Speaker 1: Warning the following episode contains sensitive material. Film is an
Speaker 1: essential part of my everyday life. I studied it in
Speaker 1: college along with journalism, and for a time reported on
Speaker 1: local film events and wrote reviews. Now in addition to
Speaker 1: trying my hand at writing films, I programmed movies for
Speaker 1: a few festivals. You could say I was a little
Speaker 1: more than excited to talk about film and TV on
Speaker 1: this show. In episode one, you heard me say that
Speaker 1: my experiences watching Partition portrayed in the media left much
Speaker 1: to be desired. I have seen a handful of depictions.
Speaker 1: I'll discuss some of these examples with writers and filmmakers
Speaker 1: Chaunty Dcor and Fatima Uscar, both of whom also have
Speaker 1: their own work related to Partition. Before recording this podcast,
Speaker 1: I had only watched Gandhi directed by Richard Attenborough, Viceroy's
Speaker 1: House structed by Grinder Chad, the entirety of the Crown,
Speaker 1: and one episode of Doctor Who. Since then, I have
Speaker 1: watched Garum which means Hot Winds directed by m Satu
Speaker 1: Commosh Pawnee or Silent Waters directed by Sabia Sumar, and
Speaker 1: of course Miss Marvel. Which one should you skip and
Speaker 1: which one should you immediately explore from I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: I'm Nahasis and this is partition a podcast that will
Speaker 1: take a closer look into this often forgotten part of history.
Speaker 1: Gandhi seems like an excellent place to start. It is
Speaker 1: your base, sick, run of the mill biopic that starts
Speaker 1: out with Gandhi as a young lawyer and how he
Speaker 1: then transforms into the benevolent leader we learned about in
Speaker 1: our textbooks. This film was made in two and I
Speaker 1: think it's one that older generations tend to cling to
Speaker 1: because of how massive this film was in every aspect,
Speaker 1: the cast, the costumes, the production value, the sheer amount
Speaker 1: of extras. I'm sure at the time the people of
Speaker 1: India and Pakistan felt like their struggles were being recognized
Speaker 1: by a global audience. In fact, when I asked an
Speaker 1: elder relative if he had any suggestions on what maybe
Speaker 1: good examples to watch, he suggested Gandhi. This film is
Speaker 1: considered an epic and movies like this don't really get
Speaker 1: made anymore. It won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture,
Speaker 1: Best Director, and Best Actor for Ben Kingsley for the
Speaker 1: titular role. It is also probably the most mainstream film
Speaker 1: related to partition in terms of availability and so called prestige.
Speaker 1: My first viewing of this film, I can say with
Speaker 1: the utmost confidence, will be my last. I don't think
Speaker 1: this film was great to begin with, and I certainly
Speaker 1: don't think as time went on it aged particularly well.
Speaker 1: It was truly a struggle for me to get through it,
Speaker 1: not only because it was three hours long and felt
Speaker 1: like it, but the utter lack of nuance is painful.
Speaker 1: We don't really get a critical and honest portrait of Gandhi,
Speaker 1: but one that is more filled with hero worship than
Speaker 1: anything else. It is documented that Gandhi was a racist.
Speaker 1: An MPR article from two thousand nineteen states that in
Speaker 1: his early writings, Gandhi made comments that white people should
Speaker 1: be the dominant race and black people are troublesome, very dirty,
Speaker 1: and live like animals. If a film is attempting to
Speaker 1: paint us a realistic portrait of a man, it must
Speaker 1: also include the parts of him that are flawed and
Speaker 1: unethical too. Now we don't have the time in this
Speaker 1: podcast to dissect all that is wrong with the film Gandhi,
Speaker 1: but here are a few key points. Ben Kingsley's brown
Speaker 1: Face was truly unacceptable. He maybe have Indian, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't change the fact that his skin was made significantly
Speaker 1: darker with makeup. Gandhi was directed by a white British male.
Speaker 1: I know this film was a passion project for director
Speaker 1: Richard Attenborough, but when you have someone not from the
Speaker 1: effected community at the helm of a project of this magnitude,
Speaker 1: something will usually feel off. We get a finished product
Speaker 1: that is clean and glossy instead of genuine and raw.
Speaker 1: We had the villainization of Mohammad A Llegina, the founder
Speaker 1: of Pakistan, so much so that the film was actually
Speaker 1: banned in Pakistan upon its release. Instead of giving us
Speaker 1: an accurate glimpse into the complexities of independence and Burrow,
Speaker 1: along with screenwriter John Briley, decided to create a good
Speaker 1: guys Versus Bad guys narrative. In reality, we know that
Speaker 1: every man involved had their own self serving plan with
Speaker 1: how they wanted independence to play out, including Gandhi. If
Speaker 1: you're going to make a film with a hundred and
Speaker 1: nine a minute runtime, at the very least attempt to
Speaker 1: make it more on the mark. The last thing I'll
Speaker 1: say is that Attenborough dedicated this film to Lord Mountbatten,
Speaker 1: the man who oversaw partition and is responsible for a
Speaker 1: good amount of the bloodshed. We see this declaration in
Speaker 1: the first minute of the film that, more than anything else,
Speaker 1: should tell the audience what type of film we're about
Speaker 1: to embark on. It was Mountbatten's idea to hasten the
Speaker 1: original timeline for a partition so the British wouldn't be
Speaker 1: held responsible for the fallout. I don't think any Indian
Speaker 1: or Pakistani would ever thank him for his service, which
Speaker 1: brings me to The Crown. Let me preface this by saying,
Speaker 1: I love the Crown. I love period pieces and costume dramas.
