Thandi Deewarein: Love in the time of chaos

Tele-film “Thandi Deewarein” retold Partition stories at the Goethe Institut.

KARACHI: Much has been written of the devastating and painful aftermath of Partition: thousands of lives lost as religion became the justification to attack old friends and neighbours. In the midst of all the pain, when 14.5 million people crossed the borders, it is difficult to imagine a love story.

Tele-film Thandi Deewarein (Cold Walls) tackles this particular issue during the Partition era. The tele-film was screened at the Goethe Institut on the evening of November 29 with the view to introduce the project The Partition Anthology. This work will be published in 2012, and seeks writers and illustrators to compete in an ongoing competition.

 Thandi Deewarein, based on a short story by Gurumukh Singh Jeet, tells the story of a 14-year-old Hindu girl Kaanta — (beautifully enacted by Juggan Kazim) — who is abducted by a Muslim man (Reza Zaidi) at the time of Partition. She is reunited with her Hindu family eight years after she is found by the Pakistani High Commission. Prior to this, Kaanta (now known as Saeeda) is living with her husband (and abductor) and two small children in a Pakistani village. However, when she returns home, she finds herself unhappy with her parents as she misses her husband and is sent back to Pakistan by a friendly neighbour.

Director of the film Ehteshamuddin, the director, said that he has previously directed some eight short films on the Partition since 2007. He said that directing these stories was to “show interest both in India as well as Pakistan. My main aim was to negate this fact: partition has always been viewed as only one nation’s suffering, which is incorrect. Every other common man on the street suffered, it was a gory partition.”

Several love stories based on the Partition have been made in the past such as Bollywood’s Gadar: Ek Prem Katha (Rebellion: A Love Story) a love story between a Muslim girl and a Sikh man and a Canadian film Partition, based on an Indian Army officer and a Muslim girl played by Kristin Kreuk of “Smallville” fame.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 1^st, 2011.