Pakistani serial ‘Dastan’, soon to be shown in India on Zee TV’s new Zindiagi channel, is a powerful contemporary production focusing on 1947
By Sumegha Gulati
Horse-drawn buggis on dirt paths surrounded by mustard fields; villagers discussing the weather, crops and marriages, speaking Urdu tinged with a Punjabi accent; the turbulent love story of a young engaged couple set against the backdrop of a land and its people divided, amidst rapes, assaults, killings and mass displacement.
Dastan, a 23-episode Pakistani television serial based on the late Urdu writer Razia Butt’s acclaimed short story Bano, is one of the finest works produced on partition in contemporary times. Soon to be broadcast on Zee TV India’s new channel, Zindagi, it was extremely popular in Pakistan, winning several awards and nominations for its content as well as performances.
I stumbled upon Dastan on the Internet while researching literature and cinema on India’s partition. Watching a Pakistani TV show for the first time, I was hooked from the first episode, not just because it deals with a subject close to my heart, Partition, but the sheer beauty of the dramatisation.
The story starts with a Muslim family in Ludhiana, 1946. Women gather on takhts in a courtyard, preparing for Suraiya’s (Saba Qamar) upcoming wedding. Indian audiences will immediately related to their affectionate bantering, so common on both sides of the border, and showing neighbours the jahez (dowry) and bari (groom’s gifts to the bride).
Cross-religion relationships emerge through characters like Kamini chachi, always present in the bridal house, or the Hindu jeweler who acknowledges how much he owes to the bride’s father.
Suraiya’s nephew, Hassan, a final-year engineering student and a member of the Muslim League, is the main protagonist. The restrained performance Pakistani heartthrob by Fawad Afzal Khan (Khuda ke Liye, Humsafar), apart from his undeniably good looks, is outstanding.
The female protagonist Bano (brilliantly acted by Sanam Baloch) is the younger sister of Suraiya’s husband, Saleem (Ahsan Khan), a staunch Congress member who admires Gandhi and opposes the creation of Pakistan. Overs the passage of the years spanned by the serial, Bano emerges as a woman of exemplary courage, who fights all odds to fulfill her dream of reaching Pakistan.
Bano and Hassan’s love story blossoms with stolen glances and silent nights spent watching each other from their terraces, their features illuminated by lantern or moonlight. Sohail Haider’s theme song Aasmano se utaara soulfully plays in the background.
The idyllic earlier episodes feature newly-weds Suraiya and Saleem sneaking out to spend alone-time in a park, Bano’s spat with the maid Lakshmi, and her innocent query to Hassan about the meaning of the word “honeymoon”.
The issue of women’s education is highlighted in several instances. Bano’s mother tells a neighbour that the girl wanted to study further but has to learn household chores. The Hindu neighbour complains that her own daughter does not even know how to hold a needle. The Punjabi wedding songs, so much like our wedding songs, come as a pleasant surprise.
Such touches that bring home probably the most brutal of all truths about partition – that a land and people, with the same language, food, culture were divided and forced to leave their homes and friends behind.
The politics of the time are highlighted through the euphoria surrounding the 1946 win of the Muslim League that shows how dear many Muslims held the cause of a separate nation. Dinnertime discussions highlight the belief that Pakistan would enable Muslims to fearlessly follow Islam and give greater security for Indian Muslims. Their disillusionment with the Congress for failing to live up to its promises made to Muslims also comes across, as well as the view that Hindus would make life hell for Muslims after independence.
When Bano wants to join Muslim League, her father’s response reflects the progressive attitude of educated families in those days – he allows her to do so, even as her brother Saleem remains a Congress member.
Historical notes and background voiceovers intersperse the narrative. Ustaad Amanat Ali Khan’s song Aye Watan Pyara Watan plays in the background when Muslim League is mentioned. I was reminded of Indian TV and cinema, where our filmmakers use Iqbal’s Saare jahan se achha as the background score for “patriotic” scenes. It is in fact used at all occasions — morning prayers at schools, at Republic and Independence Days, at Gandhi, Ambedkar and Nehru jayantis, at Lokpal agitations. After Partition, even poets were divided. Who holds a greater claim to Iqbal?
When Hassan comments on the over 3000 Muslims butchered in Calcutta in just four days, Saleem asks if Hindus are not being killed too. The two come to blows, earning severe reprimand from Saleem’s father who points out that neither Jinnah nor Gandhi would approve of their behaviour. And Saleem asks how, given his father’s deep friendships with Hindus, can he consider them his foes now?
It is such ironies that Dastan so beautifully portrays.
When Suraiya wants to give away her jewelry for riot-affected Muslims regardless of their allegiance to Congress or Muslim League, Saleem reminds her that riots also affected Hindus, Sikhs and others. His character, in fact, comes across as exceptionally strong and ahead of his times.
A firm believer in Hindu-Muslim unity, Saleem is even ready to let his sister marry a Hindu. His reasoning: both can follow their own religions without converting. “Ram has a job, a reputed family background and is well-off. Will you turn down the proposal just on the basis of religion?” he asks his father.
However, the divisions deepen with daily killings, murders, loot and rapes. Dastan depicts the horrors effectively – entire families butchered, killing their own women to save them from dishonour, houses illegally occupied, their owners threatened with dire consequences if they tried to return.
One of the most chilling scenes — for which Ahsan Khan deserves full marks — is when the Muslim women of the locality gather at Saleem’s house ahead of an impending attack by Sikhs. When Saleem seeks Ram’s help, the family turns him away refusing to risk their lives for Muslims. The reality then strikes Saleem – the creation of Pakistan is essential for the future of Muslims.
The director effectively shows how good and bad people exist in every community. Dastan’s only drawback is that the background narrative does not acknowledge the barbarities perpetuated on non-Muslims.
Dastan also raises many questions. When Bano says that she wants a separate country where Muslims do not have to live on the rehmo-karam (charity) of Hindus, I wonder where this idea came from? Why did a community that had ruled over Hindustan for centuries harbour apprehensions that Hindus would subjugate them and not allow them to follow their religion? Is there an unspoken assumption that a majority will crush and dominate the minority?
Is the claim that Hindus and Muslims co-existed for centuries incorrect? If so, what about all those pre-partition friendships, depicted in the show itself? How did Muslims’ feelings transform to such extent that they demanded a separate nation away from their friends and neighbours? Is there a missing link somewhere – were Muslims wronged or discriminated against in pre-partition India?
In fact the British discriminated against all Indians – Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. Only those close to the empire could be called better off, due to their allegiance to the British, rather than their religion — Hindu rajas, Muslim nawabs, munshis and patwaris.
The serial also raises questions about the aspirations of those who supported Pakistan, expecting it to be a land of pious Muslims, where women would get their due status accorded by Islam. A country where nobody would sacrifice women for dowry, where there would be no inequality.
Dastan effectively pushes the viewer to ponder these and many more questions.
The writer is a correspondent with New Delhi-based English daily, Indian Express. Her grandparents migrated to India from Lahore in 1947. Emai: [email protected]
