Sindhi filmmakers ditching the preaching

Sixty four years after Sindhis made India their home, the difference between the status of the community and their film industry couldn’t be starker.

During the Partition, Sindhis fled Pakistan leaving large properties and families behind. In Indian refugee camps, many Sindhis set up make-shift food stalls or small businesses, and soon found success. The Sindhi film industry, however, awaits a messiah to deliver it from obscurity.

Director Gopal Raghani hopes to be a part of the change, if not the messiah himself. Next month, his film, Halyo Aahe Putt Actor Thavan (The boy is set to be an actor) will be the second Sindhi film in the last decade to be released in multiplexes across India. And that isn’t the only thing that’s unusual about the situation.

Halyo Aahe Putt Actor Thavan’s (HAPAT) story, too, is — one can dare to use the oft abused term — different, at least when compared to what the industry has been churning out in the name of culture. 

Produced by Bihari Kandari, HAPAT is a comedy about a simpleton who wants to make it big in Bollywood, and consciously allows himself to be duped by a producer because he has a different agenda. In the first half of the film, Laloo, played by actor Pradeep Lalwani, pays his producer, Kundan, to arrange for an audition that never works out. Kundan then demands Rs60,00,000 to cast him in a Sindhi film and Laloo agrees only on a queer condition — that all cast and crew will be Sindhi. “If it does well, it may bring about a revival. It’s one of the few recent films which don’t preach to a community about preserving their culture,” says Raghani. He even has a term for the ones who did — the ‘how-to’ films. “None of them saw multiplex releases, and are lying around in obscure DVD stores. That’s not how it always was with our industry...”

Sindhi films did make it big in India after partition. Films like Abana (it launched Sadhana in 1958) did just as well as an average Hindi film then. Most Sindhi films, says director Kamal Nathani, discussed social issues and woes of a lost identity.

“That’s where we lost our audience. Sindhis lost interest in films that only spoke of a glorious past.”

Somewhere in the 1980s, Sindhis like Nathani were jolted to see that the community was scattered and quite clueless and indifferent about its culture. “Our children didn’t even speak the language. It hurt some do-gooders, who started making films again. But we had lost three decades, and nothing could bring that back,” says Nathani.

The money that poured into Sindhi films either came from NRIs or businessmen in India who wanted to earn the ‘producer’ tag before someone else in their social circle could, says Nathani.

Most refused to shell out money for promotions and distribution, and films were released on DVDs or watched in Sindhi pockets in Mumbai like Khar, or in Kalyan and Ulhasnagar.

Before Raghani, some filmmakers tried to bring in the entertainment in Sindhi cinema, and have been successful. PB Chand, an impassioned 84-year-old writer and theatre actor, began making relevant Sindhi films two decades ago with his pension money. But it was Zindagi Hik Naatak (2009) that cut it.

The film followed the life of a theatre actor who must choose between his passion and his family. It was released in theatres in Ulhasnagar and Kalyan and was well received.  Another film, Vaeesar E Gum (2009) was a comedy of errors involving a stolen diamond, a mafia don’s hysteric girlfriend and a corrupt officer set to strike a deal at a New Year’s Eve party. It was released in multiplexes in Mumbai and made profits, too, says Nathani.

Relevance, says producer Asha Chand, is key to Sindhi cinema’s survival. In 1990, Chand started Sindhi Sangat, an NGO that promotes Sindhi culture. Since 2006, she has been rallying for support to start a Sindhi TV channel, and managed to get a weekly 40-minute slot on DD Gujarati in 2007. The programme, Sindhi Surhaan, plays music, dance and telefilms.

“It is difficult to keep our culture alive because we don’t have a state in India. A TV channel will really help us,” says Chand. Chand makes up for the loss by making telefilms with contemporary themes — a couple unexpectedly falling in love after their divorce, a girl obsessed with finding an NRI groom, a woman who must choose between her paralysed brother and her beloved, and so on.

“I cannot spend much on sets and locations, but I am very clear about exploring complex relationships in my films. Viewers were initially surprised when the protagonists in one of my films fell in love after getting divorce. Or when a girl rejected at least seven guys before settling down. I said, why not? These are our real issues and Sindhi cinema had better wake up.”