0:01

Warning the following episode contains

0:04

sensitive material. Film

0:11

is an essential part of my everyday life.

0:13

I studied it in college along with journalism,

0:16

and for a time reported on local film events

0:18

and wrote reviews. Now in

0:20

addition to trying my hand at writing films,

0:22

I programmed movies for a few festivals.

0:25

You could say I was a little more than excited

0:27

to talk about film and TV on this show. In

0:31

episode one, you heard me say that

0:33

my experiences watching Partition portrayed

0:35

in the media left much to be desired.

0:38

I have seen a handful of depictions. I'll

0:41

discuss some of these examples with writers

0:43

and filmmakers Chaunty Dcor and

0:45

Fatima Uscar, both of whom

0:47

also have their own work related to Partition.

0:53

Before recording this podcast, I had only

0:55

watched Gandhi directed by Richard Attenborough,

0:57

Viceroy's House structed by Grinder Chad,

1:00

the entirety of the Crown, and one

1:02

episode of Doctor Who. Since

1:05

then, I have watched Garum which

1:07

means Hot Winds directed by m Satu

1:10

Commosh Pawnee or Silent Waters

1:13

directed by Sabia Sumar, and

1:15

of course Miss Marvel. Which

1:18

one should you skip and which one

1:20

should you immediately explore from

1:26

I Heart Radio, I'm Nahasis

1:28

and this is partition a podcast

1:31

that will take a closer look into this often forgotten

1:33

part of history.

1:56

Gandhi seems like an excellent place to start.

1:59

It is your base, sick, run of the mill biopic that

2:01

starts out with Gandhi as a young lawyer and

2:04

how he then transforms into the benevolent

2:06

leader we learned about in our textbooks.

2:09

This film was made in two and

2:11

I think it's one that older generations

2:13

tend to cling to because of how massive

2:15

this film was in every aspect, the

2:18

cast, the costumes, the production

2:20

value, the sheer amount of extras.

2:23

I'm sure at the time the people of India and Pakistan

2:26

felt like their struggles were being recognized by a

2:28

global audience. In fact,

2:30

when I asked an elder relative if he had any

2:32

suggestions on what maybe good examples

2:34

to watch, he suggested Gandhi.

2:37

This film is considered an epic and movies

2:40

like this don't really get made anymore.

2:42

It won eight Academy Awards, including

2:44

Best Picture, Best Director, and

2:47

Best Actor for Ben Kingsley for the titular

2:49

role. It is also probably

2:52

the most mainstream film related to partition

2:54

in terms of availability and so called

2:56

prestige. My first

2:59

viewing of this film, I can say with the utmost

3:01

confidence, will be my last. I

3:04

don't think this film was great to begin with, and

3:06

I certainly don't think as time went on it aged

3:08

particularly well. It was truly

3:10

a struggle for me to get through it, not

3:13

only because it was three hours long and

3:15

felt like it, but the utter lack

3:17

of nuance is painful. We

3:19

don't really get a critical and honest portrait

3:21

of Gandhi, but one that is more filled with

3:23

hero worship than anything else. It

3:26

is documented that Gandhi was a racist.

3:29

An MPR article from two thousand nineteen

3:31

states that in his early writings, Gandhi

3:34

made comments that white people should be the

3:36

dominant race and black people

3:38

are troublesome, very dirty,

3:41

and live like animals. If

3:43

a film is attempting to paint us a realistic

3:46

portrait of a man, it must also include

3:48

the parts of him that are flawed and unethical

3:50

too. Now we don't

3:52

have the time in this podcast to dissect

3:54

all that is wrong with the film Gandhi, but

3:57

here are a few key points. Ben

3:59

Kingsley's brown Face was truly unacceptable.

4:02

He maybe have Indian, but that doesn't change

4:04

the fact that his skin was made significantly

4:07

darker with makeup. Gandhi

4:09

was directed by a white British male. I

4:12

know this film was a passion project for director

4:14

Richard Attenborough, but when you have someone

4:16

not from the effected community at the helm of a

4:19

project of this magnitude, something

4:21

will usually feel off. We get

4:23

a finished product that is clean and glossy

4:26

instead of genuine and raw. We

4:28

had the villainization of Mohammad A

4:30

Llegina, the founder of Pakistan, so

4:33

much so that the film was actually banned

4:35

in Pakistan upon its release. Instead

4:38

of giving us an accurate glimpse into the complexities

4:41

of independence and Burrow, along

4:43

with screenwriter John Briley, decided

4:45

to create a good guys Versus Bad guys narrative.

4:48

In reality, we know that every man

4:50

involved had their own self serving plan

4:53

with how they wanted independence to play out,

4:55

including Gandhi. If

4:57

you're going to make a film with a hundred and nine

5:00

a minute runtime, at the very least

5:02

attempt to make it more on the mark. The

5:05

last thing I'll say is that Attenborough dedicated

5:07

this film to Lord Mountbatten, the

5:09

man who oversaw partition and is

5:11

responsible for a good amount of the bloodshed.

5:14

We see this declaration in the first minute

5:17

of the film that, more than anything

5:19

else, should tell the audience what type

5:21

of film we're about to embark on. It

5:24

was Mountbatten's idea to hasten the original

5:26

timeline for a partition so the British

5:28

wouldn't be held responsible for the fallout. I

5:31

don't think any Indian or Pakistani

5:33

would ever thank him for his service, which

5:37

brings me to The Crown. Let

5:39

me preface this by saying, I love the

5:41

Crown. I love period pieces

5:43

and costume dramas. I worship

5:45

Olivia Coleman, I love Corgis.

