Never a Bollywood film fan, in fact a hard critic, one went to see Haider with some trepidation. A Bollywood cast--and perhaps with the sole exception of Tabu who has managed to bring some sterling performances to celluloid---the others rather ‘mainstream’ and dumb down mainstream really. The one redeeming thought was that the director Vishal Bhardwaj had some good cinema like Maqbool to his credit, and of course Basharat Peer’s story. But Bollywood is notorious for making mincemeat of good stories, so the last was not really a consoling factor.

However, Haider had to be seen as it was on Kashmir. And the boycott hashtag that had attached itself to the film by the clearly intolerant, hardline lobby that exists in India as it does in all countries could just mean that there was something to disturb those who think along intolerant lines. And hence, it could mean that there just might be something in the film that was real and hence true.

Well to put it mildly I was not prepared for Haider. And was absolutely shocked to find that one, there were people out there like Bhardwaj who could make a film as bold as this one; and two, there was a censor board that did not come in the way and actually allowed the movie through its red tape. And three, the realisation after the movie running in packed halls, that the intolerant lot are indeed a minority as Indians sat through the movie, absorbed, interested, and accepting. All three points to my mind reflect a change in attitude that will be further explained in the following paragraphs.

There is a Kashmir narrative that cannot escape a honest and impartial observer visiting the Valley. It is a narrative of perceived and real injustice, of atrocities, of enforced disappearances, of half widows whose husbands were picked up by security forces including the Army without any information of whether they are alive or dead, of detention centres and torture, of clampdowns, and crackdowns, and curfews, of frisking and humiliation, of fear and alienation. It is topped by the demand for independence, a pulling away, an assertion that if seen against the backdrop of justice and right violations can be understood even if not accepted by many in India.

Haider deals with all this and more. And with amazing sensitivity and simplicity. It is bold and courageous and does not leave issues under the carpet at any level. I am amazed that Bhardwaj has been able to capture the face of the Indian Army in Kashmir, as being so different from the Army the rest of us know. Operation Bulbul where the commander openly tells his people to finish them, the camera stopping briefly on an Army hoarding---that adorn Kashmir---which in this cases says, ‘if you have got them the balls you have got their hearts and minds’ (some such words), the harsh interrogation of the youth who keep screaming their innocence even as they are beaten and tortured in the Mama 2 , one of the many detention centres referred to in the film, the frisking and the fear of curfew ---as Tabu runs out to stop Haider from leaving warning him there was curfew, worrying that he would not return----its all there recorded in this Indian version of Hamlet.

The movie does not make any judgements, it just a narrative, take it or leave it. And that is its beauty and its strength. The director is not visible trying to force his views down your throat, it is a story in the reality of Kashmir, and it is for the viewer to trash it, accept it or at least try and understand it.

The movie also dwells at some length on the informers from within, on the distortions within Kashmiri character where there are those who inform the security forces about each other, and move to any length to assert their loyalties to the system that is heavily weighed against the average Kashmiri. The two who are cast to portray this appear to be comedians at the onset but Bhardwaj with his masterful direction slowly gets across the sinister undercurrents to them, their conscience-less, violent personalities. Informers cultivated by the Indian (and perhaps even Pakistani) agencies in Jammu and Kashmir have always been a problem that the ordinary Kashmir has had to, but hates to, grapple with. These men have managed to imbue Kashmiri society with distrust and suspicion , dividing the bonhomie, and crippling the unity within.

The issue of half widows and their trauma I think is handled very sensitively by Bhardwaj. And perhaps best summed up by Tabu when she re-marries her lost husbands brother and says, “I am a half widow, and a half bride.” Of course this story also suffers from some exaggerations as it is central to the Hamlet plot that Haider follows.

But the biggest contribution of Haider is the ability of the director to actually go into the root cause of terrorism in a strange Hamlet kind of way. Haider is just a young boy sent away by his parents to study in Aligarh and thereby be safe from the security forces and militants both. His father, a doctor with integrity, is treating a militant as well not because he sympathises but because he is a doctor with a conscience. The man needs surgery and the doctor has him brought to his home where he performs the appendix operation and allows the patient to recuperate. Within hours there is a crackdown in the village and the army, acting on a tip off, pick up the doctor. There is an encounter with the militants in the doctors house, and then happens what all Kashmiris speak of with dread. Under a more recent strategy, the Army takes the easy way out and just blows up the house along with surviving militants. This by the way is commonplace strategy now, and even articulated in the movie: “dont lose men, blow up the house.” And Tabu sees her home finished, her husband arrested to eventually become a statistic adding to the number of disappearances. Interestingly the Association for Disappeared Persons figures in the film, as part of the efforts of Kashmiris to trace their loved ones.

Haider returns to a gutted house, and finds his mother having an affair with her brother-in-law. Hurt and angry, he however turns to the law, and moves from police station to police station trying to find his father. He is humiliated and insulted but does not give up. He is upset, distraught, and does not know how to deal with the loss at all levels. In the midst of this a militant Roohdar, a cameo role played to perfection by Irfan, contacts him and in what is clearly a recruitment drive tells him that he was in jail along with his father, that the arrest was a frame-up by his fathers brother, and just before dying his father had told him that he should contact Haider and tell him to take revenge.

The story then closely follows Haider’s development if it can be called that from an innocent, and rather directionless youth to an angry man consumed by hate and of course confusion. More so as his uncle tells him that his father was killed by Roohdar, and that he would not rest until he found him. Haider is clearly confused here, but his mind is made up against his uncle when his mother decides to marry him. And in the process a violent young man takes birth.

And what stuns is the ease with which Bhardwaj brings in the thorny issue of plebiscite and has the main protagonists ---in this case Shahid Kapoor---actually speaking of Kashmir being at the centre of the politics being played by Pakistan and India. And characters within raise the issue of plebiscite as a desired goal, maintaining that this was promised by India’s late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru himself. Amazing! And the audience in Delhi, as one looked around, watched in silence, staying till the end of the movie and declaring it be “good” as they walked out. This country has changed, the young people have changed but the intolerant seniors, the politicians and the bureaucracy just do not recognise the change. Or is that they recognise it but cannot deal with it?

Of course the last 40 odd minutes of the movie become totally Bollywood, over the top and unbelievable. But then Bhardwaj can be excused for this because of the nature of the audience one presumes. However, the first half or more of Haider stays as it is the more powerful part of the long film, controversial, bold and a must see.

(If reports that Haider has been banned in Pakistan are indeed true, one can only marvel at the insecurity of the government there. In fact Haider has little to say on Pakistan, it is about Kashmir)