The Hindu Business Line : Speedy camera work spoils the show

My friend, the less than 10-year old Noor Alam, working in a tea shop in Borivili, resembles Purav Bhandare, the little fellow in Santosh Sivan’s film Tahaan. Film critics having given a four-star welcome to the release, we went to InOrbit in Malad to see the Sunday afternoon show with a ticket costing Rs 160. There were about 30 people in the theatre and wife Rama nodded off by the first hour and one had to order popcorns and colas to keep her eyes open.

One watched the two-hour film, liked the camera work (Kashmir is photogenic, anyway) and felt let down by the story line. Santosh Sivan has a creditable library of films; it does not follow that everything he comes up with is top grade and surely not the camera work in Tahaan.

Shots jump around and the lens never finds a resting place for the viewer to inhale the shot. Making Tahaan carry a grenade for the return of Birbal is not childhood gained. It is a fact that in many parts of Africa, children have been forcibly made soldiers. Possibly, one could have told a Kashmir tale by getting Tahaan go with his donkey Birbal on a donkey ride through the much-blooded, wailing, lost-limbs land of icy mountains, chinar trees, birds, and scary, assorted guns and bombs.

Kashmir could have been conveyed through the eyes of Tahaan and Birbal with some less speedy camerawork. Indian soldiers, separatists, ordinary humans — all dying to live or living to die — could have made a disturbing montage. Tahaan, as placed on the screens, is a bit loose-ended. Maybe, Santosh Sivan wanted it that way. For this writer, Tahaan is a two-star show. A small doubt: How has the film been received in Kashmir? Anupam Kher, Victor Banerjee, Sarika do their parts well and the last shot of Tahaan with Birbal pleases the viewer. Wonder, where Sivan got the donkey. The donkey is a Zen Master and the preferred animal for this writer. Sivan is stuck between Tahaan the kid, and Tahaan, the kid with a grenade.

Ishmael Beah describes the cruel conversion of children into killers in his book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a boy soldier. “We must strive to be like the moon,” says the grandmother in the book as none grumbles when the moon shines. Ishmael Beah then notes: “Each night when the moon appeared in the sky, I would lie on the ground outside and quietly watch it. I wanted to find out why it was so appealing and likable.

“I became fascinated with the different shapes that I saw inside the moon. Some nights I saw the head of a man. He had a medium beard and wore a sailor’s hat. Other times I saw a man with an axe chopping wood, and sometimes a woman cradling a baby at her breast.

“Whenever I get a chance to observe the moon now, I still see those same images I saw when I was six, and it pleases me to know that that part of my childhood is still embedded in me.” There are no such stanzas in Tahaan.

The first hour of the film is engaging with the love of Tahaan for his donkey Birbal well brought out. In the second hour, when Tahaan throws away a hand grenade into a pond to get back his Birbal is a no show. Children have no messages, thankfully.

Satyajit Ray in Pather Panchali realised it long ago. Apu and Durga strike up a chamber music of their own. Without money on hand they follow a candy seller, enjoy the theatre, watch a steam locomotive for the first time …. Durga’s joyous whirl in the rains, the two watching a death … without comment.

In 2002, Vishal Bharadwaj came with Makdee – a story of a little girl and a witch which glued the public to their seats. Last year, Aamir Khan did the same with Darsheel Safary in Taare Zameen Par and again Darsheel says nothing. Sivan does not get it right with Tahaan.

In a Web site interview Bikas Mishra asks Sivan about the experience of working with a child actor. “Most child actors are spontaneous. They are very good actors, its only their mood swings, and attention span are really of concern, of course, when you have a child actor it is better to go his way and he calls the shots.” Left to himself, Tahaan could possibly have done the story better as surely not many children in Kashmir know anything about grenades.

Modern fables, unlike the older versions, are necessarily amoral as all the morals have long been stated and done with. Old tales could have changed living ways, though one has doubts. Modern fables do not offer that comfort. They can be a string of observations, sometimes uncomfortable. It’s like watching a football match from the stands – the public cannot influence the match. One may protest, one may throw stones but the match will have to continue or be abandoned. There is a winner and a loser, nothing else.

To Mishra’s question whether Tahaan is a political film, Sivan says: “Whether one likes it or not, the place where it is filmed is important to the individual, so it also deals with events that affect the lives of the people”. Is Sivan admitting that Tahaan is a political film? If so, it is not on the screen.

On the Web sites, there is the curious aside that Kashmir has no donkeys, only mules and the crew took some trouble to get the handsome beast, Birbal.

This writer would recommend for reading to Sivan an essay by Derek Tangye titled, A Donkey in the Meadow. The Tangyes land up with Penny, a donkey in their Minack farm. It delivers a kid, Fred. Over time, Penny and Fred become pets – donkeys as pets.

On Christmas Eve, Derek and his wife Jeannie take mince pies to them in the stable. “Inside we lit a candle in an old-fashioned candlestick and put it on the window sill. The light flickered softly. It flickered on their white noses, their eager faces, their giant rabbit-like ears. They pushed their heads forward, nuzzling us in expectation. ……Here we are with two biblical creatures eating mince pies…. In a stable … On Christmas Eve,” writes Derek Tangye. Yet it is, “Santosham, Santosh Sivan, for Tahaan”.

P. Devarajan

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