5:48

I even had a Twitter through I devoted to every corgy

5:51

that appeared on the show. Not enough,

5:53

if I'm being honest. The

5:55

Crown tells the story of Queen Elizabeth the

5:57

Second and how she ascended to the throne

6:00

and the many political events that took place during

6:02

her reign. I didn't watch

6:04

the show for research at all, more

6:06

so because we were sheltering in place and

6:09

it was on my watch list. However,

6:12

that didn't stop me from noticing the extremely

6:14

small allusion to partition. In the pilot

6:16

episode. Well,

6:18

I know the purpose of the series is to showcase

6:21

the royals and their lives. The British

6:23

Raj was a major part of their empire, and

6:26

the pilot episode takes place shortly

6:28

after Partition. In

6:31

this scene, we see the wedding of Queen Elizabeth

6:33

the Second and Prince Philip Winston.

6:36

Churchill makes a grandiose entrance with his

6:38

wife and sees Mount Batton across

6:40

the church and gives him a very

6:42

sharp look. As

6:44

they take their seats, Churchill whispers,

6:47

with much disdain to his wife, this

6:50

whole thing is Mount Batton's triumph.

6:53

He engineered it all, the

6:55

man who gave away India. I

6:58

remember watching this being like cool,

7:02

that's a take, I guess. In

7:07

contrast, another popular British

7:09

show, Doctor Who, actually portrayed

7:11

the story of Partition with respect. The

7:15

episode Demons of the Punjab,

7:17

aired in and was written by

7:19

Vinet Patel. Now

7:22

I know absolutely nothing about Dr

7:24

Who, or the science around it or what the

7:26

police Box does. But when I mentioned

7:29

my work with this podcast to a few friends, they

7:31

told me about the storyline from the eleventh

7:33

series, so I decided to give it a

7:35

watch. Watching this one

7:37

hour episode completely out of context.

7:40

I was pleasantly surprised it

7:42

managed to capture the emotion, confusion,

7:45

and brutality of the situation well

7:48

because it was told from the perspective of the

7:50

people. It directly affected supernatural

7:53

elements aside. We follow a Hindu

7:55

family in a Muslim family in the days

7:57

leading up to a wedding where their children

8:00

are said to Mary. Tensions

8:02

arise when the groom's brother and his nationalist

8:05

beliefs clash with the community. The

8:07

audience could feel the fear and the unknown

8:10

future and safety of these characters.

8:13

Best of all, I did not see any British

8:15

characters, minus the characters who

8:17

traveled with a Doctor journalist

8:20

Christian Hello from Entertainment Weekly

8:22

as Hotel the following question. Most

8:25

Doctor Who time travel stories tend to focus

8:28

specifically on English history and it's

8:30

great heroes like Charles Dickens

8:32

and Queen Victoria. But here

8:34

the focus is an event connected to England,

8:37

but it also challenges English assumptions

8:39

about their own history and their role in

8:41

the world. Was that intentional?

8:46

Potel responded with a

8:51

lot of Doctor Who history episodes are

8:54

focused on these great figures like

8:56

Queen Victoria or William Shakespeare,

8:59

and I liked the idea of doing

9:01

a story about people on

9:04

the ground were affected by a

9:06

period of history but aren't

9:08

really rich or famous or

9:10

well known enough where they

9:13

can just shake it off of it, because

9:15

the greatest tragedy of partition is

9:17

that the people it affected were

9:20

people who are not remembered or

9:22

acknowledged. Making them

9:24

nobody's to focus

9:26

on them felt like a really exciting

9:29

thing and an important

9:31

thing to do, rather than focus on the

9:33

viceroy who would have been in charge

9:35

at the time. I

9:38

couldn't agree more. I

9:50

met with filmmaker Shanty Decor to talk

9:52

about some other films that depict partition. Shanty

9:56

directed a deeply personal documentary

9:58

about her father titled Terrible Old Children.

10:01

She explores many different facets of his life,

10:04

including partition. I

10:06

discovered this movie when I was submitted to

10:08

the Cleveland International

10:11

Film Festival, where I was curating

10:13

films. Since then,

10:15

it has gone on to screen at numerous festivals

10:17

around the world. So

10:24

my father got a letter from his

10:26

father who was still in India, and

10:29

he only opened the letter twenty years

10:31

after his father's death. And

10:34

he gave me this letter and said,

10:36

maybe you can do something with this. So

10:39

I read the letter and that

10:41

was the beginning of a path to making my film

10:43

Terrible Children. Over the next three years,

10:46

and I really learned the

10:49

challenges that he had, not just

10:51

within his family, but living

10:54

in India during the backdrop of

10:56

partition, which really triggered

10:58

him to one to leave India to

11:01

come to California

11:03

where he eventually met my mother. And

11:05

it's an unlikely love story between

11:08

my father and my mother, who was from Denmark.

11:10

And I learned the context

11:13

for why my father's family banished

11:16

my family when my father married a Danish

11:18

woman. Shanti

11:20

is another person who had to find out the story

11:23

of nine herself, and

11:25

I wanted to know what sources she looked into

11:27

to find out more. Well,

11:30

because my father never talked about partition,

11:33

I knew I had to learn about it on my own.

11:37

So it was really literature where

11:39

I was able to get like the heart

11:41

and soul of the stories. Um. Two

11:43

books I learned about were Cracking

11:45

India by bobsy sidwa

11:47

Um that's through the perspective of a party

11:50

woman living through partition, and

11:52

Midnight's Children of Course by Salmon Rushdie.

