Ghosts Of Baramulla: The Original Sin And Horror Of Denial

Kashmir ceased being beautiful to me a long time ago. The mountains look forlorn, the meadows appear lost, the flowers seem colourless, the lakes weep copious tears of sorrow, the shikaras wander mindlessly, and the Chinar trees stand watching it all, helpless and lonely.

So who are these people who find beauty in the Kashmir valley, I often wonder. It is always the outsiders who come with their cameras and heads filled with pockmarked history lessons and use borrowed phrases like “Switzerland of Asia” or “Heaven on Earth”.

For those of us who find the ashes of our ancestors scattered in this soil, Kashmir is a land of continual genocide where we have only seen pain, trauma and tragedy.

It is in this silenced and tortured Kashmir valley that Aditya Suhas Jambhale has set his film Baramulla. The first thing that immediately impresses you is that the film does not have the gaze of an outsider. Aditya Jambhale captures the silences, the weight in the air, the heaviness in the atmosphere in the town of Baramulla accurately.

People rarely smile here, homes look desolate, and the sun barely shines. It is here that DSP Ridwaan (Manav Kaul) arrives with his wife Gulnaar (Bhasha Sumbli) and their two children to solve a strange case. Children of Baramulla are disappearing, and no one can find them.

Ridwaan, an officer with the Jammu and Kashmir Police, is dealing with his own demons. No one likes the police in Baramulla, and although no one says it aloud, there is a thick blanket of terrorism that has engulfed the town. It is evident that Baramulla has been infested by bad elements and terrorists who have now become part of the landscape.

The year is 2016. Mobile phones are everywhere, social media penetration is high, yet modernity seems to clash with everyday life. The homes are old and creaky, including the one in which DSP Ridwaan and his family live. Their house help, Iqbal, is mute, but as someone familiar with the history of the house, he seems to know something that no one else knows. It is in this house that Ridwaan’s family encounters ghosts. Their house is haunted.

As Ridwaan sets out to solve the case of the missing children, including his own daughter who has disappeared, his wife is on a parallel journey of finding the ghosts who inhabit their home and torment her children. Gulnaar and Ridwaan’s paths cross as they discover that one mystery cannot be solved without the other, and herein lies the crux of the film.

The genre of horror and the paranormal is the best vehicle to describe Kashmir’s story and the story of its original inhabitants who are now banished and live in exile. Hindus of Kashmir, popularly referred to as Pandits, have been at the receiving end of communal violence and a full-fledged genocide that began in the 14th century.

Seven different exoduses later, the community finds itself reduced to less than one per cent of the population in the valley. The rest were either converted, killed or fled. No other community in the world has seen an exodus every hundred years, which means every third generation of Kashmiri Pandits has seen extreme persecution that led to their exodus.

According to the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the persecution of Kashmiri Pandits fulfils all conditions of genocide. Because their genocide never ended, this is the only case of continual genocide in the world.

Genocide is the most heinous crime known to humankind, and since it cannot be reversed, how can it be ended? International law says genocide ends when perpetrators are made to face trial and victims are convinced that justice, in some measure, has been delivered.

Baramulla deals with this subject sensitively and effectively. The genocide of the Kashmiri Pandits is the original sin in the film. All other crimes that have occurred since are because the original wound has been allowed to fester without any remedy.

As art can sometimes become a harbinger of things to come, Baramulla perhaps gives us a template of how this unending cycle of genocide can end. When the people who are in denial are forced to confront the past that they purposely run away from, that is when a semblance of justice can occur. Gulnaar and Ridwaan initially dismiss the idea of ghosts and any paranormal activity until they are forced to confront it. It is through the eyes of Gulnaar and Ridwaan that we see the horror the house is hiding in its bosom.

The brilliant cinematic device employed in the climax is an attempt to show how healing can happen. Unless the current inhabitants of the valley confront and acknowledge the original sin of the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits, their lives will continue to suffer, their land will remain desolate, their homes will remain haunted, and their children will be swallowed by the evil that resides among them. Healing comes from acknowledgement, and acknowledgement comes from acceptance. Denial cannot be a way of life.

Baramulla speaks in metaphors. Kashmiri Pandits who prayed to the Ghar devta (deity of the house) have now become Ghar devta themselves, and even though they have been banished, they still protect the homes and children. Pandits have become ghosts in their own homes, and here ghosts are nothing to be fearful of. The real threat comes from people who roam around the valley, not ghosts.

One child is sold to the unseen and unnamed evil ‘Bhaijaan’ by his own uncle. Another child is betrayed by a friend, and yet another is befriended only to be betrayed. Children are swallowed by people and rescued by ghosts in this cursed land. The white tulip appears periodically on the screen. It is not a metaphor of beauty, as flowers usually are. The white tulip keeps an account of the children who have perished.

All children are found safe in the end because the film tells us redemption is possible if we confront our ghosts, both within and without. DSP Ridwaan solves the case; his own redemption arc is complete as soon as he faces reality.

Baramulla would not have been the film it is without the terrific performances of its lead actors. Manav Kaul is brilliant as the brooding police officer who must let go of official protocol and submit to the supernatural if he is to succeed.

Bhasha Sumbli is the soul of the film. Her performance stands out as that of an anguished mother and eventually as the vehicle through which the story of the haunted house begins to reveal itself. Watch out for her when she discovers the prayer room behind the closet of her room and the primal cry she lets out in the climax when she says “Never again”, echoing every genocide victim.

Baramulla stands firm because the story it rests on does not waver at any point. Once the story has clarity, the rest will fall into place. Aditya Dhar, Aditya Jambhale and Monal Thaakar deserve a lot of accolades for the writing. If the writing had faltered, nothing would have worked.

The cinematography by Arnold Fernandes breaks the mould. It is tough to shoot a film in Kashmir and resist the temptation of stock shots like Dal Lake and Chinar trees. The cinematography steers clear of all clichés. Shot during the actual winter months in Kashmir, the film stays authentic to its brief. Ultimately, all films are a director’s canvas. Aditya Suhas Jambhale, through Baramulla, announces that Article 370 was no fluke. His canvas is vast, and he is here to stay and change the rules.

I watched the film in stony silence until the last shot rolled and the camera panned to the nameplate of Dr Sharad Sapru, MBBS, sole survivor of the massacre. Sharad Sapru, played by Sanjay Suri with tremendous dignity that only he could bring to the screen, has made a life for himself and lives like anyone else in his apartment complex in Mumbai.

Sharad probably attracts no attention to himself. Perhaps no one in his apartment building knows he is a genocide survivor. It is at this point that I wept uncontrollably. Our mundane lives, built with blood, sweat and toil in exile, do not betray the horrors we have witnessed. Our ghosts live within us, and we cannot rid ourselves of them until justice is served.