Haider

It is difficult to imagine a version of Hamlet in which the eponymous character fades into the snowy background; a compelling Hamlet woos, he murders, he soliloquizes, he sees dead people. However, in Haider (2014) director Vishal Bhardwaj, famous for his Shakespearean reimaginings Omkara (2006) and Maqbool (2003), manages to match the explosive inner conflict of Hamlet/Haider to the explosive conflict in Kashmir in the mid-1990s, and Haider's story is eclipsed by the conflict that subsumes his life. The brilliant white of Kashmir in winter is a white of purity and burial shrouds, of bleached skulls and frozen rivers. It highlights the soot and blood of war.

In this retelling, Haider (played by a committed Shahid Kapoor) is a student of poetry who returns to Kashmir after the disappearance of his father into the hands of the Indian Army. He finds a house in ruins and a home destroyed as his mother Gertrude/Ghazala (Tabu) has turned to his uncle Claudius/Khurram Meer (Kay Kay Menon) for refuge. Haider's childhood sweetheart Ophelia/Arshia (Shraddha Kapoor), a journalist, joins Haider in his quest to find his father.

As Haider pursues his search and become entangled with militants who claim to know where his father is buried, he descends deeper into paranoia. Neither Haider nor the viewer is entirely sure what happened or who to trust. This paranoia is present in the play, but what makes this retelling different is that the truth is in many ways irrelevant- thousands of militants and civilians disappeared in Kashmir in the 1990s. If not Haider's father, then plenty of others. If not Haider, then someone else. If Haider is crazy, then so is everyone and everything else in his world. Kashmir is a pressure cooker, and the lid is the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).

But if Haider's life is defined by the AFSPA, Ghazala and Arshia are additionally limited by the men around them. Haider is unusual for the time and love spent on fleshing out Ghazala and Arshia- both are characters of strength and depth, backed into corners by a patriarchy which limits their options and forces them to make impossible choices- and then punishes them for taking those same impossible choices. Ghazala is a wife and mother with no control over the decisions made by her husbands or her son. Arshia is a journalist who can cover events but has no ability to change the outcome. Haider only sees their desperation after it is too late, and their final decisions are tragic but inevitable. Tabu embodies her role with simmering passion, and Shraddha Kapoor with an optimistic love that turns to wide-eyed bewilderment and a literal and metaphorical unraveling.

Unsurprisingly, Haider courted controversy. History is always political- in the United States the teaching of the history of slavery continues to ignite charged debate, and the politics of the history of Kashmir is no different. To start learning more I recommend Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire by Alex Von Tunzelmann, which focuses on the relationships between Jawaharlal Nehru, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Mohandas Gandhi, and Louis and Edwina Mountbatten. Much like Haider, the story of Kashmir is a reminder that politics are always personal, and the consequences of decisions are not always what we anticipate. 

Film: Haider (2014)

Director: Vishal Bhardwaj

Writers: Vishal Bhardwaj and Basharat Peer

Run time: 162 minutes

Country: India

Language: Hindi, Kashmiri

Based on Hamlet by William Shakespeare