Director: Saeed Akhtar Mirza; Writer: Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Ashok Mishra; Cinematographer: Virendra Saini; Editor: Javed Sayyed; Cast: Kaifi Azmi, Mayuri Kango, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Surekha Sikri, Lalitmohan Tiwari, Salim Shah, Kay Kay Menon, Seema Kelkar, Ravi Jhankal, Dwarka Prasad, Makarand Deshpande,
Duration: 01:25:02; Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1; Hue: 202.133; Saturation: 0.244; Lightness: 0.239; Volume: 0.162; Cuts per Minute: 4.445; Words per Minute: 38.849
Summary: Understated but intense family drama set in
June-December 1992, the days preceding the
demolition of the Babri Masjid on Dec 6 by
Hindutva fanatics. Naseem (Kango) is a
schoolgirl belonging to a middle-class Bombaybased
Muslim family. She enjoys a warm
relationship with her aged, ailing grandfather
(Azmi). With increasing horror and foreboding,
the family watches on their television set the
news of the build-up at Ayodhya while the
grandfather regales Naseem with poetry and
stories of life in pre-Independence Agra,
shown in several flashbacks. Naseem’s brother
Mushtaq (Shah) tends towards desperate,
possibly terrorist measures of resistance which
pushes him towards Muslim fundamentalist
circles. The family feels increasingly
beleaguered by saffron-waving mobs and the
police who infest all public spaces. The
grandfather dies on December 6th, his death
coinciding with the news of the mosque’s
destruction. The film’s major feature, in
addition to its finely judged creation of moods
and its admirably controlled performances, is
noted poet and former radical Azmi playing the
grandfather, providing not just a reminder but a
literal embodiment of the cultural traditions
that were at stake in those tragic days.
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