11:55

And what I loved about those books was

11:57

there was an authenticity about characters

12:01

and the day to day

12:03

moments of living in

12:06

this environment where people

12:08

had to make very subtle choices which

12:10

could lead to life or death. So

12:13

literature really informed me. And

12:15

then um, and then I saw a documentary,

12:17

a four part documentary. I believe it was from BBC

12:20

or Channel four, I can't remember. And it

12:22

was a very you know, it was a journalistic you

12:24

know, give me the dates, give me the politicians

12:26

name of what happened. And

12:29

of course I watched it because I wanted to learn

12:31

as much about the politicians who were involved

12:33

and so forth. But there was really something

12:36

lacking. It seemed really one dimensional

12:38

around these kind of almost

12:41

arbitrary conversations

12:43

between politicians, but not like what was

12:45

happening in the hard and soul of the people on the street.

12:49

I asked her how she prepared to talk about partition

12:51

in her documentary. So

12:55

the first thing I did when I was preparing to

12:57

make the film was I started to write the

13:00

vice over. I had to make sure all the facts

13:02

were in place, but I also had to

13:04

get to the emotional truth of the story, which

13:06

was my father's story, which I was telling.

13:09

I went to the National Archives to

13:12

see what I could use for my film,

13:15

and there were just incredible

13:17

images that, um, you know, it's

13:19

true that that an image can tell you a thousand

13:21

words. And I didn't know what was

13:23

possible because I had to figure out, how am

13:25

I going to tell this story? How can I represent

13:28

the unrepresentable about

13:30

these stories if I don't have the

13:33

footage right? So, um,

13:36

there's a part in partition where I

13:38

found this footage in the National Archives.

13:40

It was footage of demonstration

13:44

um in India and where British

13:47

soldiers were essentially

13:49

beating Indians out right. So

13:53

I looked in the US for footage, and then

13:55

I also looked in the UK for footage.

13:59

It's she discovered something that shocked

14:02

her. What

14:05

was so interesting was this particular

14:08

section of footage which was

14:10

so important to tell the story. Of course, you

14:12

want to see, like here's the tension between the colonialists

14:14

and the Indians, right. And then when I

14:16

was looking at exactly the same

14:19

footage from the UK, it

14:22

had deleted. It had taken

14:24

out the shots where

14:27

the British soldiers were beating up the Indians,

14:30

And it was so fascinating to think well, this

14:32

is supposed to be the quote objective

14:35

history of a country that is

14:38

saved in the archival footage. And

14:40

I thought, well, that's really interesting. And

14:43

of course you think, well, what in America are we not

14:45

showing this our national history? But that's another conversation.

14:48

But it was so it was very interesting to see

14:50

how different countries represented their

14:53

relationship to partition,

14:56

as well as taking these

14:59

epic stories and

15:01

turning that into a

15:04

micro event. I think his children

15:06

of parents who went

15:08

through partition and who

15:11

won't talk about it so

15:13

much, a part of our healing

15:16

is to understand what happened on a micro

15:18

level and a macro level. You know, how

15:21

did this affect our family in

15:23

ways that we have to investigate when they

15:25

won't talk about it. Shanty

15:29

then describes walking in the streets and neighborhood

15:31

where her father witnessed violent attacks.

15:36

So when I went to India to shoot the film,

15:38

it was just myself and my cinematographer,

15:42

and I met my cousin who is

15:44

my father's nephew, and he

15:46

brought us through the neighborhood where

15:48

my father experienced partition. It

15:51

was an interesting neighborhood. Um, it was in Old

15:53

Delhi. My father ran

15:56

away from home at sixteen. Tolaeth's

15:58

grandmother and she

16:01

lived in this building that was just on the

16:03

edge of the Muslim section

16:05

in Old Delhi, and

16:08

she ran an a or vetic business.

16:11

She had her doors open to everyone. She was

16:13

a healer, right, And so

16:15

my father has this memory of

16:18

waking up in the middle of the night

16:20

to the sounds of slaughter, and that

16:23

was Muslims passing through the street

16:26

unaware it was a Hindu neighborhood. And

16:28

this is what he woke up to as

16:30

a teenager, and it haunted

16:33

him.

16:35

One Terrible Children premiered in Cleveland.

16:38

There was quite a few audience questions,

16:40

mainly from older viewers. I

16:44

really appreciate people's curiosity

16:47

and willingness to learn, and

16:50

whether they come from a South Asian background

16:52

or a Jewish background,

16:54

or you know. I mean, I just think that

16:57

that reverberation of trauma

17:00

translates on so many different levels.

17:03

So if people have never heard

17:05

of partition before, that's cool.

17:08

Let's have a conversation and let's start to make

17:10

observations and share these observations

17:13

with each other about how this affects

17:15

us and how this affects our families. Moreover,

17:18

how do we survive it and how does it make us

17:21

stronger? I

17:24

wanted to know how Shanti's father felt about

17:26

the seventy anniversary. Yeah,

17:29

I brought it up to him, and it

17:32

was obviously something he was very uncomfortable

17:34

about. But what I do

17:36

see is that he is deeply,

17:39

deeply affected by

17:42

seeing what was happening in the Ukraine,

17:44

seeing what was happening in Rwanda, seeing

17:47

the same cycles of

17:49

this belief of racial

17:52

purity and ethnicity

17:54

and how that destroys people. So

17:58

he kind of sees these goes

18:00

of partition throughout his lifetime, which

18:03

is really haunting. And I think

18:05

that's something that everybody needs to

18:07

listen to about partition, because it is yet

18:10

just another example of how

18:12

history keeps repeating itself. You

18:16

can learn more about future screenings and bookings

18:18

for Terrible Children on Shanty's website

18:21

shanty decor dot com.

