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“Puri duniya Kashmir ko ignore kar rahi hai, jaise Kashmiri mard Kashmiri auraton ki khwahishon ko”, says a feisty Jannat Mirza in the second episode of Haq Se – the latest offering by ALTBalaji. This pretty much sets the premise of what is to follow...
A perfect amalgamation of substance and soul, Haq Se – at the surface – is a spectacular looking web series. But then you can’t except any less when the setting is Kashmir – still the paradise on Earth.
An adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic Little Women, Haq Se is an unflinching look at the dreary realities and political mayhem that has torn asunder families in Kashmir – the Mirza family being just one of the many.
At the helm of affairs is Rabiyah Mirza, a painstaking embodiment of the ‘half-wife-half-widow’ phenomenon in Kashmir. She is forced to become the “man” of the house after the sudden disappearance of her husband. His whereabouts are unknown much like several men in the war-torn valley. Nonetheless the family awaits his return with a hope that reeks of anguish and pain.
But instead of pining for the past, she wants to fight to reclaim it – giving hope in hopelessness. Her weapon is her pen and as a journalist, Jannat embodies the grit and determination of Kashmiris under any circumstance. She is also given the strongest dialogues in the web series. They strike us as uneasy revelations about our hypocritical presumptions about Kashmir and Kashmiris at large.
The line, “I want to talk..I need to talk..bahut ho gayi band darwaazon ke peeche dabi hui aawazon mei baatein...this is the irony we live in”, is particularly thought provoking. It lays bare the conundrum that most Kashmiris perhaps find themselves in – swaying between a desire to speak but restricted by the fear of repercussion.
Of course, a landscape such as this is bound to beget contradictions. This comes in the form of the volatile family dynamics of the Mirzas. The strains in the relationship of the sisters – who stand for different things – is too obvious to overlook. This is perhaps the most palpable, vis-à-vis their aunt Fatima (played by Simone Singh) and her extra-marital affair – a bone of contention for the family.
Fatima’s story is where the politics of Kashmir impregnates Haq Se. A subject of prying eyes and wagging tongues, Fatima is the “other woman” in the life of a powerful man. She is a woman he can, at most, have a surreptitious affair with. But he will never choose Fatima over his begum, izzat and rutba. Entangled in a complex web of politics and love, she becomes the subject – in whispers and in screams – of many unsavory tales. Simone Singh plays beautifully a wounded soul who is broken by the world she lives in and in a way is symptomatic of a Kashmir battling bewafai, pain and neglect.
There is sickening dose of slut-shaming and a complete rejection of love that doesn’t have social sanction – a typical chauvinistic patriarchal mindset at display. But to the credit of the makers, they remonstrate this hypocritical morality through Jannat. At one point she says, “Khushiyan aur insaaf milte nahi hai, cheenne padte hai...”
Where Haq Se falters is in the pointless caricaturisation of the 17-year-old Amal Mirza. She is the Lydia Beckham of the Mirza house – a frivolous teenager, a complete misfit. This is not to say that being a misfit is a bad thing but her character does little to take the narrative forward. We would instead want to see more of Bano in the coming episodes.
Some scenes are overtly dramatic like a glass of champagne thrown at Fatima’s face to chide the impious woman out of a pious nikaah ceremony. The constant squabble between Jannat and Amal is sometimes irritable. This undeniably reeks of a haywire indulgence in melodrama – something Indian makers are still struggling with.
The domestic and the public intersect taking the narrative forward. Along the way, we come across the very charming but visibly bitter Dr Naushad Rizvi, played to perfection by Rajeev Khandelwal. It has been a while since we last saw Rajeev on screen but by choosing to play Dr Rizvi, he has managed to make a riveting comeback of sorts.
But I would laud them for not letting Rajeev’s stardom seduce them into making him the ‘hero’ of the story. Because in this story, there are no heroes. Only aspirations and negotiations.
Watch Haq Se for Kashmir which gets reflected through the eyes of the Mirza sisters. Watch it for the inimitable Rajeev Khandelwal, who creates yet another memorable character in Dr Naushad Rizvi. Watch it perhaps to apprehend the angst of the Kashmiris beyond the cacophony of stone-pelting and countless crackdowns.
(Haq Se airs on ALT Balaji. This piece is based on the first three episodes of the series.)
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