Speaker 1: I worship Olivia Coleman, I love Corgis. I even had
Speaker 1: a Twitter through I devoted to every corgy that appeared
Speaker 1: on the show. Not enough, if I'm being honest. The
Speaker 1: Crown tells the story of Queen Elizabeth the Second and
Speaker 1: how she ascended to the throne and the many political
Speaker 1: events that took place during her reign. I didn't watch
Speaker 1: the show for research at all, more so because we
Speaker 1: were sheltering in place and it was on my watch list. However,
Speaker 1: that didn't stop me from noticing the extremely small allusion
Speaker 1: to partition. In the pilot episode. Well, I know the
Speaker 1: purpose of the series is to showcase the royals and
Speaker 1: their lives. The British Raj was a major part of
Speaker 1: their empire, and the pilot episode takes place shortly after Partition.
Speaker 1: In this scene, we see the wedding of Queen Elizabeth
Speaker 1: the Second and Prince Philip Winston. Churchill makes a grandiose
Speaker 1: entrance with his wife and sees Mount Batton across the
Speaker 1: church and gives him a very sharp look. As they
Speaker 1: take their seats, Churchill whispers, with much disdain to his wife,
Speaker 1: this whole thing is Mount Batton's triumph. He engineered it all,
Speaker 1: the man who gave away India. I remember watching this
Speaker 1: being like cool, that's a take, I guess. In contrast,
Speaker 1: another popular British show, Doctor Who, actually portrayed the story
Speaker 1: of Partition with respect. The episode Demons of the Punjab,
Speaker 1: aired in and was written by Vinet Patel. Now I
Speaker 1: know absolutely nothing about Dr Who, or the science around
Speaker 1: it or what the police Box does. But when I
Speaker 1: mentioned my work with this podcast to a few friends,
Speaker 1: they told me about the storyline from the eleventh series,
Speaker 1: so I decided to give it a watch. Watching this
Speaker 1: one hour episode completely out of context. I was pleasantly
Speaker 1: surprised it managed to capture the emotion, confusion, and brutality
Speaker 1: of the situation well because it was told from the
Speaker 1: perspective of the people. It directly affected supernatural elements aside.
Speaker 1: We follow a Hindu family in a Muslim family in
Speaker 1: the days leading up to a wedding where their children
Speaker 1: are said to Mary. Tensions arise when the groom's brother
Speaker 1: and his nationalist beliefs clash with the community. The audience
Speaker 1: could feel the fear and the unknown future and safety
Speaker 1: of these characters. Best of all, I did not see
Speaker 1: any British characters, minus the characters who traveled with a
Speaker 1: Doctor journalist Christian Hello from Entertainment Weekly as Hotel the
Speaker 1: following question. Most Doctor Who time travel stories tend to
Speaker 1: focus specifically on English history and it's great heroes like
Speaker 1: Charles Dickens and Queen Victoria. But here the focus is
Speaker 1: an event connected to England, but it also challenges English
Speaker 1: assumptions about their own history and their role in the world.
Speaker 1: Was that intentional? Potel responded with a lot of Doctor
Speaker 1: Who history episodes are focused on these great figures like
Speaker 1: Queen Victoria or William Shakespeare, and I liked the idea
Speaker 1: of doing a story about people on the ground were
Speaker 1: affected by a period of history but aren't really rich
Speaker 1: or famous or well known enough where they can just
Speaker 1: shake it off of it, because the greatest tragedy of
Speaker 1: partition is that the people it affected were people who
Speaker 1: are not remembered or acknowledged. Making them nobody's to focus
Speaker 1: on them felt like a really exciting thing and an
Speaker 1: important thing to do, rather than focus on the viceroy
Speaker 1: who would have been in charge at the time. I
Speaker 1: couldn't agree more. I met with filmmaker Shanty Decor to
Speaker 1: talk about some other films that depict partition. Shanty directed
Speaker 1: a deeply personal documentary about her father titled Terrible Old Children.
Speaker 1: She explores many different facets of his life, including partition.
Speaker 1: I discovered this movie when I was submitted to the
Speaker 1: Cleveland International Film Festival, where I was curating films. Since then,
Speaker 1: it has gone on to screen at numerous festivals around
Speaker 1: the world. So my father got a letter from his
Speaker 1: father who was still in India, and he only opened
Speaker 1: the letter twenty years after his father's death. And he
Speaker 1: gave me this letter and said, maybe you can do
Speaker 1: something with this. So I read the letter and that
Speaker 1: was the beginning of a path to making my film
Speaker 1: Terrible Children. Over the next three years, and I really
Speaker 1: learned the challenges that he had, not just within his family,
Speaker 1: but living in India during the backdrop of partition, which
Speaker 1: really triggered him to one to leave India to come
Speaker 1: to California where he eventually met my mother. And it's
Speaker 1: an unlikely love story between my father and my mother,
Speaker 1: who was from Denmark. And I learned the context for
Speaker 1: why my father's family banished my family when my father
Speaker 1: married a Danish woman. Shanti is another person who had
Speaker 1: to find out the story of nine herself, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to know what sources she looked into to find
Speaker 1: out more. Well, because my father never talked about partition,
Speaker 1: I knew I had to learn about it on my own.
Speaker 1: So it was really literature where I was able to
Speaker 1: get like the heart and soul of the stories. Um.
Speaker 1: Two books I learned about were Cracking India by bobsy
Speaker 1: sidwa Um that's through the perspective of a party woman
Speaker 1: living through partition, and Midnight's Children of Course by Salmon Rushdie.
Speaker 1: And what I loved about those books was there was
Speaker 1: an authenticity about characters and the day to day moments
Speaker 1: of living in this environment where people had to make
Speaker 1: very subtle choices which could lead to life or death.
Speaker 1: So literature really informed me. And then um, and then
Speaker 1: I saw a documentary, a four part documentary. I believe
Speaker 1: it was from BBC or Channel four, I can't remember.
