By Huned Contractor

Rahul Dholakia discusses his film Parzania, the true story of a boy who goes missing in the midst of the Gujarat riots

Truth is difficult to tell. But it must be told, whatever the repercussions. That’s the philosophy filmmaker Rahul Dholakia believes in. And that’s the belief that has driven him to not only make a film like Parzania but also wait for a whole year before he could find a distributor ready to make a commitment to release it across the country on January 26, Republic Day. An apt date, if ever there was one. As the nation gets into celebration mode once again, Parzania will expose the dark side of contemporary, globalising India.

The film, starring Naseeruddin Shah, Corin Nemec, Sarika, Parzan Dastur and Raj Zutshi, is set against the backdrop of the communal conflagration in Gujarat in early-2002, which left an indelible scar on the minds and hearts of people around the country and the world. “It is a true story about a young boy called Azar who went missing on February 28, 2002, after a mob attacked a Muslim-dominated neighbourhood in Ahmedabad. The child is still missing and I have used the film to appeal to people to respond with any news that may help the parents trace the boy,” Dholakia states.

The truth, though, is couched in layers of fiction. The film narrates the story through the eyes of Allan Webbings, a cynical, intelligent and mostly drunk American who arrives in Ahmedabad city. Allan has been searching for answers, praying to find both internal peace and understanding of the horrors that religious differences can create. Having chosen to study Mahatma Gandhi’s theories, he meets Cyrus, a local projectionist, who brings the troubled intellectual into the folds of his family. Cyrus is married to Shernaz, a practical woman, and they have two children – Parzan and his sister Dilshad. “The story works on two levels wherein Cyrus fights for his own sanity after the loss of his child and Allan battles to uncover the reasons behind the riots,” Dholakia explains.

Naturally then, the tragic burning of a train coach in Godhra in which 59 Hindu passengers were killed, features in the film. The statewide violence left around 2,000 dead, a majority of them Muslims. “I wanted to dwell upon the plight of a couple whose child has been snatched away, but how could I not have brought in the reality of what really happened? If the film has been tagged one-sided, it is so only to the extent that my sympathies lie with the family. It is true that many people who have seen the film do not agree with many things but they all feel that what happened was wrong.”

Reminded that the press staged a walk-out during his press conference during the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) 2005 because they felt he was stoking communal fires all over again, Dholakia says, “Believe me, that has never been the objective. What happened in Gujarat also has a universal ring to it. Something like this can happen anywhere in the world. It’s a film about people, not about religion.”

 Dholakia, who was born and brought up in Ahmedabad and later pursued film studies in the United States, shot the film in Gujarat. “No one knew I was shooting a film with this particular subject. There is a scene showing activists of a radical Hindu group planting saffron flags on Hindu households and shops run by the majority community in a neighbourhood to mark places not to be touched while attacking the minority community. We got away with the shoot because people thought we were members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad,” Dholakia recalls.

Dholakia ends with a fervent appeal: “I want viewers to focus on the humanity aspects in the story. Let this not happen to anyone ever again is the message that must get across.”

-- Huned Contractor
(Huned Contractor is a freelance journalist and filmmaker based in Pune) 

InfoChange News & Features, January 2007