Happened to come across critically acclaimed and money churner Pakistani movie 'Khuda kay Liye'. First things first. It is no doubt a wonderful movie from Pakistan’s perspective. I always thought that all they know about making movies is ripping Indian movies, putting a little flavour of extremism in it and the ritual Allah hoos…
Surprisingly this movie is mint fresh. Made by famous Pakistani ad maker Shoaib Mansoor, the film deals with Islamic sensitivities, how youth is attracted to (or distracted from) fundamentalism, racial discrimination in USA, its double standards on Osama bin laden and most importantly hope and future that lies ahead. The movie has been made in collaboration of Indian, Pakistani and USA film makers and Artists. Our very own Naseeruddin Shah plays a small but extremely impressive role. This movie is about people and not religion. That I guess is the brightest part of the movie.
All things fine, I extremely enjoyed watching this rather lengthy movie. There was one place that I was rather disappointed to watch.
It was this particular scene shot in USA in which the hero tries to explain to an American girl as to where his country is, to which she responds by saying “Oh! So you are India’s neighbor. I love that country…especially the Taj Mahal”. To this, our hero replies by saying that “We built it!!”. I was hoping him to explain that “We” meant Indians and Pakistanis who were once brothers and used to share same nationality and all that brotherly blah blah. To my astonishment he said that it was made by Shah Jahan who was a Muslim like him. I was a bit disappointed because so far the film did not show any sign of propagating “we vs them” ideology. To my total aghast he goes on and proudly says “We ruled India for more thn 1000 years”. I was totally shocked. What a bad logic!! How can he, a Muslim, living in Pakistan, can ever say that “We!!! Ruled India for more than 1000 years”…..? Dude there is one premise that you are missing…Your race came to undivided India and made it your home. We never thought you to be outsider. There has been numerous occasions when even Muslims faught against the Mughals for the pride of their mother land. Ibrahim Gardi fought along with Marathas in an attempt to drive out Mughals from Maharashtra.
It was after the partition that you went in Pakistan and you became ‘you’…before that it was only ‘us’. So how does this “We ruled India……” comes in?
An unfortunate piece in otherwise brilliant film.
Related links:
Khuda Kay Liye is blasphemous: Ghazi.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C07%5C03%5Cstory_3-7-2007_pg1_6
Fatwa issued against "Khuda kay Liye"