18:32

I thought Shanty would be a fun and interesting

18:35

person to discuss the last three films on

18:37

my list, so I asked her to watch them

18:39

so we could talk about it. All of these

18:41

films were directed by South Asians. Up

18:44

first is Vice Roy's House, which was

18:46

released in and based

18:48

on the books Freedom at Midnight by Larry

18:51

Collins and Dominique LaPier

18:54

and The Shadow of the Great Game, The Untold

18:56

Story of Partition by Norandera

18:58

Singh Sarila. Like

19:01

Gandhi, this film was also been a Pakistan

19:03

due to its characterization of Jinna

19:07

Viceroy's house. Follows Mount Batton and his

19:09

family while he oversees the disillusionment

19:11

of the British Raj in India. There

19:14

is a downton abbey upstairs downstairs

19:16

like way of storytelling where you see the

19:18

Indians, Muslims and Sikhs serve

19:21

Mount Batton's household as they talk amongst

19:23

themselves about the issues going on as

19:25

they overhear possible outcomes of partition.

19:28

A felt filmmaker grew in their child A's heart

19:30

and intention were in the right place, but

19:33

the general consensus for Shanti and I

19:35

was that there was too much information being squeezed

19:38

into the film. Both of us greatly

19:40

admire Childa's work, but here

19:43

we get a cliffs notes version of events,

19:45

fragments of stories that ultimately

19:47

leave us with nothing. It's

19:51

so interesting trying to judge

19:54

films on a historic event. We're

19:56

going to be looking at several different films that portraying

19:59

Partition. But for me, the first

20:01

question is who is the audience? Whoever

20:04

the writer director is, they

20:06

have to think about who the audience

20:08

is, who's funding it? Right?

20:11

So I mean it's a vice stories house.

20:14

It's showing both the

20:16

British and the South Asians, but

20:19

it's pretty clear that the primary

20:22

and protagonists are the Mount

20:24

Mountains and we're following

20:26

their narrative, We're following their

20:28

point of view, and the

20:30

secondary story is about you know,

20:33

Lord Mount Battons, Indian valet

20:35

who's falling in love with the Muslim woman and

20:38

the loss of his family during Partition.

20:40

But that's just structurally in

20:42

terms of the script. That's how it's created,

20:45

and we're seeing, which

20:47

I think is good. We're seeing both positive

20:50

and negative characters in both the

20:52

British and for the South Asian characters,

20:54

but essentially we are being asked

20:56

to emphathize with the Mount Battons. This

21:00

was another point of contention for me. Mat

21:03

Baton was portrayed with an exuberant amount

21:05

of sympathy. I have not read

21:08

Phenom at Midnight. My father had read

21:10

it when he was in school, and I did consider

21:12

looking into it as a part of my research for this

21:14

podcast. I had asked several

21:16

historians and other academics about their

21:18

thoughts. But this book wasn't held

21:20

in very high regard because it's mostly

21:22

a firsthand account from Mobaton. Combine

21:25

this with the fact that Viceroy's House was

21:28

in part produced by BBC Films

21:30

and the British Film Institute, I can

21:32

hazard our guests as to why his character

21:35

isn't judged too harshly. But

21:39

it would have been very different if

21:42

the primary story was about

21:45

this Hindu man falling in love with a Muslim

21:47

woman, seeing what she had gone

21:49

through in the refugee camp with her father,

21:51

etcetera, etcetera. So I

21:54

mean the structure of the story I would

21:56

imagine I have not read the book that is based

21:58

on, but the writers

22:01

and the director had to follow that particular

22:03

story. So I don't want to

22:05

ask a square to become a circle.

22:08

It is what it is. But what

22:10

was interesting was the scenes

22:13

that were supposed to be so dramatic

22:17

that was happening on Partition, with the riots

22:19

and the trains and and the

22:21

violence. It somehow

22:24

did not fall

22:27

to me as horrible as it actually

22:29

was. Whereas when

22:31

I see the suggestions

22:33

of it in other films and

22:36

how it's absorbed by the

22:38

families on an intimate day

22:40

to day level or moment to moment level,

22:43

when we're invested in those characters,

22:45

that's a whole other experience.

22:48

So you know, here in the Viceroy's

22:50

House, it felt more just something

22:53

to keep the plot moving. There

22:56

were a few scenes that planted seeds for what

22:58

was going to come with partition, but they don't

23:00

really grow in the way that is needed to

23:02

showcase the gravity of the situation. When

23:08

the filmmaker makes it very clear

23:11

that this is a story about

23:14

a Muslim patriarch and his family,

23:16

like in garm Haaba or

23:19

Silent Water, where it is a story

23:21

about the matriarch of her

23:24

family and her very

23:26

problematic son, we are clear

23:29

from the get go this is who we're

23:31

following, and we get their subjective

23:33

point of view, whether we agree with it or not,

23:36

that's what it is, and I think

23:39

with the Viceroy's House we

23:41

were getting his point of view, but there

23:44

were just too many things going on. At

23:47

the end of the film, there was a message where

23:50

Chada, the director notes her

23:52

own partition story about her grandmother

23:54

who fled to present day India and was

23:56

reunited with her husband after a

23:58

year and a half at a refuge camp. That

24:01

is a story I would have liked to have seen. When

24:04

you can put a phase to an event like this, that

24:07

to me is where the audience is going to really

24:09

resonate and connect with the story and

24:11

characters. I

24:14

had the same reaction when I saw the

24:16

kind of biographical summary

24:19

of of who she was as a director.

24:21

I was like, Oh my gosh, I would love

24:23

to see the film that she would write

24:25

from the beginning. That would be amazing.

24:38

Unlike Gandhi and Vice Rays House, which

24:40

can easily be found on a variety of platforms

24:42

to stream, rent or buy, that

24:45

was not the case for Garamhava or

24:48

Silent Waters. I could not find

24:50

either of them on Netflix, Amazon,

24:52

Hulu, HBO, Max or the

24:54

countless other streamers we have at our fingertips.