Speaker 1: And it was a very you know, it was a
Speaker 1: journalistic you know, give me the dates, give me the
Speaker 1: politicians name of what happened. And of course I watched
Speaker 1: it because I wanted to learn as much about the
Speaker 1: politicians who were involved and so forth. But there was
Speaker 1: really something lacking. It seemed really one dimensional around these
Speaker 1: kind of almost arbitrary conversations between politicians, but not like
Speaker 1: what was happening in the hard and soul of the
Speaker 1: people on the street. I asked her how she prepared
Speaker 1: to talk about partition in her documentary. So the first
Speaker 1: thing I did when I was preparing to make the
Speaker 1: film was I started to write the vice over. I
Speaker 1: had to make sure all the facts were in place,
Speaker 1: but I also had to get to the emotional truth
Speaker 1: of the story, which was my father's story, which I
Speaker 1: was telling. I went to the National Archives to see
Speaker 1: what I could use for my film, and there were
Speaker 1: just incredible images that, um, you know, it's true that
Speaker 1: that an image can tell you a thousand words. And
Speaker 1: I didn't know what was possible because I had to
Speaker 1: figure out, how am I going to tell this story?
Speaker 1: How can I represent the unrepresentable about these stories if
Speaker 1: I don't have the footage right? So, um, there's a
Speaker 1: part in partition where I found this footage in the
Speaker 1: National Archives. It was footage of demonstration um in India
Speaker 1: and where British soldiers were essentially beating Indians out right.
Speaker 1: So I looked in the US for footage, and then
Speaker 1: I also looked in the UK for footage. It's she
Speaker 1: discovered something that shocked her. What was so interesting was
Speaker 1: this particular section of footage which was so important to
Speaker 1: tell the story. Of course, you want to see, like
Speaker 1: here's the tension between the colonialists and the Indians, right.
Speaker 1: And then when I was looking at exactly the same
Speaker 1: footage from the UK, it had deleted. It had taken
Speaker 1: out the shots where the British soldiers were beating up
Speaker 1: the Indians, And it was so fascinating to think well,
Speaker 1: this is supposed to be the quote objective history of
Speaker 1: a country that is saved in the archival footage. And
Speaker 1: I thought, well, that's really interesting. And of course you think, well,
Speaker 1: what in America are we not showing this our national history?
Speaker 1: But that's another conversation. But it was so it was
Speaker 1: very interesting to see how different countries represented their relationship
Speaker 1: to partition, as well as taking these epic stories and
Speaker 1: turning that into a micro event. I think his children
Speaker 1: of parents who went through partition and who won't talk
Speaker 1: about it so much, a part of our healing is
Speaker 1: to understand what happened on a micro level and a
Speaker 1: macro level. You know, how did this affect our family
Speaker 1: in ways that we have to investigate when they won't
Speaker 1: talk about it. Shanty then describes walking in the streets
Speaker 1: and neighborhood where her father witnessed violent attacks. So when
Speaker 1: I went to India to shoot the film, it was
Speaker 1: just myself and my cinematographer, and I met my cousin
Speaker 1: who is my father's nephew, and he brought us through
Speaker 1: the neighborhood where my father experienced partition. It was an
Speaker 1: interesting neighborhood. Um, it was in Old Delhi. My father
Speaker 1: ran away from home at sixteen. Tolaeth's grandmother and she
Speaker 1: lived in this building that was just on the edge
Speaker 1: of the Muslim section in Old Delhi, and she ran
Speaker 1: an a or vetic business. She had her doors open
Speaker 1: to everyone. She was a healer, right, And so my
Speaker 1: father has this memory of waking up in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night to the sounds of slaughter, and that
Speaker 1: was Muslims passing through the street unaware it was a
Speaker 1: Hindu neighborhood. And this is what he woke up to
Speaker 1: as a teenager, and it haunted him. One Terrible Children
Speaker 1: premiered in Cleveland. There was quite a few audience questions,
Speaker 1: mainly from older viewers. I really appreciate people's curiosity and
Speaker 1: willingness to learn, and whether they come from a South
Speaker 1: Asian background or a Jewish background, or you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just think that that reverberation of trauma translates on
Speaker 1: so many different levels. So if people have never heard
Speaker 1: of partition before, that's cool. Let's have a conversation and
Speaker 1: let's start to make observations and share these observations with
Speaker 1: each other about how this affects us and how this
Speaker 1: affects our families. Moreover, how do we survive it and
Speaker 1: how does it make us stronger? I wanted to know
Speaker 1: how Shanti's father felt about the seventy anniversary. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: brought it up to him, and it was obviously something
Speaker 1: he was very uncomfortable about. But what I do see
Speaker 1: is that he is deeply, deeply affected by seeing what
Speaker 1: was happening in the Ukraine, seeing what was happening in Rwanda,
Speaker 1: seeing the same cycles of this belief of racial purity
Speaker 1: and ethnicity and how that destroys people. So he kind
Speaker 1: of sees these goes of partition throughout his lifetime, which
Speaker 1: is really haunting. And I think that's something that everybody
Speaker 1: needs to listen to about partition, because it is yet
Speaker 1: just another example of how history keeps repeating itself. You
Speaker 1: can learn more about future screenings and bookings for Terrible
Speaker 1: Children on Shanty's website shanty decor dot com. I thought
Speaker 1: Shanty would be a fun and interesting person to discuss
Speaker 1: the last three films on my list, so I asked
Speaker 1: her to watch them so we could talk about it.
