A sneak peek at 3 films screened at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival

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Their Pink of Rebellion
Who knows of Sampat Pal? At the helm of a group of women decked in pink saris, an extraordinary middle-aged woman called Sampat Pal. Radical, rustic and sure of herself, Sampat — the leader of Gulabi Gang advocating women’s rights — is a messiah for her sisters in Uttar Pradesh, Pink is their defining colour, almost as extreme as the red of politics. Sampat battles a host of psychological, social and medical problems women around her routinely face: patriarchy, caste prejudice, gender discrimination, child marriage, domestic violence, thoughts of suicide and, above all, fear. Tireless, in turn tough as nails, rough as hay, soft as butter, a woman of the soil, she is generous and provides material and emotional succour to young and old alike. A burgeoning number of young girls find shelter in her home.
Pink Saris, a film by award-winning British filmmaker Kim Longinotto, was screened at the recently held Abu Dhabi Film Festival in the Documentary Competition section and got the Best Documentary Award. Longinotto’s documentary days go back to the 1970s. Over three decades she has drawn sensitive, compassionate portraits of women from Japan, Iran, Kenya, Cameroon, Egypt and England among others. Rough Aunties (2008) won the Jury Prize at Sundance, and Longinotto received an Outstanding Achievement Award for her career at the Hot Docs Film Festival this year. Pink Saris is the latest chapter in her chronicle of women’s plight in different countries.
Through the dusty lanes of a UP village, through its fields and its slush trots Sampat Pal, taking on one and all in her fight for justice — village elders, the authorities, the police. No man can counter her. She bullies, threatens, alternately cajoles, consoles, proffers advice, sprinkles aphorisms in words that are simple and rooted in her reality; she instils respect for woman, family harmony and, most of all stresses education as the saviour and emancipator at public hearings surrounded by her cohorts in pink. Her negotiating skills are considerable and she exhorts women to have faith in themselves. But beneath the comforting words, Sampat is nothing if not subversive. She organises public weddings for young inarticulate couples in love who belong to different castes. “We choose our clothes, our food,” she says candidly. “Why not our life partners?” “Your gods can go to hell,” she fumes at a man who brings deities into social issues — and shames him into silence with a few choice expletives. “Woman is the greatest goddess.”
Mother-like, aunt-like, pleader, tormentor, teacher, organiser, Sampat Pal, a self-made woman, was married at 12. She bore children but left her husband to live with an upper caste man, Babuji, who does little in life. But she did have troubled years when she supported her children by selling tea on the streets. Later, endowed as she was with a feisty nature, she took up cudgels on behalf of the shy and frightened women and became their rallying point. But her tactics and interventions, though never half-hearted, don’t always end well. Towards the end of this inspiring documentary the tables are turned on her: We find a changed Babuji, accusing her of arrogance and neglect and of destroying all that they had worked for together. And it’s now the turn of one of her protégés to give her the comfort that she normally extended to others.
For all that, Pink Saris is shot with gusto, warmth and clear admiration for this unbelievable woman, an oddity in her small town. “Women have nothing but tears,” she says to a young girl who has come to her for help. “But I won’t let the darkness swallow you.” India could do with hundreds like her.