24:58

For Silent Waters, I was able to find and its

25:00

streaming online on Canopy from my local

25:02

public library, but different libraries

25:05

have different content available. They

25:07

luckily also had a DVD I could check

25:09

out if I needed. When

25:11

I looked for garamha The only copy

25:13

I could find was a VHS at the UT

25:15

Austin Library, where it certainly was

25:18

not going to work. I miraculously

25:20

ended up finding it on YouTube, but it

25:22

is unclear if that was purely by chance

25:25

or was vetted to be on the platform.

25:27

It's no wonder many don't know about

25:29

partition or the tragic details

25:32

the widely available examples I came across

25:34

given incredibly condensed version of events.

25:38

We live in a world where if something isn't available

25:40

in an instant or at the push of a few buttons,

25:43

we are less likely to seek it out. Accessibility

25:46

is a big problem when it comes to finding

25:48

more accurate depictions of partition and

25:50

it's lingering effects. Silent

25:54

Waters takes place in nine

25:56

nine. We follow Aisha, a widow

25:58

who survived the violence of part Visition, going

26:01

about her life in a Bakisani village.

26:03

She has a son, Selene, who

26:06

is lost in more ways than one, and in

26:08

the process of trying to figure out his future,

26:10

get swept up in extremism when

26:12

some Islamic activists come to their village.

26:16

Her son's new erratic behavior triggers

26:18

a lot of painful and traumatic memories for

26:20

Aisha. This

26:24

film took the well known European Film Festival

26:26

Locarno by storm, taking

26:28

home the awards for Best Film, Best

26:31

Actress for Care and Care, and Best

26:33

Director for Sabiya Sumar. Garamhava

26:37

takes place in as

26:39

AMRSA family are trying to navigate their

26:41

lives as Muslims in India since

26:43

they did not want to leave their ancestral home.

26:46

The family struggles with discrimination within

26:48

a changing political landscape. Since

26:51

both films take place after a partition and

26:54

follow a specific family and the consequences

26:56

they must endure from their choices and

26:58

lack thereof. Shanty and I discussed

27:01

these films mostly in conjunction with each

27:03

other. Something that I

27:05

felt was very distinctive in these movies

27:07

is that we see the perspective of two Muslim

27:10

families, and that was very deliberate,

27:13

Loyalty being a major theme that

27:15

overlaps. Before Pakistan

27:18

everyone was Indian and in garam

27:20

Hova where we really see what identity

27:22

the family prioritizes. They

27:24

don't want to go to Pakistan. India

27:28

is their home and that doesn't change

27:30

because of some man made border. I

27:34

think they're so interesting to watch side

27:36

by side because garm Hova, you

27:38

know, he was made in nineteen seventy three.

27:41

It's an art film. He was credited

27:43

with pioneering a new wave of art

27:45

cinema movement in Hindi cinema was

27:47

for a very specific audience. And Silent

27:50

Water is also an art film.

27:52

So these are two films that

27:55

assume the audience has

27:57

some understanding of what partition was,

28:00

so they don't have to go through the historic

28:02

epic scenes. And

28:05

so both of these films are

28:07

so intimate by getting

28:09

to know these characters, becoming

28:11

invested in them, feeling what

28:13

they feel, being concerned for them,

28:16

and that's how it triggers

28:18

our interest into what partition is. If

28:20

we're outsiders, we

28:23

don't need to know the history lesson version of partition,

28:26

but more so how people reacted

28:28

to it, how it changed their life,

28:31

the ramifications both positive

28:33

and negative of their actions. That

28:36

is how you get people to engage and care.

28:39

Throwing a number of statistics without

28:41

context isn't really going to mean much

28:43

to people. It

28:46

seems to be made like it's for folks who

28:48

are already familiar with partition. But

28:50

when it wins Best Film at the Lucarna

28:53

Film festival in Switzerland. Clearly it

28:55

is translating to an audience outside

28:58

of the South Asian audience. So

29:02

Silent Water it was made in two thousand three.

29:05

So now we're we're seeing a

29:08

woman character who has agency

29:10

and Garaba. The women are quiet,

29:13

they kind of go along with what's happening

29:15

with the family patriarch. I'm not going to

29:17

judge in vent three film with the two

29:19

thousand lengths us simply

29:22

unfair, but Silent Water

29:24

it was. What was so interesting

29:27

was from the very first scene to the

29:29

very last scene, we're watching

29:32

this woman's choice with

29:35

how she deals with her son, with

29:37

how she teaches young girls

29:39

the Koran. She's very inclusive

29:42

in her teachings, to her

29:44

choice of talking to her son when

29:48

he's dealing with Islamic

29:50

extremists and is frightening

29:52

Lee taking their stance

29:54

on things. We

29:58

learned that Aisha used to be a seek and a former

30:00

life. So when many Seeks are granted

30:02

permission to visit shrines in the village,

30:05

she makes food for them, but their presence

30:07

also makes a recall memories from her past

30:12

to her choice

30:14

of giving food to the

30:16

visiting Seeks, and

30:18

these are quiet, very

30:21

simple very profound gestures.

30:24

She's not calling arms to anything, but

30:26

these are the areas where she has agency

30:28

and she can make a difference.

30:32

And once we see the film

30:34

and we know and we understand

30:36

that it was her choice to not jump

30:39

in the well with the other seek women,

30:42

that was her choice to live.

30:45

And then when we learn what her

30:47

choice is at the end of the film,

30:50

which I won't give away again,

30:52

is her choice, but this

30:54

time her choice is

30:57

affected by how

31:00

the whole village and her family

31:03

treated her. It is a story

31:05

about how a woman

31:07

is using her agency in an

31:10

incredibly oppressive situation.