Speaker 1: All of these films were directed by South Asians. Up
Speaker 1: first is Vice Roy's House, which was released in and
Speaker 1: based on the books Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins
Speaker 1: and Dominique LaPier and The Shadow of the Great Game,
Speaker 1: The Untold Story of Partition by Norandera Singh Sarila. Like Gandhi,
Speaker 1: this film was also been a Pakistan due to its
Speaker 1: characterization of Jinna Viceroy's house. Follows Mount Batton and his
Speaker 1: family while he oversees the disillusionment of the British Raj
Speaker 1: in India. There is a downton abbey upstairs downstairs like
Speaker 1: way of storytelling where you see the Indians, Muslims and
Speaker 1: Sikhs serve Mount Batton's household as they talk amongst themselves
Speaker 1: about the issues going on as they overhear possible outcomes
Speaker 1: of partition. A felt filmmaker grew in their child A's
Speaker 1: heart and intention were in the right place, but the
Speaker 1: general consensus for Shanti and I was that there was
Speaker 1: too much information being squeezed into the film. Both of
Speaker 1: us greatly admire Childa's work, but here we get a
Speaker 1: cliffs notes version of events, fragments of stories that ultimately
Speaker 1: leave us with nothing. It's so interesting trying to judge
Speaker 1: films on a historic event. We're going to be looking
Speaker 1: at several different films that portraying Partition. But for me,
Speaker 1: the first question is who is the audience? Whoever the
Speaker 1: writer director is, they have to think about who the
Speaker 1: audience is, who's funding it? Right? So I mean it's
Speaker 1: a vice stories house. It's showing both the British and
Speaker 1: the South Asians, but it's pretty clear that the primary
Speaker 1: and protagonists are the Mount Mountains and we're following their narrative,
Speaker 1: We're following their point of view, and the secondary story
Speaker 1: is about you know, Lord Mount Battons, Indian valet who's
Speaker 1: falling in love with the Muslim woman and the loss
Speaker 1: of his family during Partition. But that's just structurally in
Speaker 1: terms of the script. That's how it's created, and we're seeing,
Speaker 1: which I think is good. We're seeing both positive and
Speaker 1: negative characters in both the British and for the South
Speaker 1: Asian characters, but essentially we are being asked to emphathize
Speaker 1: with the Mount Battons. This was another point of contention
Speaker 1: for me. Mat Baton was portrayed with an exuberant amount
Speaker 1: of sympathy. I have not read Phenom at Midnight. My
Speaker 1: father had read it when he was in school, and
Speaker 1: I did consider looking into it as a part of
Speaker 1: my research for this podcast. I had asked several historians
Speaker 1: and other academics about their thoughts. But this book wasn't
Speaker 1: held in very high regard because it's mostly a firsthand
Speaker 1: account from Mobaton. Combine this with the fact that Viceroy's
Speaker 1: House was in part produced by BBC Films and the
Speaker 1: British Film Institute, I can hazard our guests as to
Speaker 1: why his character isn't judged too harshly. But it would
Speaker 1: have been very different if the primary story was about
Speaker 1: this Hindu man falling in love with a Muslim woman,
Speaker 1: seeing what she had gone through in the refugee camp
Speaker 1: with her father, etcetera, etcetera. So I mean the structure
Speaker 1: of the story I would imagine I have not read
Speaker 1: the book that is based on, but the writers and
Speaker 1: the director had to follow that particular story. So I
Speaker 1: don't want to ask a square to become a circle.
Speaker 1: It is what it is. But what was interesting was
Speaker 1: the scenes that were supposed to be so dramatic that
Speaker 1: was happening on Partition, with the riots and the trains
Speaker 1: and and the violence. It somehow did not fall to
Speaker 1: me as horrible as it actually was. Whereas when I
Speaker 1: see the suggestions of it in other films and how
Speaker 1: it's absorbed by the families on an intimate day to
Speaker 1: day level or moment to moment level, when we're invested
Speaker 1: in those characters, that's a whole other experience. So you know,
Speaker 1: here in the Viceroy's House, it felt more just something
Speaker 1: to keep the plot moving. There were a few scenes
Speaker 1: that planted seeds for what was going to come with partition,
Speaker 1: but they don't really grow in the way that is
Speaker 1: needed to showcase the gravity of the situation. When the
Speaker 1: filmmaker makes it very clear that this is a story
Speaker 1: about a Muslim patriarch and his family, like in garm
Speaker 1: Haaba or Silent Water, where it is a story about
Speaker 1: the matriarch of her family and her very problematic son,
Speaker 1: we are clear from the get go this is who
Speaker 1: we're following, and we get their subjective point of view,
Speaker 1: whether we agree with it or not, that's what it is,
Speaker 1: and I think with the Viceroy's House we were getting
Speaker 1: his point of view, but there were just too many
Speaker 1: things going on. At the end of the film, there
Speaker 1: was a message where Chada, the director notes her own
Speaker 1: partition story about her grandmother who fled to present day
Speaker 1: India and was reunited with her husband after a year
Speaker 1: and a half at a refuge camp. That is a
Speaker 1: story I would have liked to have seen. When you
Speaker 1: can put a phase to an event like this, that
Speaker 1: to me is where the audience is going to really
Speaker 1: resonate and connect with the story and characters. I had
Speaker 1: the same reaction when I saw the kind of biographical
Speaker 1: summary of of who she was as a director. I
Speaker 1: was like, Oh my gosh, I would love to see
Speaker 1: the film that she would write from the beginning. That
Speaker 1: would be amazing. Unlike Gandhi and Vice Rays House, which
Speaker 1: can easily be found on a variety of platforms to stream,
Speaker 1: rent or buy, that was not the case for Garamhava
Speaker 1: or Silent Waters. I could not find either of them
Speaker 1: on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, HBO, Max or the countless other
Speaker 1: streamers we have at our fingertips. For Silent Waters, I
Speaker 1: was able to find and its streaming online on Canopy
Speaker 1: from my local public library, but different libraries have different
Speaker 1: content available. They luckily also had a DVD I could
Speaker 1: check out if I needed. When I looked for garamha
Speaker 1: The only copy I could find was a VHS at
Speaker 1: the UT Austin Library, where it certainly was not going
Speaker 1: to work. I miraculously ended up finding it on YouTube,
Speaker 1: but it is unclear if that was purely by chance
Speaker 1: or was vetted to be on the platform. It's no
Speaker 1: wonder many don't know about partition or the tragic details
Speaker 1: the widely available examples I came across given incredibly condensed
Speaker 1: version of events. We live in a world where if
Speaker 1: something isn't available in an instant or at the push
Speaker 1: of a few buttons, we are less likely to seek
Speaker 1: it out. Accessibility is a big problem when it comes
Speaker 1: to finding more accurate depictions of partition and it's lingering effects.
