In the name of God

…..Khuda ke liye

Raain, Saain, Sabhan Thaain
Rab Deyaan Bay Parwaaiyaan
Sohniyaan Paray Hatayaan Tay
Khoojiyaan Lay Gall Laiyaan

Khuda ke liye stings. Frequently and unapologetically. I finally got around to watching the Pakistani magnum opus last evening and I am referring to it as one not qua production values.
 The camera stalks the Muslim characters who are unraveling subsequent to the onset of the so called “Islamic terrorism” in a post 9/11 world.
I was meaning to watch it for a while and finally mustered enough gumption to saunter into the nearest theater, buy a single ticket and then stare at the 70 mm downing caramel popcorn by buckets.
The opening sequence declares the unsettling nature of the rest of the flick.

The director, Shoaib Mansoor,  traces the individual yet entwined journeys of Pakistani Muslims along 3 continents with cultures as diverse as chalk and cheese. This process takes a little over three hours and though the script has some glaring glitches in places, it works because Mansoor manages to reign in control at the right time despite some average performances.
Shaan as Mansoor(not to be confused with the director’s last name) is one half of the musician duo brothers with Fawad’s Sarmat being the other, anatgonist half. Their lives unravel through the course of the movie coupled with that of their Brit Pakistani cousin Maryam/Mary, essayed by Imam Ali.

Sarmat falls under the spell of the deceitfully charasmatic Imam whose deftly carved argument in the favour of fanatic Islam renders shape to his own thought process as a young Muslim in an affluent Pakistani family. The irony of a young zealot asking his mother to wear hijab is presented with a dab of black humor. The grandmother reminisces about how in the days of yore, the argument was about whether Munni(young girl) would wear an abaya. In today’s resurgence of militant Islam, the question is whether Ammi(mother) will wear the same purdah.
This argument is furthered at a later stage by Naseer’s(brilliant performace!) thinking mullah who is  anointed as the voice of reason in the movie. The question is if  the religion is in the beard or the beard is in the religion.  It encourages the mind to discard pre-conceived notions about Islam or the its superficial representation by power hungry votaries who are ably supplied material and manpower by those theocratic states who have twisted the Sharia laws beyong recognition.

The other and equally dark side of the coin is the treatment meted to the “liberal” brother who packs off  to the good ole US of A in search of a few musical notes and perhaps a little more. He falls in love, sings in the woods with his blue eyed Amreekan maiden and even manages to exchange some pleasantries with a fake beard Sardar. Till the twin towers collapse.
Thereon, its a downward spiral for Mansoor as he is labelled a terrorist and a zealot of no small measure by a drunk Surd. A “vigilant” white woman calls the police. Post 9/11 America is ridden with heightened fear of anything brown with an unpronounceable last name. This directly translates into musicman’s abduction by the state machinery and finally his extensive torture. All of this so that he admits his “secret” and the mostly non-existent liasions with “Osama”. He won’t budge and instead turns his cell into an I heart USA triubute gallery. But no amount of convincing is good enough for the conspiracy theory obsessessed CIA sleuths who add 9 and 11 and conclude that an arabic inscription locked in a talisman is the key to the twin tower blasts.

The movie alternates between being mediocre and magnific. The subject matter is naturally complex and yet for most part the director manages to let it flow on its own. The movie is fluid and lyrical in parts, the dialogues riddled with wit despite the preachiness thats exteriorized towards the fag end. Most of the performances aren’t anything to write home about except perhaps that of Shaan’s and Fawad as Sarmat doesn’t disappoint either. The shots of Afghanistan are odic.
However, its the underlying argument of this loosely woven story that refuses to abscond even after you have discarded the last kernels of your cold popcorn. What defines Islam in a post 9/11 world? For those who follow it as well as for those who have no acquaintance with it.
For the guided voices and the misguided ones. For those who have read the Koran with some comprehension as well as for those who may quote it ad verbatim but have no concept or understanding of the Hadith.
The questions are flung in an open space, the void that exists between the secatarian version of Islam, as perceived by the west and actualized by fanatical mujhaheeds and the rest of the world. This the space in which Liberal Islam is desperately fighting for its life. Or so I’m led to believe.

The key takeway from the movie was that, well, Bollywood is nowhere close to making anything like this anytime soon. Our obsession with Venetial blinds and subsidized Tarantino shows no signs of fading!