31:15

We talk about as sun Selin. We

31:17

see similar situations play out, not only

31:20

in film and TV and literature, but

31:22

in real life. So many lost

31:24

boys and men are susceptible to radicalization

31:27

and ray superiority. The US,

31:30

for example, it's home too many of these

31:32

people. I

31:35

was really taken by the portrayal of the Sun

31:38

and how he was lost. He

31:41

was under employed, he was

31:43

under educated, he was

31:46

hopeless. That's an awful

31:48

feeling, and

31:51

that is a timeless stateless

31:54

nationless existence,

31:56

right Like in other words, it doesn't matter

31:58

where you are in the world, what century,

32:01

or what decade you're in. That's

32:03

a constant that you're going to have people in the

32:06

population who are under educated, underemployed,

32:09

feeling powerless. And

32:12

in so many different countries we're

32:14

seeing like those are the guys

32:16

who will join whatever

32:19

extremist group, and you

32:21

can I'm not just gonna say it's

32:23

you know, in this case, it happened to be an extremist

32:25

Islamic in this country and maybe

32:28

a white supremast. So the film

32:31

was about what was happening in nineteen seventy

32:33

nine. But the beauty of this kind

32:35

of storytelling is it becomes universal

32:38

and it is this kind of warning of like,

32:40

this doesn't just happen in this country

32:42

in nineteen seventy nine. We're seeing it right

32:44

now, and that's the beauty of a

32:46

film that's beautifully told. In

32:50

Garama, we see two brothers of

32:52

a multigenerational family, Salim

32:54

and Helene. Salim owns

32:56

the family shoe business and Halim is a political

32:59

community lead here who is the first of the

33:01

family to move to Pakistan. This

33:05

was a story that was so smartly told.

33:08

You have these two brothers, one

33:10

who is a very well

33:12

respected businessman who is the

33:14

main character and the

33:17

other who is he's a kind

33:19

of religious leader in the community, but

33:21

also an opportunist, and

33:23

so it's really the businessman who sticks

33:26

around and who has this unwavering

33:29

optimism to stay.

33:31

And I found it so interesting. There was a quote in the film

33:34

that was said by his brother which

33:37

was, there's something stronger than religion

33:39

bribery. So day today

33:41

you're seeing how this family

33:44

is disintegrating before your eyes.

33:47

And it's all the more heartbreaking

33:49

because his father, the

33:52

patriarch of the family, is a man who

33:54

holds such dignity and kindness

33:57

and compassion for those around

33:59

him.

34:01

Because the majority of the mers A family stay

34:04

in India, they see their lives crumble

34:06

around them. They do not hold

34:08

the same statue in the community. They are

34:10

treated very differently by people who

34:12

are once their friends and their neighbors. Their

34:15

business deteriorates immensely.

34:18

Multiple acquaintances tell them to move to

34:20

Pakistan, that they would have a better life,

34:23

but the mirrors as are steadfast, and their decision

34:25

to stay again.

34:28

I think it's a specific in the story that

34:30

becomes so universal, Like we

34:33

know what racism is in

34:35

the Western world, but when

34:38

we see it there the

34:40

day today, humiliations.

34:42

It is crushing to watch this

34:45

wonderful person have to

34:47

bear this load of

34:50

like not getting a bank load,

34:52

difficulty finding a house to rent, watching

34:55

his family one by one leave

34:58

from Pakistan, until we actually see,

35:00

you know, something being thrown at him in the

35:02

street, and it's just it's it's

35:05

so hard to watch again.

35:07

I think, similar to Silent Waters,

35:10

We're watching a character make

35:13

choices, day to day choices,

35:15

and those are the choices that define

35:18

who they are and their morals

35:20

and their way that they're going to survive that

35:22

fits for them, not how the country tells

35:24

them what they should do. I

35:52

knew with that question when MS Marvel came

35:54

out on Disney Plus that I was going to watch

35:56

it. I'm very behind the m

35:58

c U, but I had to watch to this show

36:00

with a Muslim superhero. Kamala

36:03

Khan is an ordinary girl living in New

36:05

Jersey with her Pakistani family when

36:07

one day she gets superpowers

36:09

like the heroes she's always looked up to. I

36:13

had absolutely no idea that partition

36:16

was going to be a major storyline in the series.

36:19

Thanks to this show and its creative team,

36:21

so many more people in the West know

36:23

about partition. Here

36:25

to talk more about bringing these stories to life

36:28

is writer and filmmaker Fatima

36:30

Ascar, who wrote the fifth episode in the

36:32

series called Time and Again, and

36:35

serves as a co producer on the show.

36:38

Fatima uses she they

36:40

pronounce. All six

36:42

episodes of Miss Marvel are streaming on Disney

36:44

Plus. Fatima's latest

36:46

work, a novel called When We Were

36:49

Sisters, will be released on October eighteenth,

36:51

and the book is currently on the National Book Awards

36:54

long list for fiction. But

36:57

before we had our conversation about Miss Marvel,

37:00

I talked to Fatima about their collection of poems

37:02

published in If

37:04

They Come for Us. The book features

37:06

several poems about partition. I

37:13

actually hadn't really seen partition

37:15

in media at all, and it

37:17

was kind of mostly through the stories of my family

37:19

that I pieced together and figured out we're about

37:22

partition. I was like, wait,

37:24

what is this event? Like what is this thing that

37:26

happened? And it was really

37:28

then that I was like, oh,

37:30

okay, like I want to learn

37:33

more about it. And so as

37:36

I was writing If They Come for Us,

37:38

and this was like before it was even an idea

37:40

that it was going to be a book, I was writing

37:42

poems that were about Partition,

37:45

and it was really through you

37:48

know, the writing of those

37:50

poems and and wanting to do more

37:52

research that I really started to look

37:54

into that. So it was it really

37:56

came about because I was very hungry for information

37:59

and I was looking at it, and that's kind of how

38:01

I found out so much about Partition.

