Ghar Ka Pata
A FILM BY MADHULIKA JALALI
67 min | 2022 | Hindi, Kashmiri, English with EST
April 28, Thursday | 6:30 pm
Bangalore International Centre
#7 , 4th Main Road, Domlur II Stage
Entry free and open to all
The screening will be followed by a discussion with the filmmaker.
SYNOPSIS
I was 6 when my family had to leave the Kashmir valley due to an armed insurgency in 1990. This personal account seeks to understand ‘loss’, ‘identity’ & is an attempt to reconstruct the long-lost home of my birth, a place and of a time that exists in mine and my family’s collective memories. The film has been a revelation of my myriad identities, as the daughter of a man who led an intense relationship all his life, with the land he lost, as the youngest sibling amongst sisters threaded together by more than a mere bloodline and now as a Kashmiri Pandit woman, discovering her own soul and its lineage. The film attempts to weave a narrative of the place and of time gone by, juxtaposing a string of short conversations, filmed impromptu through the streets of ‘Rainawari’, (a quaint suburb of Srinagar where my home used to be), with a series of anecdotal experiences with my family when my father took us back to Kashmir 24 years after we had to leave the valley of mist. To think it took me that long, 24 years since I left as a child, to return to the land we lost, to weave through disquieting streets, where loss and longing manifest themselves at every turn, yet hope lingers on as a spirited companion. ‘Ghar ka Pata’, is essentially borne of the human condition, of humanity & it’s complex tapestry of transience and memory, and of the heart finding its way back home..!
I was 6 when my family had to leave the Kashmir valley due to an armed insurgency in 1990. This personal account seeks to understand ‘loss’, ‘identity’ & is an attempt to reconstruct the long-lost home of my birth, a place and of a time that exists in mine and my family’s collective memories. The film has been a revelation of my myriad identities, as the daughter of a man who led an intense relationship all his life, with the land he lost, as the youngest sibling amongst sisters threaded together by more than a mere bloodline and now as a Kashmiri Pandit woman, discovering her own soul and its lineage. The film attempts to weave a narrative of the place and of time gone by, juxtaposing a string of short conversations, filmed impromptu through the streets of ‘Rainawari’, (a quaint suburb of Srinagar where my home used to be), with a series of anecdotal experiences with my family when my father took us back to Kashmir 24 years after we had to leave the valley of mist. To think it took me that long, 24 years since I left as a child, to return to the land we lost, to weave through disquieting streets, where loss and longing manifest themselves at every turn, yet hope lingers on as a spirited companion. ‘Ghar ka Pata’, is essentially borne of the human condition, of humanity & it’s complex tapestry of transience and memory, and of the heart finding its way back home..!
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
I'm a Kashmiri. and Kashmir has had a history of conflict since India's independence. I'm also a Pandit, a minority Kashmiri Hindu community whose unfortunate forced exodus from Kashmir in 1990 is something that has only come to light now, in larger, popular discussions. Their pain and loss has often gone undocumented but has been co-opted to serve various agendas. Now with a certain generation maturing, people are hearing our narratives which are not unidimensional, and I thought my personal story will add to this history which needs to be told. This film explores the conflict as someone who experienced it as a child. And who has constantly struggled with the idea of belonging and identity. Because Kashmir has sadly created both, children of conflict and children of exile, the film is also an attempt to show how trauma endures and shapes the world we create. My pandit identity has been a source of both pain and pride to me. And by voicing my own familial history, I hope to create resonance with other families that are survivors of conflict. As an artist I am also interested in how memories and forgetting shapes our perception of things and how images created at home can become powerful intimate testimonies of loss, love, belonging and pain. |
DIRECTOR'S BIOGRAPHY
Born in Srinagar, Kashmir, but brought up in Delhi, Madhulika Jalali did her Master's in Film Making from London. Her passion for films led her to move to Mumbai. She has varied experience in films and advertising industry with a forte in production dynamics. She has been a Line Producer for Bollywood feature films like Sherni, A Death in the Gunj etc. and has worked on films such as Bombay Velvet, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag etc. She has also been associated with various directors in the advertising industry as an Executive Producer. Apart from this, she continues to work independently on projects for different formats. This is her debut film as a Director.
Born in Srinagar, Kashmir, but brought up in Delhi, Madhulika Jalali did her Master's in Film Making from London. Her passion for films led her to move to Mumbai. She has varied experience in films and advertising industry with a forte in production dynamics. She has been a Line Producer for Bollywood feature films like Sherni, A Death in the Gunj etc. and has worked on films such as Bombay Velvet, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag etc. She has also been associated with various directors in the advertising industry as an Executive Producer. Apart from this, she continues to work independently on projects for different formats. This is her debut film as a Director.