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The champion and the outlaw
Yes, India does forget its heroes, its sportsmen. Paan Singh Tomar is one name among others. From a farming community in a small Madhya Pradesh town, Tomar, a gifted runner, joined the Bengal Engineers regiment of the Army and went on to become a steeplechase champion, an event he dominated for seven years. He was a star at the Indian National Games and the Asian Games in Tokyo in 195, setting up a record that remained unbroken for 10 years. But that is not what he is remembered for. Following his phenomenal victories, he returned to his village in the Chambal Valley and got embroiled in a land feud with his own cousins. His sports glories faded as he fought for his rights and when confronted with a corrupt local police, he turned to arms and to vengeance. Once he brought home awards; now he had a reward on his head. Tomar was killed in an encounter with the police in 1981.
Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Paan Singh Tomar is a biopic on this athlete-turned-rebel. The film, big bang Bollywood-style and dedicated to the unsung heroes of Indian sport, had a gala screening at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival on October 20. “I am sure Paan Singh is watching us from up there,” said the director as he took the stage. Dhulia was born and raised in Allahabad, studied English, economics and history before joining the National School of Drama. He has worked with eminent theatre directors, such as B.V. Karanth and Satyadev Dubey among others, and has extensive experience in television. He has also been writing dialogues for films — his best-known was Mani Ratnam’s Dil Se. In 2000, he made his first feature film, Haasil, whose story is set against the background of university politics and its impact on the lives of students. Charas was a thriller about drug cartels.
Irrfan Khan as Paan Singh knows instinctively how to get under his character’s skin and plays him to perfection. His body language embodies his rural origins to begin with, then mutates gradually. He is humble, somewhat diffident, yet a man of conviction, unafraid to speak his mind even before his superiors. In the Army, he learns discipline and control, inculcates the competitive spirit. Then, as dramatic changes catapult him onto the periphery of society, Paan Singh the runner grows into Paan Singh the rebel. As his cousins usurp his land and thrash his son to pulp, no hand of law reaches out to him in this feudal set up. Quite the opposite: the police is corrupt, the Army and his former coach take a backseat or proffer advice he will not accept. There’s no recourse left but to pick up the gun. See Irrfan’s body language then: self-assured, fearless and angry.
In the ravines, the rebels have their code of honour. “It’s pran jayey par vachan na jayey kind of code,” said Tigmanshu Dhulia. “In the Chambal region, it’s a matter of pride to be a rebel. These rebels were fighters during Mughal times; later they turned mercenaries and dacoits. I met several who had surrendered when I was with Shekhar Kapoor during the shooting of Bandit Queen.”
The chemistry between director and actor was complete. “I only had Irrfan in mind when the idea came to me,” said Dhulia. “He understands the whole film, and not just his role,” he said. “When he gave me the idea, it pierced me,” concurred Irrfan Khan. “Just his telling me about it was enough. I wondered when the film would be made.” With so perfect a rapport, it’s little wonder that Irrfan puts in an exceptional performance, striding honour and vendetta, reluctant to break the rebels’ social code but never reluctant to wield the gun when necessary. As Paan Singh (with a commendable performance by Mahie Gill as his wife), he inspires loyalty, but then, enmities run deep in the valley. Who can escape the tattlers and the moles?
Dhulia said he felt an overwhelming need to tell Paan Singh’s story. He calls his film “middle of the road”, done in a style he terms “attractive realism” and modelled after — in his words — Mani Ratnam and Shekhar Kapoor. Despite its bang bang approach where each frame seeks to impress the audience with its coarse, rustic language and music that leads you on and compels you to feel what the author wants you to feel, where every other moment is a moment of high drama, Paan Singh Tomar is sure to shake our memory about those who have been left unsung or forgotten.

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The bored & the beautiful
Pakistani director Hammad Khan’s first feature film Slackistan (screened at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival as part of the New Horizons Competition) is a cheeky, funny and bitter-sweet story set in Islamabad, “the city that always sleeps”. A bunch of UK educated upper middle-class youngsters speaking a version of Urdlish, likeable but bored, charmingly cynical yet untested, moneyed and directionless, want to live it up but have nothing to do, chase girls but don’t get any. They resemble upper middle-class youth anywhere but, as the film progresses, we understand what makes them different.
Along the way, through casual meetings, mild flirtations, costly cars and mobiles, the flashing of wealth, the purchase of condoms by one young man, Sherry, (“the chances of his using them are minimal,” says his friend, “but on the other hand, everyone in Islamabad needs protection, you never know when you can get screwed.”), Hammad Khan conjures up a brief and breezy picture of a city split in two: Islamabad’s near perfect Master Plan with its sectors and straight streets, all neatly named; and the areas outside this grid, the quarters reserved for those who cook and serve and clean up. Tongue-in-cheek and ironical as much in language as in thought, Slackistan shows a whacky lifestyle close to peril.
Three young men and two young women have little to do and nowhere to go. One, Hasan, has a camera and dreams of becoming a director; another breezes around on borrowed money till the lender catches up with him; a girl leaves for the US, hoping to join a man she knows and hopes to fall in love with while “doing her own thing”; another girl gets labelled a “whore”. Troubled, she removes her makeup. There is plenty of self-mockery and violence that underpin the casual banter (“I want that chick.” “She’s interested in another guy.” “To kya hua? Guy ko hata denge.” Or, on the sidewalk, a young man with a mobile says to another: “Here, see how he slit the throat?” Or again, on seeing kids playing cricket: “Once, the whole world used to be scared of playing Pakistan. Now they are scared of playing in Pakistan.”). And the frequent references to the Taliban remind you that beneath the frivolous words is a deeply troubled nation and a people not too sure of itself.
And yet, there is poignancy and flashes of humanity, true friendship and a feeling that this is my home. We still don’t know if these kids are really happy or in denial, and the films is as rough as the local tongue, but you do emerge laughing. “Be forewarned,” Hammad Khan told me. “My next one will be depressing.” Slackistan looks what it is — a first film. But increasingly, we are getting to see and appreciate the viewpoints of Pakistani directors as they try to navigate the tempestuous waters of their country.