Haider- Glance through the emotional saga of life.- 10th October 2014

Haider was a simply a wonderful movie with a well written story. After a long gap I watched a Hindi movie and feeling good. Life is mixed with many emotions but depictions of emotions in the screen which can provide viewers an intense feeling is to be really appreciated. It was not just a story of Kashmir and the terrorist veil. It is a movie with intense emotions experienced by less fortunate people who live in uncertainty. Haider could convey the real sense of the fight for survival in the life, family and society and reminds us of the importance of our basic rights. How traumatically the lives of people are been changed and how they are plunged into a pile of the deep frustration by the conflicts. What to say, the mysterious ways of treating human beings. Is it a double standard? Those in power have one fate and the hapless, voiceless ones have another fate. Who decides these? Who become victims?

Some of the scenes in the movie reminded me of the two books I read this year. ‘Curfew Nights’ based on Kashmir conflict by Basharat Peer and ‘Almond Tree’ written by the Jewish American Michelle Cohen Corasanti which is based on Palestinian conflict. Both books revealed painful experience of human beings in the wake of impending terror and uncertainity. Both books bring tears in our eyes with their classical depiction human helplessness at each level of life in the midst of social and national conflicts.

Coming to Haider, the depiction of three levels of emotions really raises few questions. How can a woman be unfaithful to her life partner and at the same time passionately love the child born out of that same blood ; to love the son who loves his father more than his mother. How to read son and mother relation? For son, there is the love for his mother as well as hatred as she cheated his father. The movie actually throws light on how intricate is the dynamics of human emotions.

But this triangle story of emotions brought to light another dimension of life which is related to social aspect . Son Haider was actually pushed out of home for higher studies by mother as she was concerned about the safety of his life. When mother became selfish about her son actually he was losing the right to live in his birth place as well as he was denied the closeness of his father who was a committed doctor. Forcefully, his mother made him to ignore the pain and trauma of fellow beings as well as the real agony of social conflict. His father loved him, loved his fellow beings and he loved his land and society. When society demanded more time from him as a doctor, it ended up in giving minimal time for his wife. She was always insecure and could not understand her husband’s cause. Like an average woman, she couldn't think beyond her own shell and begun to search for a soothing place both for her body and mind. She was selfish. When the mother said yes to second marriage, it was not out of her love towards her son, but it was a big yes to her own selfish needs. High integrity and low integrity under a single umbrella at a same time… so nature plays role in the form of evil thought which leads to destruction of the system. But the father-son relationship lies on the ground of humanistic values which both of them had. More than their personal comfort they preferred kindness to fellow men. Yes, emotions are like a rainbow with its multiple colours… you can like any one colour but still all colours will exist together despite your liking, your wish…