I am not referring to PMS. Last evening I saw 2 movies back-back. ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’ and ‘Firaaq’. 2 totally opposite movies…completely different in moods, treatment, story, setting. One was set in upmarket New York while the other in Gujarat – some parts of it in a Muslim ghetto and some in a supposedly urbane locality.

While Confessions…was a sweet, fairy tale, bubble gum, candy floss film with a happy ending, Firaaq was a cathartic experience for me. This was a fairy tale too only the fairies were substitued with sorcerers and evil magicians who raped Cinderella in broad daylight and later in the cozy confines of their homes discussed whether they had fun doing “it”. They who called other’s wives ‘rasmalai’ and bashed their own women in the confines of their home. A fairy tale where names like Snow White and Peter Pan were substituted with Munira, Mohsin, Samir Arshad Sheikh and Anuradha Desai-Sheikh.

Firaaq certainly sent a chill down my spine. Every scene that implied an onslaught but showed none gave me goosepimples. Maybe because I was anticipating action…a slice of the chopper, a bullet fired, a house torched. But all I saw was the camera moving in various angles showing nothing yet revealing a lot. Eyes filled with dread, pupils dilating, nostrils flaring, lips quivering, hearts palpitating, palms sweating, throats parched…was it the characters in the movie or was it me on the other side of the screen? Me who was safely ensconsed in an AC theatre yesterday or in a protective coccoon in my home in a predominantly Hindu neighbourhood way back in 1993. Suddenly the lines separating us blurred. I was no longer a Hindu sympathetically watching a Muslim massacre by the saffron brigade. It was me in there. Panicking, shuddering, wondering am I prepared to face any such situation should it ever befall me?

The answer is No. I don’t know how I will handle this situation. Today I talk about human civilisation losing all its values, morals and principles. Will I be able to react as fearlessly should the tables ever turn on me? Maybe…maybe not…

Hat’s off to Nandita Das for making an honest fiction. A very in your face tale of Narendra Modi’s saffron brigade and the Godhra carnage. The director makes no bones about the facts, minces no words and uncovers all masks. 

Truth is bitter and it sure as hell hurts.