Film Review

A waif’s travails in the lost paradise

By

Bhawani Cheerath Rajagopalan

“Agar firdaus bar roo-e-zamaan ast
Hameen ast-o hameen ast-o hameen ast”

(“If there is a paradise on the face of the earth,
It is this, it is this, it is this)
                              -Amir Khusrau on Kashmir

These lines kept coming back to my mind while I watched Tahaan by cinematographer-filmmaker Santosh Sivan. The film only confirms what his earlier films Halo and Malli have proved. He has mastered the art of using children as protagonists in his films and successfully does some good storytelling on the screen. In the quotidian existence of Tahaan (Purav Bhandare), the little hero of the film he has woven the poignancy of a childhood in the shadow of conflict.

Was it only about a lost childhood? Not really. The equanimity with which families accept the insecurity of living amidst the growing presence of the armed forces, was unspooling for us.

There is no taking sides by the director. There is an authenticity he lends to the film by not going hammer and tongs to reach out to the viewer. No detachment this either. A well scripted film which does not intend throwing the dice in favour of any one character.

Tahaan, has been shot mainly in Pahalgam. The dignified silence of the mountains that serve as a boundary to the events unfolding in the foreground creates an insularity, but does not insulate the space from the rat-tat-tat of gunfire, or the wails of women over shrouds waiting to be identified.

Early in the film little Tahaan, seen always in tow with his grandfather (Victor Banerjee), has all the questions that a nine year old tends to ask a grandparent.  “Try grasping the sun’s rays in your palms,” says the grandfather and the next morn Tahaan lies in bed trying to capture the elusive band of sunbeam in his cupped hands. Probably the elder had used it metaphorically but the innocent Tahaan is determined to carry out what his grandfather had suggested.

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