Haider: The Representation of ‘Home’

Haider depicts the vengeful conquests of a son trying desperately to avenge the death of his father. It follows him through his journey of getting to know more information about his father’s disappearance, which eventually lends the way for the intense drama and competing conflicts. It is set in the background of Kashmir, which draws upon the rising tensions between Pakistan and India in a drawn-out power struggle over control of the area. It portrays the prevalence of militarization and army authority in the environment, and represents the crippling impact on civilian lifestyles. One of the recurring motifs in the film is the representation of ‘home’ and how the physical entity goes on to further depict the current turmoil of Kashmir.

The film opens with Hilal attempting to save a militant’s life and offering his home as a place to perform the life-saving operation. The unusual location for the procedure is indicative of the surreptitious nature of the events to follow. The use of ‘home’ is a personal word, but when Hilal opens his home to be the place of operation, it seems like somewhat of an invasion of personal space. This is suggestive of the muddled line that Hilal crosses between his personal life and his occupation. He had an intense passion for saving the “ill”, a metaphor for his need to ‘restore his ‘ill’ hometown to health’, that sometimes overshadows his commitment to his family and others in his environment (Baradwaj Rangan).

Our first introduction to Ghazala in the film is when she stands in front of the classroom to teach the students, most probably in the context of an English class, with the question “what is a home”. She goes on to suggest descriptions of the meaning of home: “it is brothers and sisters, and mothers and fathers” and “it is unselfish acts of kindness”. Her descriptions are simplified and single-faceted in such a way that it becomes superficial. It is idealistic but is no longer possible in the depressing current state of affairs.  She goes on to ask the question one more time, but the film shows her finally looking at the van that her husband is in with the injured militant. Her face falls flat as she sees her husband, in a way acknowledging the words that she repeats to the students, in a brainwashing and robotic way, are not true. The wide-angle shot again seems to make her seem small in the context of the classroom amongst the more significant events to follow.

When the house is burned to the floor, the physical transformation is representative of the current state of Kashmir. The once largely luxurious and comfortable ‘home’ had been turned into ashes that are unaccommodating and actually degrading to the individuals in it or associated to it. The interaction between the militant stuck in the house and Hilal in the scene is very symbolic of the state of Kashmir. People that are not Indian natives, as represented by the militant, are seen as the obvious enemy. They are fought with directly through the aggressive nature of the military, and the military usually wins through sheer resources. The militant hiding in the cupboard and stuck in the house shows how the military seeks out those who are not solely Indian natives and corners them into a position where they can attack. They want to bury these views in Kashmir. Hilal, a partaker in the fostering of the militant, is seen also as responsible for being disloyal to India; he is also severely punished and murdered for his actions. However, he agreed to do the surgery because he was unbiased in his views, not for the purpose of helping the enemy. This is representative of the view that every person who is not seen to be completely for the Indian control of Kashmir is actually against India and serves as a threat.

While Haider is adapted and draws inspiration from Hamlet, it has some strong parallels but also contains character omissions and differing character portrayals (Yash Movie Analysis: Haider). The general literature surrounding the film acknowledges this relationship between the original novel and the modern movie. The movie is able to successfully infuse elements of Hamlet, while still largely maintaining a unique perspective to represent a disturbing time in Indian history. As the motif of ‘home’ continues to reappear multiple other times in the film, the scope of this paper would simply not allow for an examination of the entire progression of the meaning of the word. However, it attempts to build the basis of the meaning and representation of the home such that becomes obvious that it is an extended metaphor in the film.