Garm hava (1973)

गरम हवा

While many fine movies have addressed the disruptive forces of Partition, M.S. Sathyu's Garm hava ("hot wind") is almost unique in its focus on the experiences of Muslims.  It is not by any stretch a cheery film - but there are some heartrending stories that nevertheless need to be told. 

The Mirza family is divided in the aftermath of Partition.  Though they have long made their home in Agra, the prospects for Muslims in post-Partition India are not encouraging, and some of the family want to start anew across the border in Pakistan.  Halim Mirza (Dinanath Zutshi), once a political leader fiercely determined to preserve a Muslim presence in India, has finally given up and fled.  This leaves his brother Salim (Balraj Sahni) as head of the household, looking after the family's shoemaking business and the haveli in which they live.  The business is struggling - many of the workers have left India, and some Hindus refuse to do business with Salim.  He cannot secure financing - lending to Salim is too risky, the bankers say, because other Muslims haven taken loans and disappeared across the border.  Soon the family loses the haveli as well - its deed is in Halim's name, and because of his emigration the government claims the haveli as abandoned property. 

As time goes on, the family's lot only worsens.  Unwilling to join a shoemakers' demonstration in favor of a lucrative government tender, Salim is locked out of the tender when it is granted.  Meanwhile, Salim's daughter Amina (Geeta Siddharth) nurses a heart broken by Partition.  She is in love with Halim's son Kazim (Jamal Hashmi), who is arrested when he crosses the border back into India to marry her.  Salim's son Sikandar (Farooq Shaikh), a recent graduate, cannot find work because of both anti-Muslim prejudice and the unstable economy, and becomes increasingly involved in politically radical activities. As the hardships mount, Salim and his wife (Shaukat Kaifi) consider joining Halim in Pakistan, but Agra is their home, and they are determined to stay as long as the dire circumstances will allow.   

The repercussions of Partition through the Mirza family are like fault lines, cracks in firm earth resonating outward from a single point of thunderous impact.  Though Garm hava traces each of these lines, it places the burden of all of them on Salim, and they are beautifully rendered in the sad creases of Balraj Sahni's face.

The Hindus who impede the Mirza family's efforts to right their economic ship are, for the most part, disembodied voices.  A banker who refuses to lend, a landlord offering exorbitant and discriminatory rental terms, an employer advising Sikander to go find work in Pakistan "among your own kind" - all these are dehumanized forces denying the Mirza family an honorable livelihood.  One of the few Hindus who is given a face, and some depth, is the wealthy businessman Ajmani (A.K. Hangal).  Ajmani certainly takes advantage of the Mirza family's straits - he buys the haveli on the cheap after the government confiscates it - but he also shows ambivalence about doing so, and attempts to support the family in other ways. His personal kindness to them, however, does not outweigh the demands of business.  The message may be that even Hindus who wish to extend a cordial hand to Muslims are constrained by the broader post-Partition climate. As a voice-over announces in the beginning of the film, "No one heeds the Gita; no one heeds the Koran" - and yet, the difference between these two texts both drives and limits the conduct of everyone in the new nation. 

The visual style of the film is arresting - artfully framed scenes full of contrast and visual symbolism reminiscent of Satyajit Ray.  Some of these scenes make use of the fine slits and shadows of the haveli's old purdah, which only the family's frail, aged matriarch still sits behind - the other women of the family move about the house freely among the men. The purdah itself represents the sharp line between the old and the new - the matriarch, too weak to leave the haveli much less flee India, cannot (or refuses to) fully fathom the depth of the changes wrought by Partition; on the other side of the curtain, the rest of the family struggles to adapt to them.

Garm hava also makes exquisite use of the beautiful monuments in and near Agra that were built by Muslims, such as the Taj Mahal and Fatehpur Sikri.  The explicit citation of these Muslim contributions to Indian pride and history is unsubtle, and the film acknowledges it explicitly in one of Halim's fiery political speeches shown in flashback early in the film. But it does conjure a pointed image - the possibility of India completely empty of Muslims, with these grand, breathtaking monuments standing in mute or even mocking testimony to the memory of an erased people.  The conclusion, in stark apposition to that image, must be that Muslims are too tightly woven into the fabric of India's history and greatness for there to be any sense or justice in driving them all out. 

