Ahmedabad: Horror peeps out of Gulberg home

To start with: an abandoned house, windows shackled by cobwebs, horrific sounds looking for its way out thro-ugh broken doors and an ominous old tree covering the houses of the famous Gulberg society are all those that lurk in the movie made by a student of National Institute of Design.

Backed on a narrative, that synchronises with the visuals, is that of an old couple, who revisit their home abandoned 16 years ago, after the massive communal riots that tore apart Gujarat in 2002, and how 'home' still haunts them.

Twenty-five-year-old Eshwarya Grover, in her film 'Memoirs of Saira and Salim', portrayed some of her memories and conversations about the couple when they revisited their house.

While knowing that the issue has its political and sensitive side to it, Eshwarya's fascination towards abandoned structures drove her towards the old couple, who now live in Shahibaug.

"When I met them and they narrated their story of how they lost their 22-year-old son in the massacre, I had decided that my film will only show the aspects that not many would have seen or experienced. I wanted viewers to go through what Saira and Salim go through on every visit," said Eshwarya, who is a second-year PG student of Film and Video Design at NID.

Since the locality now comes under the disturbed area with heavy deployment of security, the houses are kept the way they were after the burning incident. The film not only shows the house but staircase, shadows entering through broken windows, an old tree, a courtyard, etc.

"Saira and Salim narrate how this society was their world, how women would sleep on terraces covered with branches of a huge tree. They further narrated it was only when a loudspeaker was installed in the common meeting area, when the locality learnt that this is a Muslim society. On the day of the massacre, their son had gone out and apprehended the mob, all the society members went to Congress leader Ehsan Jafri's house, who also lived in Gulberg society. However, at the end of the day, they found that their son was dead in the mob attack as they recovered a silver tabeez."

In the film, the couple, say their house would have been of three-storeys had they been living there today. After the incident, Salim bought an auto-rickshaw with the money he got for his sons' death.

SCARY PAST

• Eshwarya Grover, in her film ‘Memoirs of Saira and Salim’, portrayed some of her memories about the couple when they revisited their house. 
   
• The film has also haunted several international stages like Istanbul.