Pain of partition comes alive on celluloid

SYDNEY: As Indians and Pakistanis gear to celebrate their nations’ 60th anniversary of independence Down Under, for some, the memories of the tumultuous months of 1947 are far too vivid to ever forget.

Crossing the Line, a 75-minute documentary, written, produced and directed by Sydney-based documentary filmmaker Anita Barar, captures the lives of 15 families, who moved across the border through bloodshed and mayhem to begin a new life. They still fail to make sense of the dissection that has scarred the Indian sub-continent.

Barar’s parents migrated to Delhi from Dadu, a small town in Sindh province of southern Pakistan. She says, “My parents’ every day conversations always had the prefix `before partition’. Unlike my four brothers, I was born in independent India and it made me very curious of what undivided India was like.”

Stifled sobs resonated through a packed Riverside Theatre in the western Sydney suburb of Parramatta. For those in the audience, affected by the partition, buried memories came alive on screen. It was worse than a war, millions died and tens and thousands of people were uprooted.

Barar says, “I have used the documentary to provide a platform for people from both countries to share their first hand experiences of how a line on the map, drawn on the basis of religious majority, changed their lives forever.” Her father was assured by his friends in Pakistan that things would cool down, but one fateful November day in 1947, they had no choice but to take the train to India empty-handed.

“My father had locked the house and given the keys to our neighbour. Until his last breath in 1989, he had hoped to return to what he still called our home in Dadu,” says Barar, who moved to Sydney in 1989 with her husband and daughter. The documentary encapsulates the emotive stories of senior citizens of Indian and Pakistani origin now living in Australia, who had moved across the border against their own wishes. There are touching tales of how Hindus and Muslims risked their lives to protect friends and neighbours from the other community.

Barar says the making of this film has given her a sense of belonging. “I entered in our senior citizens’ homes with camera, sound and light gear, but came out loaded with love, affection and blessings. A relationship was born. I became like their daughter and they all wanted to see my project — this film happening. It is never easy to talk about traumatic times but they opened their heart. For me, it was like a journey with various stopovers.” 

The documentary in Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi with English subtitles has interviews interspersed with film clippings from Sardar and Pinjar, and photographs from her father’s collection. It will be screened in Mumbai on Saturday at 6pm at the Fun Republic Preview Theatre in Andheri (West).