Comments

[memsaab]

Wonderful review Carla. I am very glad I watched this with you---am afraid I may not have made it otherwise, it was so depressing. But sometimes depressing is justified, and certainly this is one of those cases...the entire cast was so good, too!

[Virginia Kelley]

I saw this very recently too, at a film festival in NY about Muslim culture in Hindi cinema, so it's especially nice for me to have your thoughts. I see why this is a favorite of so many people I know who grew up in India, it's such a clear, strong piece of work, and Balraj s is so memorable.
.
And I am glad you reminded me of the great use India's Muslim monuments in the context of a hypothetical India emptied of Muslims. I think that that & Granny's staying in her house stayed with me the most.

[Advait]

Wow.. Ive never heard of this film before, but from reading your review it sounds very enticing!

I will have to have a look around to try and find this dvd..

[carla]

Memsaab - I'm glad we watched it too - but this week I promise to request a nice fun Shammi movie. I was drooling over the songs of both Janwar and Junglee yesterday ...

Virginia - thanks. The old woman dying in the haveli is one of those wonderful overloaded symbols - both her own clinging to the life she had before Partition, and, in the new Hindu owner's allowing her to return there to die, his recognition that Muslims have a rightful home in India as well. Beautifully rendered.

Advait - definitely worth tracking down, it's a lovely film.

[Ibirá Machado]

Heeey, I just saw this movie last friday, in the Indian Film Festival we organized here in Sao Paulo. And seeing this kind of movie in the big screen is an absolute privilege! And yes, I liked so much this movie, in all aspects.

Thanks for your review. Very soon I'll write my own review too :)

[Arjun]

Unfortunately, you will not see a single movie made about Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Jains, Atheists, Jews having a rightful home in Pakistan and Bangladesh. These countries it seems can in actuality be willfully, violently and ruthlessly emptied of non-Muslims without any repercussions or aspersions on the ideology or the people who follow it. Sad indeed, but only for the non-Muslims of the subcontinent. In the meantime, India has a growing population of Muslims - from 10% to 15% since Partition, while the Islamic countries carved out of the subcontinent are more and more Muslim (99.9% from 85% at last count). Quite interesting and heartbreaking to see who Westerners choose to sympathize with..

[Arjun]

>Quite interesting and heartbreaking to see who Westerners choose to
>sympathize with..

And I'm referring not just to this blog entry but a general pattern I've observed in interactions with Westerners. No matter, the non-Muslims of the subcontinent will just have to fend for themselves while facing centuries-long holy war.

[carla]

Arjun: As I have never seen a Pakistani or Bangladeshi movie, I will have to take your word on the subject matter they do or do not portray. But I am not writing about Pakistani or Bangladeshi movies - only Hindi movies, and in this particular post, only this one movie and the story it tells.

With that in mind, speaking not for your monolithic "Westerners", but *only* for myself and the posts on this blog, I strive to sympathize with *anyone* who suffers, who is driven out of their homes, whose life is befallen by tragedy, whatever religion they subscribe to and whatever continent they live on. I'm truly sorry to hear that *you* find that heartbreaking.

By the way, if you really, really believe that Westerners are unduly sympathetic to Muslims I have to wonder what West you are observing! Certainly not the one I live in, where the majority don't even bother to make such fine distinctions as the difference between Hindu and Muslim, or even between South Asian and Arab, but instead presume that anyone with brown skin and a "foreign-sounding" name is probably both a Muslim and a threat. Your West sounds more nuanced and better than mine.

[Banno]

Lovely review, Carla. I've seen the film long ago, and don't remember it that well, but I remember the images of the house, and the monuments. They evoke a nostalgia and a grief for a way of life, probably lost forever.

[Arjun]

Carla, when sympathy evoked by the decontextualized biased depiction of a tragedy causes you to make a one-sided political statement about the Indian subcontinent, that is what is heartbreaking.

I like your writing but I'd really prefer that you stick to writing about movies and avoid making political statements about India, a country whose shoes you've never walked in, like the ones you make in your post above. If only people like you and your governments followed the Prime Directive (yes, from Star Trek), anti-Americanism would be a thing of the past in places like India.

