had once written to her on reading about the film. “A Manto expert and a writer himself, he is one of the most “Mantoesque” persons I have met through this long and challenging journey of making the film. Saeed sahab is someone who truly embodies Mantoiyat, the Manto spirit,” she wrote.

“The crossing at the Wagah border was for me a visual reminder of Manto’s most celebrated story, Toba Tek Singh. It is the story of an old Sikh man who dies in no man’s land because of an absurd decision by the governments of the two countries to exchange mentally ill persons on the basis of their religions. Today, 70 years later, the barbed wires have become thicker, and the poles on which the national flags fly have become taller. As Shyam, the actor friend of Manto, says in the film, referring to the distance between Amritsar and Lahore, “Kitni ajeeb baat hai, ghante bhar ki doori, aur ek pura alag mulk.” (Barely an hour away, and a whole different country).”

The director has come back knowing fully well that the warmth and hospitality they received will quickly fade in the noise of predictable name-calling by trolls and misrepresentations about our intent.

“I wonder if vilifying all the people of another country is the only way to feel good about one’s own? Is the only way for me to prove my love for my country to hate another’s? Yes, there are some real and imagined conflicts that we are locked in, and while that reality – history, geopolitics, and terrorism – is unlikely to change any time soon, I still believe that small bridges could and should be built. Some of us think that these small efforts, through art and cinema, through people-to-people dialogue, will someday create a more peaceful and a saner world around us. Perhaps one is foolish, but if we do not begin now, then when?” She signed off on that thought-provoking note.

H/T: The Scroll