Speaker 1: Silent Waters takes place in nine nine. We follow Aisha,
Speaker 1: a widow who survived the violence of part Visition, going
Speaker 1: about her life in a Bakisani village. She has a son, Selene,
Speaker 1: who is lost in more ways than one, and in
Speaker 1: the process of trying to figure out his future, get
Speaker 1: swept up in extremism when some Islamic activists come to
Speaker 1: their village. Her son's new erratic behavior triggers a lot
Speaker 1: of painful and traumatic memories for Aisha. This film took
Speaker 1: the well known European Film Festival Locarno by storm, taking
Speaker 1: home the awards for Best Film, Best Actress for Care
Speaker 1: and Care, and Best Director for Sabiya Sumar. Garamhava takes
Speaker 1: place in as AMRSA family are trying to navigate their
Speaker 1: lives as Muslims in India since they did not want
Speaker 1: to leave their ancestral home. The family struggles with discrimination
Speaker 1: within a changing political landscape. Since both films take place
Speaker 1: after a partition and follow a specific family and the
Speaker 1: consequences they must endure from their choices and lack thereof.
Speaker 1: Shanty and I discussed these films mostly in conjunction with
Speaker 1: each other. Something that I felt was very distinctive in
Speaker 1: these movies is that we see the perspective of two
Speaker 1: Muslim families, and that was very deliberate, Loyalty being a
Speaker 1: major theme that overlaps. Before Pakistan everyone was Indian and
Speaker 1: in garam Hova where we really see what identity the
Speaker 1: family prioritizes. They don't want to go to Pakistan. India
Speaker 1: is their home and that doesn't change because of some
Speaker 1: man made border. I think they're so interesting to watch
Speaker 1: side by side because garm Hova, you know, he was
Speaker 1: made in nineteen seventy three. It's an art film. He
Speaker 1: was credited with pioneering a new wave of art cinema
Speaker 1: movement in Hindi cinema was for a very specific audience.
Speaker 1: And Silent Water is also an art film. So these
Speaker 1: are two films that assume the audience has some understanding
Speaker 1: of what partition was, so they don't have to go
Speaker 1: through the historic epic scenes. And so both of these
Speaker 1: films are so intimate by getting to know these characters,
Speaker 1: becoming invested in them, feeling what they feel, being concerned
Speaker 1: for them, and that's how it triggers our interest into
Speaker 1: what partition is. If we're outsiders, we don't need to
Speaker 1: know the history lesson version of partition, but more so
Speaker 1: how people reacted to it, how it changed their life,
Speaker 1: the ramifications both positive and negative of their actions. That
Speaker 1: is how you get people to engage and care. Throwing
Speaker 1: a number of statistics without context isn't really going to
Speaker 1: mean much to people. It seems to be made like
Speaker 1: it's for folks who are already familiar with partition. But
Speaker 1: when it wins Best Film at the Lucarna Film festival
Speaker 1: in Switzerland. Clearly it is translating to an audience outside
Speaker 1: of the South Asian audience. So Silent Water it was
Speaker 1: made in two thousand three. So now we're we're seeing
Speaker 1: a woman character who has agency and Garaba. The women
Speaker 1: are quiet, they kind of go along with what's happening
Speaker 1: with the family patriarch. I'm not going to judge in
Speaker 1: vent three film with the two thousand lengths us simply unfair,
Speaker 1: but Silent Water it was. What was so interesting was
Speaker 1: from the very first scene to the very last scene,
Speaker 1: we're watching this woman's choice with how she deals with
Speaker 1: her son, with how she teaches young girls the Koran.
Speaker 1: She's very inclusive in her teachings, to her choice of
Speaker 1: talking to her son when he's dealing with Islamic extremists
Speaker 1: and is frightening Lee taking their stance on things. We
Speaker 1: learned that Aisha used to be a seek and a
Speaker 1: former life. So when many Seeks are granted permission to
Speaker 1: visit shrines in the village, she makes food for them,
Speaker 1: but their presence also makes a recall memories from her
Speaker 1: past to her choice of giving food to the visiting Seeks,
Speaker 1: and these are quiet, very simple very profound gestures. She's
Speaker 1: not calling arms to anything, but these are the areas
Speaker 1: where she has agency and she can make a difference.
