Parzania

Director: Rahul Dholakia

Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Sarika, Farzan Dastoor, Pearl Barsiwala, Raj Zutshi, Sheeba Chadda, Asif Basra, Corin Nemec

7.5/10

We all know about the notorious Godhra carnage and its bloody aftermath that kept Gujarat literally burning in a series of horrific ‘retaliations’ that rocked our nation and shocked our secular democratic sensibilities. These were no regular riots by retributive mobs or law offenders. This was ‘ordered chaos’ where innocent people were ‘allowed’ to be killed discriminately. We felt outrage, discussed anarchy to death, kept issues alive and unanimously predicted doom for a dubious state government which not only failed to protect citizens but made them vulnerable.

Director Rahul Dholakia’s done something more pro-active. He’s made a film based on a true story set in that shameful period of recent Indian history. And watching Parzania is a cathartic experience because through powerful images and individual personalised human accounts of events, the film draws you in as a witness to participate emotionally and you can’t remain indifferent, apathetic. You’re forced to get involved. The film uses a happy-go-lucky middleclass Parsi family as central characters who suddenly find themselves in the vortex of communal violence, hatred and madness. And their world comes crashing down, dreams shattered by its onslaught.

Protagonist Cyrus (Naseeruddin)is a projectionist at an old ramshackle film-theatre in Ahmedabad. Sarika is his loving wife and mother of their two kids — pretty eight-year-old Dilshad and bratty 10-year-old Parzan — who fantasises a perfect Peter Pan-esque imaginary land called ‘Parzania’ where “houses are made of chocolates” and India always wins cricket matches! But in reality, his childhood ends in post-Godhra nightmare.

To his credit, Dholakia skilfully evokes a sense of in-your face violence with minimal graphic depiction. Like Naseer searching for his son among charred dead bodies of neighbours in their building courtyard. Or explicit testimonies given by terrorised, victims/families to an investigation Commission. As one by one they relate experiences of helplessly watching their loved ones butchered, raped, tortured to death, it’s docu-fiction at its most effective. Because you vicariously feel the brutality to the pit of your stomach while they deliver their monologues through tears and sobs or bouts of anger and verbal descriptions more hard-hitting than visuals of cruelty.

The film has a superb cast who, like a familiar repertory theatre group, travels together along the narrative graph, each character major or minor, so good and convincing with her/his performance, you identify with them equally. The two child actors are cutely precocious. Sarika reinvents herself with amazing range in quintessential mother role. And Naseer, of course, leads this acting troupe like a powerful patriarch…and surpasses all. As he waits for missing son at the cinema and breaks down — to the awesome sound of Zakir Hussain’s fragmented, brassy jazz piece.

Mandira Mitra