38:04

That was when I was really in deep research

38:06

mode for Partition, and it was very

38:08

clear to me as I was writing if They Come for

38:10

Us, and there were so many ethical questions I was up

38:12

against. There's so many things that I considered as

38:15

I was writing that book, and especially as I was writing

38:17

the Partition poems, and I did an incredible

38:19

amount of research in order to write

38:22

that book. The

38:24

next year, they got a phone call. There

38:28

was a moment in twenty nineteen when Marvel

38:30

called me in to have a meeting with them, and they

38:33

didn't tell me what it was that. They were just like, hey, we would

38:35

like to meet with you, and I just kind of

38:37

thought it was like a regular meeting. And I remember I

38:39

got to Marvel in my head, I was like,

38:41

I wonder if they would ever do like Miss Marvel

38:44

as a series like it was. So was nineteen

38:46

like it was just so different.

38:48

Um, and I didn't. I just didn't think

38:50

it was on the radar, especially because it had been such

38:53

a few years under publishing, like she had just come

38:55

out, and so I was like, I think I'm just going

38:57

to ask them in my meeting, like hell, if

38:59

you what what would you ever do something

39:01

with that? And then the executive who brought

39:03

me in, we were like walking around and then

39:06

she swiped in for a conference

39:08

room that was just gonna be me and her. We walked in. As soon

39:10

as she shut the door, She's like, I'm here to talk to you about Miss Marvel

39:12

and I was like, Okay, cool, I

39:15

don't need to bring it up. You're going to bring it up. And

39:17

then, um, that started off a very

39:19

intense period for me where I

39:21

was I just started to work for Marvel.

39:26

I was incredibly curious how show and her

39:28

Bishop k Elie infused Partition with

39:30

Miss Marvel and asked how the idea

39:33

came about. Fatima

39:35

explains, when

39:38

we all started to work in the writer's

39:41

room, you know, she had an idea and a vision

39:43

um, but there wasn't a pilot script yet

39:45

and we were all kind of really working on what

39:48

would this show look like. And it was really beautiful

39:51

how she ran the room because it was very um.

39:53

There was a kind of egalitarian quality to it

39:55

or equal um quality, where

39:57

it was like everybody just was really able

40:00

to contribute a lot of ideas and she

40:02

was a really good facilitator of that, and so

40:05

it was just really beautiful to work with that creative

40:07

team for um the months that I worked

40:09

there. There wasn't a mandate

40:12

from Marvel that was like these are the storylines.

40:14

It was done through Visi's vision

40:17

and through the writer's in the writer's room, and

40:19

so very early on into the process,

40:21

I actually talked a lot about partition.

40:23

I kind of gave a like a luxury

40:26

to the writer's room about partition, and everybody

40:28

was like, we would really really like to include this and

40:30

the series, you know. And I

40:32

think that that was something that Bisha had wanted

40:34

um before, you know, and it was

40:36

something that I felt like also was really important.

40:39

All the South Asian Muslim writers in the room front

40:41

like was really really important and so

40:44

um that was kind of how that came, and

40:46

they really came from the writers

40:48

in that room really wanting that and

40:50

then really fighting to have Partition via

40:52

centerpiece of the show. They

40:56

went into more detail on how Partition was

40:59

going to be represented on the screen. You

41:03

know, in terms of getting into the mindset, it's also

41:05

getting into the characters, Like it's a very character

41:08

driven story, and there

41:10

were things that you know, even just considerations

41:12

around like knowing that it was going

41:14

to be on the Marvel, knowing that it was going to be on Disney,

41:17

knowing that we were going to do these things, what were we anchoring

41:19

in? And it was very important for

41:21

me that we not anchor and I think all the

41:23

writers in the room, Ambishop, that we not anchor

41:25

in like trauma porn, and that this

41:27

wasn't just like look how bad this thing

41:30

was, or look how bad we had it. But what we did

41:32

was we anchored in a love story, and we anchored

41:34

in the love between these two characters, and

41:36

we were able to say, look at this as

41:38

the backdrop of what we've seen. And

41:40

I think for most people in the West, I

41:42

don't know that they've really seen images

41:45

of partition. I think

41:47

that like that is not a thing that folks

41:50

have a visual reference point

41:52

for. And so you know, it was

41:54

very important to me that that story be around

41:56

and centered around a train because of

41:59

the symbolism, the inventory, symbolism

42:01

of the trains and partition, and

42:03

I think it was very important for

42:05

a Western audience to see that visually

42:08

and to say, wow, this

42:11

is what this looks like. You know, you read a

42:13

number and you don't compute the number, but this

42:15

is what this looked like. And I think that

42:17

that was very important. With

42:22

each episode of Miss Marvel, I would

42:24

get more emotional because so

42:26

many parts of the show I can wholeheartedly

42:28

relate to on many levels. There

42:31

is one specific scene in episode four

42:34

where Kamala travels to Karagi and

42:36

she's having a conversation with her grandma. Her

42:39

grandmother tells her my

42:41

passport is Pakistan, but my roots

42:44

are in India. And in between

42:46

all of this there is a border, a

42:49

border marked by blood and pain.

42:53

People are claiming their identity based

42:56

on an idea some old Englishman

42:58

had when they were fleeing the country. These

43:02

few sentences holds so many

43:04

truths. In previous episodes,

43:06

we talked about the difficulty of going back to

43:08

India and Pakistan and how these

43:10

borders are soul crushing for

43:13

the people who are in some ways trapped

43:18

what I've seen is people be like,

43:20

I did not know that you could get that on Marvel.