Speaker 1: And once we see the film and we know and
Speaker 1: we understand that it was her choice to not jump
Speaker 1: in the well with the other seek women, that was
Speaker 1: her choice to live. And then when we learn what
Speaker 1: her choice is at the end of the film, which
Speaker 1: I won't give away again, is her choice, but this
Speaker 1: time her choice is affected by how the whole village
Speaker 1: and her family treated her. It is a story about
Speaker 1: how a woman is using her agency in an incredibly
Speaker 1: oppressive situation. We talk about as sun Selin. We see
Speaker 1: similar situations play out, not only in film and TV
Speaker 1: and literature, but in real life. So many lost boys
Speaker 1: and men are susceptible to radicalization and ray superiority. The US,
Speaker 1: for example, it's home too many of these people. I
Speaker 1: was really taken by the portrayal of the Sun and
Speaker 1: how he was lost. He was under employed, he was
Speaker 1: under educated, he was hopeless. That's an awful feeling, and
Speaker 1: that is a timeless stateless nationless existence, right Like in
Speaker 1: other words, it doesn't matter where you are in the world,
Speaker 1: what century, or what decade you're in. That's a constant
Speaker 1: that you're going to have people in the population who
Speaker 1: are under educated, underemployed, feeling powerless. And in so many
Speaker 1: different countries we're seeing like those are the guys who
Speaker 1: will join whatever extremist group, and you can I'm not
Speaker 1: just gonna say it's you know, in this case, it
Speaker 1: happened to be an extremist Islamic in this country and
Speaker 1: maybe a white supremast. So the film was about what
Speaker 1: was happening in nineteen seventy nine. But the beauty of
Speaker 1: this kind of storytelling is it becomes universal and it
Speaker 1: is this kind of warning of like, this doesn't just
Speaker 1: happen in this country in nineteen seventy nine. We're seeing
Speaker 1: it right now, and that's the beauty of a film
Speaker 1: that's beautifully told. In Garama, we see two brothers of
Speaker 1: a multigenerational family, Salim and Helene. Salim owns the family
Speaker 1: shoe business and Halim is a political community lead here
Speaker 1: who is the first of the family to move to Pakistan.
Speaker 1: This was a story that was so smartly told. You
Speaker 1: have these two brothers, one who is a very well
Speaker 1: respected businessman who is the main character and the other
Speaker 1: who is he's a kind of religious leader in the community,
Speaker 1: but also an opportunist, and so it's really the businessman
Speaker 1: who sticks around and who has this unwavering optimism to stay.
Speaker 1: And I found it so interesting. There was a quote
Speaker 1: in the film that was said by his brother which was,
Speaker 1: there's something stronger than religion bribery. So day today you're
Speaker 1: seeing how this family is disintegrating before your eyes. And
Speaker 1: it's all the more heartbreaking because his father, the patriarch
Speaker 1: of the family, is a man who holds such dignity
Speaker 1: and kindness and compassion for those around him. Because the
Speaker 1: majority of the mers A family stay in India, they
Speaker 1: see their lives crumble around them. They do not hold
Speaker 1: the same statue in the community. They are treated very
Speaker 1: differently by people who are once their friends and their neighbors.
Speaker 1: Their business deteriorates immensely. Multiple acquaintances tell them to move
Speaker 1: to Pakistan, that they would have a better life, but
Speaker 1: the mirrors as are steadfast, and their decision to stay again.
Speaker 1: I think it's a specific in the story that becomes
Speaker 1: so universal, Like we know what racism is in the
Speaker 1: Western world, but when we see it there the day today, humiliations.
Speaker 1: It is crushing to watch this wonderful person have to
Speaker 1: bear this load of like not getting a bank load,
Speaker 1: difficulty finding a house to rent, watching his family one
Speaker 1: by one leave from Pakistan, until we actually see, you know,
Speaker 1: something being thrown at him in the street, and it's
Speaker 1: just it's it's so hard to watch again. I think,
Speaker 1: similar to Silent Waters, We're watching a character make choices,
Speaker 1: day to day choices, and those are the choices that
Speaker 1: define who they are and their morals and their way
Speaker 1: that they're going to survive that fits for them, not
Speaker 1: how the country tells them what they should do. I
Speaker 1: knew with that question when MS Marvel came out on
Speaker 1: Disney Plus that I was going to watch it. I'm
Speaker 1: very behind the m c U, but I had to
Speaker 1: watch to this show with a Muslim superhero. Kamala Khan
Speaker 1: is an ordinary girl living in New Jersey with her
Speaker 1: Pakistani family when one day she gets superpowers like the
Speaker 1: heroes she's always looked up to. I had absolutely no
Speaker 1: idea that partition was going to be a major storyline
Speaker 1: in the series. Thanks to this show and its creative team,
Speaker 1: so many more people in the West know about partition.
Speaker 1: Here to talk more about bringing these stories to life
Speaker 1: is writer and filmmaker Fatima Ascar, who wrote the fifth
Speaker 1: episode in the series called Time and Again, and serves
Speaker 1: as a co producer on the show. Fatima uses she
Speaker 1: they pronounce. All six episodes of Miss Marvel are streaming
Speaker 1: on Disney Plus. Fatima's latest work, a novel called When
Speaker 1: We Were Sisters, will be released on October eighteenth, and
Speaker 1: the book is currently on the National Book Awards long
Speaker 1: list for fiction. But before we had our conversation about
Speaker 1: Miss Marvel, I talked to Fatima about their collection of
Speaker 1: poems published in If They Come for Us. The book
Speaker 1: features several poems about partition. I actually hadn't really seen
Speaker 1: partition in media at all, and it was kind of
Speaker 1: mostly through the stories of my family that I pieced
Speaker 1: together and figured out we're about partition. I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: what is this event? Like what is this thing that happened?
