Song for Rip Van Winkle

Nikhat Kazmi

("A judicious blend of cultural nostalgia and subtle political comment", says Ms Amila Malik in her syndicated column captioned "Sight and Sound" about 'Kashmir File' a Television Magazine programme on Kashmir, of which eight episodes have been televised so far. The Magazine delves deep into the past and the present of the Kashmir Valley We reproduce hereunder an article on the serial by Ms Nikhat Kazmi, published in the Times of India', New Delhi on March 12, 1995: Editor)

"I won't sing today," he declared four decades ago. And his song still sounds the dominant mood in Kashmir. Simply because the 'war mongers' and the 'traitors' who had surrounded his beautiful vale with their treacherous weapons are still targeting the land of Dinanath Nadim, the valley's foremost bard. Then, Nadim had refused to sing of the bulbul and the chinar because "Adam had been hell-bent on hunting down Adam..." (Adam ne thaan li hai Aadam ka shikar). The hunt still persists. Hence the stony silence, the exodus, the overpowering deathwish and the occasional mourning.

In this elegiac milieu comes Kashmir File, a series which opts for life, growth and spring in the midst of a never-ending autumn. One that recreates the rich images of a land that is waiting to rise like Rip Van Winkle, from a prolonged slumber that has been forced on it by forces seen and unseen. A series about "Kashmir, Kashmiris and Kashmiriyat". The programme has been patterned to "initiate a series of dialogue" between people who have been separated by artificial barriers.

Evolving this person-to-person perspective hasn't been too easy in an age where pedantic monologues are the order of the day on television. As producer Arun Kaul points out, "The Indian media has not done anything serious on Kashmir till date. Most of the programmes have been either propagandist, depending largely on government handouts, or simply too depressing." Kaul has tried to strike a balance in Kashmir File by kowtowing the golden middle path. The attempt here is to create the flavour of a soap-opera in a programme that is by and large political in import.

So that the file has capsules on the terra-cotta sculptures of the state, its poetry, music, preponderance of snow, the significance of the Vitasta that flows through the valley, the topography of Jammu, the temple city, and the centrality of the Dal in the life and times of Srinagar. But 'softness' here has not meant a loss of the quintessential spirit. The terra-cotta sculptures may trace their origins to Buddhist times, but the sculptors today are sculpting panels that depict the pain on the faces of a band of migrants or the disconcerting padlock that hangs from the bolted doors of a deserted home.

'Softness' in fact has been one of the pre- conditions laid down by Doordarshan itself, points out the producer. "They didn't want me to discuss serious political equations in the programme. This I was not the time for calling names, they said", confesses Kaul, even as he tries to throw light on the Mandi House mindset that inherently fights shy of sensitive topics. Thus the producer was left with culture as the mainstay. "But I did not want my programme to be a Surabhi lookalike," he contends.

Hence he opted for 'soft' political stories: the victims of terrorist violence, statistical details about terrorist kidnappings and killings, the culpability of Pakistan in the current tangle, the gentle anger and official explanations of gentlemen-politicians.

However, this gentle probing too has had its share of problems due to the peculiar nature of the state. First, the capsules have to be put together under the 'censoring and re-censoring eyes of Doordarshan which treads too warily on marshy grounds. Simple statements even mildly critical of the government have had to be deleted. More importantly, the impediments of shooting the programme in the valley would have proved almost insurmountable, but for the tenacity of a group of film-makers. With a fear psychosis prevailing, the valley inhabitants are reluctant to feature in the serial since it takes very little to brand them 'Sarkari Musalmans' in the eye of the ultras. After which gory vendetta follows fast, states Kaul. The producer claims that he too was 'identified' at the airport itself and had to be escorted by two cars. "For here was a Kashmiri Pandit coming back to his homeland after 40 years to shoot."

Naturally then, Kashmir File could not take a stance and had to rest content with "initiating dialogue on the plane of culture alone," Kaul explains. For the film maker, who has earlier won the National Award for the feature film Diksha, television may be "a cramped medium". Yet, the objectives behind this "small little programme" (as he dubs it) and the enthusiastic response (the programme has reportedly weaned away some diehared Kashmiris from Pakistan T.V.) have been compensation enough for Kaul. "Look at what they are putting on air these days: fashion shows, beauty contests, and the like. What are they leading the country to? At least I am doing something different," he contends. A Different and meaningful too.

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Courtesy:-  Nikhat Kazmi and April-May 1995 Koshur Samachar