43:23

Like the fact that you guys did that, the fact

43:25

that you pushed forward

43:27

and fought and got that on Marvel is

43:29

huge. And I think I've heard that

43:31

from South Asian people, but I've heard

43:34

that from people who are not South Asian but who are

43:36

like the fact that you could include like this deep

43:38

historical component on a

43:41

major superhero franchise

43:43

like show is pretty

43:45

wild. And I was like,

43:47

yeah, I think so. And

43:49

you know, there's just things that I saw, like Fisha

43:52

had sent me, like there was like a little bit of

43:54

a like a Google search history

43:57

um for you can kind of like see the Google

44:00

metrics and stuff. After

44:02

episode four, the search results

44:04

for Partition like skyrocket,

44:07

Like people were googling like what is the partition

44:09

of Indian and focus on and so to

44:11

literally be like, wow, we like change. The Google

44:14

algorithm is pretty huge. And you

44:16

know, I think also I saw a lot

44:18

of people and a lot

44:20

of South Asian people on Twitter being

44:23

like I've never asked my family about

44:25

our partition history, Like I've never asked

44:28

about this, and now I'm going

44:30

to go ask And then people were sharing their

44:32

stories and to do something

44:34

like that, like to have a moment like that

44:36

in popular culture where you're like, you

44:39

know, I I grew up never seeing

44:41

South Asian people on TV, Like I,

44:43

you know, it was like I think all of us

44:45

did, where it was like there is no South Asian

44:47

people and if we have them, their gas station

44:49

owners or their doctors, or

44:52

their terrorists or they're they're repressed Muslim

44:54

woman, like, there's really no nuanced

44:56

representation of South Asian people. M

45:01

This right here is proof of how

45:03

powerful the visual medium can be.

45:06

Representation is important, but

45:08

it needs to be accurate, show

45:10

multiple types of groups instead of showing

45:12

stereotypes. Fatima

45:15

mentions a study that came out recently about

45:17

Muslim representation by the Pillars

45:19

Fund, an organization that champions

45:21

Muslim voices. There

45:25

was justice statistic that Pillars issue that

45:27

was like one percent of characters

45:29

on TV are Muslim and of

45:32

the world's population is Muslim. And it's really

45:35

disheartening when you occupy those bodies

45:37

and you occupy those identities to say

45:40

like damn, like really like

45:42

you can't fathom my existence, Like you

45:44

can't fathom that someone like me exists.

45:46

With a rich, complicated history, with

45:48

rich complicated identities. And I

45:50

think that what I saw from

45:53

the show overall was people responding

45:55

to being like I feel seen, you

45:57

know, thought

45:59

them has the hope that with the success of the

46:01

show, more stories about Muslims

46:04

by Muslims can be made. They

46:08

kind of are like a punch in the ceiling, like

46:10

they allow for more things to happen

46:12

because people then have a reference

46:15

point to be able to say, like, well, look

46:17

at the success of this, like look at what they

46:19

did, Like look at how people felt seen. Now

46:22

we can make more content that's like this, or

46:24

we can make content that's different.

46:26

But because this show exists, it

46:28

allows for more freedom. Like I

46:30

think one thing too about representation is

46:32

that when you're so underrepresented that any

46:35

time then you have a character that

46:37

is of Muslim or salth Asian descent,

46:39

they kind of have to be like perfect quote

46:41

unquote, because then you're like, but then everyone's

46:43

going to say that most some people are bad or it's gonna

46:46

be this representational burden, and it's like,

46:48

well, some mostli people are selfish, like some

46:50

of some people are assholes,

46:52

like some Muslim people are whatever, just like

46:55

everyone is and I think

46:57

that when you kind of have the

46:59

first one to really go than what

47:01

you allow for us people to get into more

47:03

nuanced conversations about

47:05

what does the slice of life version look like

47:08

for Muslim people? What doesn't mean for Muslim people

47:10

to have complicated identities

47:12

where they're not good or bad, but whether they're

47:15

just human and they get to exist in

47:17

this kind of complicated existence.

47:19

And I think that, um, when

47:21

you have shows like this, it really

47:24

becomes a blueprint

47:26

or a openness for more things

47:28

to be created in the aftermath of it.

47:34

Unfortunately, Disney Plus is

47:36

not available in Pakistan, but MS

47:38

Marvel was released theatrically there with

47:41

six episodes being screened two at

47:43

a time. How special for Muslim

47:45

kids to finally see themselves as

47:47

a superhero on the big screen. The

47:53

Indian and Pakistan borders are discussed

47:55

or alluded to in some capacity in

47:57

every single episode on this show. Next

48:01

time, I sweet to dr Data

48:03

a lecture on international relations,

48:06

so further break down this topic with me from

48:08

an historical perspective, Whether

48:15

the border is open or closed, as you rightly

48:17

said, is often a question of geopolitics.

48:20

It's, you know, down to who's in power, who's not

48:22

in power. There

48:25

was at one point of bus that went to Lahore,

48:27

there was a train that went to Taka, right,

48:29

So there's this kind of bus diplomacy. There are trains

48:32

on the eastern side of the border, and then every

48:34

so often something happens like the Cargill War and

48:36

these are shut down, you

48:38

know. So there are moments in which diplomacy opens up

48:40

these borders and moments in which the borders are

48:42

closed until

48:48

next week. I'm Nejazis

48:50

and this is partition. Partition

48:55

was developed as a part of the Next Up initiative

48:58

created by Anna has Ni, a Joel

49:00

Monique and the Sinia Median. Partition

49:03

is produced by Anna Hosnier, Tricia

49:06

Mukerjee and Becca Ramos. It

49:09

is edited by Rory Gagan, with

49:11

original score composed by Mark

49:13

Hadley.