Speaker 1: And it was really then that I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: like I want to learn more about it. And so
Speaker 1: as I was writing If They Come for Us, and
Speaker 1: this was like before it was even an idea that
Speaker 1: it was going to be a book, I was writing
Speaker 1: poems that were about Partition, and it was really through
Speaker 1: you know, the writing of those poems and and wanting
Speaker 1: to do more research that I really started to look
Speaker 1: into that. So it was it really came about because
Speaker 1: I was very hungry for information and I was looking
Speaker 1: at it, and that's kind of how I found out
Speaker 1: so much about Partition. That was when I was really
Speaker 1: in deep research mode for Partition, and it was very
Speaker 1: clear to me as I was writing if They Come
Speaker 1: for Us, and there were so many ethical questions I
Speaker 1: was up against. There's so many things that I considered
Speaker 1: as I was writing that book, and especially as I
Speaker 1: was writing the Partition poems, and I did an incredible
Speaker 1: amount of research in order to write that book. The
Speaker 1: next year, they got a phone call. There was a
Speaker 1: moment in twenty nineteen when Marvel called me in to
Speaker 1: have a meeting with them, and they didn't tell me
Speaker 1: what it was that. They were just like, hey, we
Speaker 1: would like to meet with you, and I just kind
Speaker 1: of thought it was like a regular meeting. And I
Speaker 1: remember I got to Marvel in my head, I was like,
Speaker 1: I wonder if they would ever do like Miss Marvel
Speaker 1: as a series like it was. So was nineteen like
Speaker 1: it was just so different. Um, and I didn't. I
Speaker 1: just didn't think it was on the radar, especially because
Speaker 1: it had been such a few years under publishing, like
Speaker 1: she had just come out, and so I was like,
Speaker 1: I think I'm just going to ask them in my meeting,
Speaker 1: like hell, if you what what would you ever do
Speaker 1: something with that? And then the executive who brought me in,
Speaker 1: we were like walking around and then she swiped in
Speaker 1: for a conference room that was just gonna be me
Speaker 1: and her. We walked in. As soon as she shut
Speaker 1: the door, She's like, I'm here to talk to you
Speaker 1: about Miss Marvel and I was like, Okay, cool, I
Speaker 1: don't need to bring it up. You're going to bring
Speaker 1: it up. And then, um, that started off a very
Speaker 1: intense period for me where I was I just started
Speaker 1: to work for Marvel. I was incredibly curious how show
Speaker 1: and her Bishop k Elie infused Partition with Miss Marvel
Speaker 1: and asked how the idea came about. Fatima explains, when
Speaker 1: we all started to work in the writer's room, you know,
Speaker 1: she had an idea and a vision um, but there
Speaker 1: wasn't a pilot script yet and we were all kind
Speaker 1: of really working on what would this show look like.
Speaker 1: And it was really beautiful how she ran the room
Speaker 1: because it was very um. There was a kind of
Speaker 1: egalitarian quality to it or equal um quality, where it
Speaker 1: was like everybody just was really able to contribute a
Speaker 1: lot of ideas and she was a really good facilitator
Speaker 1: of that, and so it was just really beautiful to
Speaker 1: work with that creative team for um the months that
Speaker 1: I worked there. There wasn't a mandate from Marvel that
Speaker 1: was like these are the storylines. It was done through
Speaker 1: Visi's vision and through the writer's in the writer's room,
Speaker 1: and so very early on into the process, I actually
Speaker 1: talked a lot about partition. I kind of gave a
Speaker 1: like a luxury to the writer's room about partition, and
Speaker 1: everybody was like, we would really really like to include
Speaker 1: this and the series, you know. And I think that
Speaker 1: that was something that Bisha had wanted um before, you know,
Speaker 1: and it was something that I felt like also was
Speaker 1: really important. All the South Asian Muslim writers in the
Speaker 1: room front like was really really important and so um
Speaker 1: that was kind of how that came, and they really
Speaker 1: came from the writers in that room really wanting that
Speaker 1: and then really fighting to have Partition via centerpiece of
Speaker 1: the show. They went into more detail on how Partition
Speaker 1: was going to be represented on the screen. You know,
Speaker 1: in terms of getting into the mindset, it's also getting
Speaker 1: into the characters, Like it's a very character driven story,
Speaker 1: and there were things that you know, even just considerations
Speaker 1: around like knowing that it was going to be on
Speaker 1: the Marvel, knowing that it was going to be on Disney,
Speaker 1: knowing that we were going to do these things, what
Speaker 1: were we anchoring in? And it was very important for
Speaker 1: me that we not anchor and I think all the
Speaker 1: writers in the room, Ambishop, that we not anchor in
Speaker 1: like trauma porn, and that this wasn't just like look
Speaker 1: how bad this thing was, or look how bad we
Speaker 1: had it. But what we did was we anchored in
Speaker 1: a love story, and we anchored in the love between
Speaker 1: these two characters, and we were able to say, look
Speaker 1: at this as the backdrop of what we've seen. And
Speaker 1: I think for most people in the West, I don't
Speaker 1: know that they've really seen images of partition. I think
Speaker 1: that like that is not a thing that folks have
Speaker 1: a visual reference point for. And so you know, it
Speaker 1: was very important to me that that story be around
Speaker 1: and centered around a train because of the symbolism, the inventory,
Speaker 1: symbolism of the trains and partition, and I think it
Speaker 1: was very important for a Western audience to see that
Speaker 1: visually and to say, wow, this is what this looks like.
Speaker 1: You know, you read a number and you don't compute
Speaker 1: the number, but this is what this looked like. And
Speaker 1: I think that that was very important. With each episode
Speaker 1: of Miss Marvel, I would get more emotional because so
Speaker 1: many parts of the show I can wholeheartedly relate to
Speaker 1: on many levels. There is one specific scene in episode
Speaker 1: four where Kamala travels to Karagi and she's having a
Speaker 1: conversation with her grandma. Her grandmother tells her my passport
Speaker 1: is Pakistan, but my roots are in India. And in
Speaker 1: between all of this there is a border, a border
Speaker 1: marked by blood and pain. People are claiming their identity
Speaker 1: based on an idea some old Englishman had when they
Speaker 1: were fleeing the country. These few sentences holds so many truths.