As always, I look forward to your movie reviews sans political statements.

[carla]

Arjun, this strikes me as disingenuous. You are not objecting broadly to my commenting about movies that make political statements about India. Rather, your objection is that my comments express sympathy with a political view that is contrary to your own.

Your first set of comments was much more honest; there, at least, you admitted that what cheesed you off in particular was my being moved by a pro-Muslim story.

Regardless of your backhanded compliments, I'll carry on writing about the stories that move me. You call my statements here "one-sided" but that's an absurd criticism; I wrote 800 words on thoughts inspired by *one* movie, not a comprehensive treatise on the political landscape of post-Partition India. There are plenty of stories with different focus from *Garm Hava* that have moved me in other ways; I didn't talk about them here because they aren't what this movie is about.

I watch Indian movies in part to learn about India, and I've never claimed to have done more than scratch the surface of understanding that rich subject. But I do know for sure that there are many more sides than one to India's long, complex, and continuing story.

And for that reason, the idea that "people like me" are the problem is America is laughable - truly ridiculous, misguided, laughable. Do you really think America is hated because it has *too many* people who bother to take an interest in learning about some of the world's cultures? I don't think you grasp that the majority of Americans do not even care to learn the first thing about India, or care whether there is any difference between a Hindu and a Muslim, or between an Indian and an Arab.

[raja]

Carla, this is the first time I am visiting your blog. I am a regular at memsaab's.
I have just finished seeing this movie. Heard from memsaab that you had reviewed it, hence came over to read your review.

Let me start by saying that it is a very good review of an outstanding movie.

I remember this movie being released in the early 70s but never got a chance to see it. Having seen it today, I think it is going to stay in my mind for a very long time.

Yes, the story is a bit depressing (especially the turn of events in the second half) but quite realistic IMO. Partition, although it brought independence, had made Indians bitter. And yes, with Muslims having got their own country, it is not unrealistic to expect the non-Muslims in India to have harboured resentment towards those Muslims who remained in India at that time. Life must have been very tough for these Muslims then - and that is all this story tries to portray.

I am a Hindu myself (tbh, I have never really cared about being a Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jew, whatever) but I can totally see this from the Muslim perspective. It is now 63 years since Partition and lots of things HAVE changed. But at that time, tensions were high, discrimination was rampant, there was resentment and bitterness. And mistrust.

What I like in particular about this movie (apart from the fabulous acting) is a realistic storyline that discusses sensitive issues without fear.

The fact that the country's "independence" meant different things to different people. From one day to the next, the tonga guy hikes up his price from 8 annas to two rupees, saying the country is independent now.

A businessman says "with independence, the time has come for businessmen instead of nawabs".

There is reference to "everything is good in Pakistan, they are calling you there". Which was not uncommon in those days. Many who did go to Pakistan did well for themselves - they got land and businesses cheap (many had been left behind by those who had moved to India). They then called their relatives back in India to join them. Some did, some did not.

I found many scenes poignant. The scene where the guy returns from Pakistan to meet his love but gets arrested because he had entered without passport/reporting to the police was touching.

There are many such scenes. The scene where Salim's sister visits India to buy sarees and then scorns her poor relatives in India was also pretty typical of the time.

All these emotions are wonderfully captured and portrayed in this movie.

Plus the games politicians played, how mistrust ruled during those turbulent times, how there were still some good men who rose above religion - all this is neatly woven into the storyline.

I think it would not be an exaggeration to say that this is one of the most honest movies I have seen. A lot of movies would have tried to be politically correct or glamourise some scenes. This does neither. It stays true to its storyline all the way.

Wonderful movie. And an excellent review by you. Thanks. :-)

[carla]

Raja, thank you so much for the thoughtful comments and the compliments. They mean a lot to me! I'm very glad to have visitors from among the excellent readers of Memsaab's excellent blog.

*Garm Hava* has definitely stuck with me and I'm very glad I got the chance to see it. I am always deeply affected by movies that use the lens of a few individuals to tell stories with grander themes - that's one reason I love the movies of Shyam Benegal, and Garm Hava is as rich and compelling to me as any of those.