Earth, 1947
is a powerful narrative by Deepa Mehta that explores the dynamics of the
India-Pakistan partition prior to the creation of each of the two countries
from the perspective of a young Parsee girl, Lenny. While the movie, part of
Deepa Mehta’s Elements trilogy,
expectedly looks at the nuances of inflammatory and difficult topics such as
communalism and sectarian violence, there are a few key elements that stood out
for me:
·
Dismemberment as an overarching motif
·
Parsees in India through the eyes of Lenny
DISMEMBERMENT
Earth, 1947 has
unusually graphic scenes when compared to its peers in Bollywood and the larger
movie industry in South Asia. The most notable scenes are those that depict the
brutality that the Partition inflicted upon members across both sides of the
now-established, yet contentious India-Pakistan border. The first elements of
such gore are driven home through visual depictions of dismemberment -
foreshadowed by the scene where Aamir Khan is waiting worriedly, almost
frantically, for the train from Gurdaspur, carrying his two sisters. The train
eventually does arrive, but brings with it travelers who have been butchered on
the way – the extent of slaughter is conveyed by the butcher who says that the
train brought with it “four bags filled with the chests of women”. As the
Partition draws nearer, the violence that has been latent, now finally erupts
into the open. The rooftop scene, which depicted the beautiful kite-festival
for Lenny, is now used to witness the dismemberment of a Muslim man on the
streets of Lahore. Yet, while the violence in the movie stands to represent the
political split of a country that once housed Hindus and Muslims harmoniously
together, there is much more to dismemberment than that. The scene depicting
the marriage of Lenny’s friend to an old man (child marriage) seemed to allude
to the complete breakdown of values, security and belief in the society and
community. The scene where Dil Navaz, played by Aamir Khan, witnesses Shanta
kissing the Masseur, and realizes that he has completely lost his beloved – not
only has she emotionally committed to the Masseur, but has also decimated her
virtues by physically committing herself to another man. Thus, the motif of
dismemberment comes to pan a full circle, where ultimately the very earth
holding these people with their values, beliefs, judgments, fears and hopes is
ripped apart for eternity, and for what legitimate cause?
PARSEES
IN INDIA
The character of Lenny, played by the now-eminent blogger
Maia Sethna, introduced the viewers to Parsees in Asia – a community that has
long struggled to define its identity. While their origins are not addressed in
the movie, the repercussions of their history are evident in the way that the
consider themselves to be the “Swiss” of South Asia – pragmatic, rational and
self-protective, and this is seen in numerous instances in the movie where the
parents of Lenny carefully navigate the violence that is tearing Lahore apart.
So embedded is this sense of non-partisanship and non-confrontation, that
Lenny, in a scene where she is face-to-face with a child from a refugee camp,
is unable to grasp the differences that separates her from the child down the
ladder, and boils it down to just one factor – that she’s a Parsee. However,
the non-partisanship comes at a dear price, as the Parsees across both sides of
the border must now tread fine lines of loyalty – ones which are severely
tested at the very end where the family is brought out into the open and their
near and dear ones are taken away from them, and those that seemed to have
transcended religious differences, betray with impunity.
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