Speaker 1: In previous episodes, we talked about the difficulty of going
Speaker 1: back to India and Pakistan and how these borders are
Speaker 1: soul crushing for the people who are in some ways
Speaker 1: trapped what I've seen is people be like, I did
Speaker 1: not know that you could get that on Marvel. Like
Speaker 1: the fact that you guys did that, the fact that
Speaker 1: you pushed forward and fought and got that on Marvel
Speaker 1: is huge. And I think I've heard that from South
Speaker 1: Asian people, but I've heard that from people who are
Speaker 1: not South Asian but who are like the fact that
Speaker 1: you could include like this deep historical component on a
Speaker 1: major superhero franchise like show is pretty wild. And I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I think so. And you know, there's
Speaker 1: just things that I saw, like Fisha had sent me,
Speaker 1: like there was like a little bit of a like
Speaker 1: a Google search history um for you can kind of
Speaker 1: like see the Google metrics and stuff. After episode four,
Speaker 1: the search results for Partition like skyrocket, Like people were
Speaker 1: googling like what is the partition of Indian and focus
Speaker 1: on and so to literally be like, wow, we like change.
Speaker 1: The Google algorithm is pretty huge. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think also I saw a lot of people and a
Speaker 1: lot of South Asian people on Twitter being like I've
Speaker 1: never asked my family about our partition history, Like I've
Speaker 1: never asked about this, and now I'm going to go
Speaker 1: ask And then people were sharing their stories and to
Speaker 1: do something like that, like to have a moment like
Speaker 1: that in popular culture where you're like, you know, I
Speaker 1: I grew up never seeing South Asian people on TV,
Speaker 1: Like I, you know, it was like I think all
Speaker 1: of us did, where it was like there is no
Speaker 1: South Asian people and if we have them, their gas
Speaker 1: station owners or their doctors, or their terrorists or they're
Speaker 1: they're repressed Muslim woman, like, there's really no nuanced representation
Speaker 1: of South Asian people. M This right here is proof
Speaker 1: of how powerful the visual medium can be. Representation is important,
Speaker 1: but it needs to be accurate, show multiple types of
Speaker 1: groups instead of showing stereotypes. Fatima mentions a study that
Speaker 1: came out recently about Muslim representation by the Pillars Fund,
Speaker 1: an organization that champions Muslim voices. There was justice statistic
Speaker 1: that Pillars issue that was like one percent of characters
Speaker 1: on TV are Muslim and of the world's population is Muslim.
Speaker 1: And it's really disheartening when you occupy those bodies and
Speaker 1: you occupy those identities to say like damn, like really
Speaker 1: like you can't fathom my existence, Like you can't fathom
Speaker 1: that someone like me exists. With a rich, complicated history,
Speaker 1: with rich complicated identities. And I think that what I
Speaker 1: saw from the show overall was people responding to being
Speaker 1: like I feel seen, you know, thought them has the
Speaker 1: hope that with the success of the show, more stories
Speaker 1: about Muslims by Muslims can be made. They kind of
Speaker 1: are like a punch in the ceiling, like they allow
Speaker 1: for more things to happen because people then have a
Speaker 1: reference point to be able to say, like, well, look
Speaker 1: at the success of this, like look at what they did,
Speaker 1: Like look at how people felt seen. Now we can
Speaker 1: make more content that's like this, or we can make
Speaker 1: content that's different. But because this show exists, it allows
Speaker 1: for more freedom. Like I think one thing too about
Speaker 1: representation is that when you're so underrepresented that any time
Speaker 1: then you have a character that is of Muslim or
Speaker 1: salth Asian descent, they kind of have to be like
Speaker 1: perfect quote unquote, because then you're like, but then everyone's
Speaker 1: going to say that most some people are bad or
Speaker 1: it's gonna be this representational burden, and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: some mostli people are selfish, like some of some people
Speaker 1: are assholes, like some Muslim people are whatever, just like
Speaker 1: everyone is and I think that when you kind of
Speaker 1: have the first one to really go than what you
Speaker 1: allow for us people to get into more nuanced conversations
Speaker 1: about what does the slice of life version look like
Speaker 1: for Muslim people? What doesn't mean for Muslim people to
Speaker 1: have complicated identities where they're not good or bad, but
Speaker 1: whether they're just human and they get to exist in
Speaker 1: this kind of complicated existence. And I think that, um,
Speaker 1: when you have shows like this, it really becomes a
Speaker 1: blueprint or a openness for more things to be created
Speaker 1: in the aftermath of it. Unfortunately, Disney Plus is not
Speaker 1: available in Pakistan, but MS Marvel was released theatrically there
Speaker 1: with six episodes being screened two at a time. How
Speaker 1: special for Muslim kids to finally see themselves as a
Speaker 1: superhero on the big screen. The Indian and Pakistan borders
Speaker 1: are discussed or alluded to in some capacity in every
Speaker 1: single episode on this show. Next time, I sweet to
Speaker 1: dr Data a lecture on international relations, so further break
Speaker 1: down this topic with me from an historical perspective, Whether
Speaker 1: the border is open or closed, as you rightly said,
Speaker 1: is often a question of geopolitics. It's, you know, down
Speaker 1: to who's in power, who's not in power. There was
Speaker 1: at one point of bus that went to Lahore, there
Speaker 1: was a train that went to Taka, right, So there's
Speaker 1: this kind of bus diplomacy. There are trains on the
Speaker 1: eastern side of the border, and then every so often
Speaker 1: something happens like the Cargill War and these are shut down,
Speaker 1: you know. So there are moments in which diplomacy opens
Speaker 1: up these borders and moments in which the borders are
Speaker 1: closed until next week. I'm Nejazis and this is partition.
Speaker 1: Partition was developed as a part of the Next Up
Speaker 1: initiative created by Anna has Ni, a Joel Monique and
Speaker 1: the Sinia Median. Partition is produced by Anna Hosnier, Tricia
Speaker 1: Mukerjee and Becca Ramos. It is edited by Rory Gagan,
Speaker 1: with original score composed by Mark Hadley.