At The Edge

Originally written for EPW Blog While Indian cinema of 1950s is mostly blank on the subject of Partition, poet Saifuddin Saif’s Kartar Singh (1959), a Punjabi film from Pakistan is perhaps the best specimen in which we can see the way Partition was explored in moving pictures by a generation that had been recently and directly impacted by the events of 1947. The story is set in a village where Sikh, Hindus and Muslims are a well-knit unit. The world outside is slowly getting more violent (in the first scene we see local Hindu medicine man Vaid Prem Nath reading the news aloud and wondering about the sorry state of the world) but the village is an island of peace where words of Waris Shah sung by the local mendicant still bring solace to souls of worrying kind. The only sign of trouble in the village is a rakish young Sikh man named Kartar Singh, the antagonist from whom the film gets its name. Kartar Singh is introduced to the viewers as he attempts to abduct a young woman in th...

From title credits of Carry On film, released in 1968 Life Magazine 12 May, 1941 -0-

Not from wet dream of ultra-nationalist Indians and indo-pak peaceniks From 'This is India' by Peter Muir. Maps by Frances Muir.1943. It's a funny little book [ read here ], sample this from a chapter titled Gandhiana: "If Gandhi were on trail and under oath, he would unquestionably stick to what he believed to be the truth, but his technique of circumlocution, indirection, and irresponsible self-contradiction gives the impression that evasion, not clarification, is his aim.There is no necessity to interpret the language of Rajagopalachari, whose vocabulary in English is no larger that Gandhi's. But few Indians, even, would volunteer to translate the meaning of Gandhi's utterances, his style is so successfully abstruse." While in a chapter on Jinnah titled 'Mr.Jinnah rolls up a Rug' Peter Muir say's had Jinnah been head of a Christian organisation, he would have been named Jesus Christ Jones. Actually the chapter is a take on caste pol...

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Shared by Amandeep S. Sawhney. A special pilgrim visa meant for Sikhs visiting Pakistan. This one was issued in 1963 from Amritsar. "Good for single visit to Gurdwaras: Nankana Sahib Dist. Sheikhupura, Dera Sahib Janam Asthan, Shahid Gunj, Cheevin Padshahi (Muzung), Shahid Bhai Taru Singh Ji at Lahore..." -0- "To leave a country is like breaking out of jail and to enter a country is like going through an eye of a needle." ~  Charles Chaplin's A King in New York (1957) . -0-