By Professor Syed Tanveer Nasreen for TwoCircles.net
I still remember the full toss bowled by Chetan Sharma which Javed Miandad had hit for a six at Sharjah as clearly as I remember my despair and the unconsoled tears during that evening in the 1980s.
My earliest memory of glory and pride as an Indian was when Kapil Dev lifted the Prudential Cup at the Lord’s, June 25, 1983. I was ten years old and did not definitely know what patriotism was all about. Today, my daughter watches Dhoni’s helicopter shots and Virat Kohli’s cover drives as intensely as I watched cricket thirty years ago. My daughter, too, carries a Muslim name.
Thanks to Srijit Mukherjee, my teenage daughter and I discovered, we Muslims cheer at the fall of Indian wickets when we are among ‘our people’ in a Muslim neighbourhood. We also realized how badly we Muslims still dress in 2016. How easily a smart young guitarist and singer can transform into a ‘Pathan-suit’ clad, bearded, surma-lined gangster! And, of course, how can one miss the black amulet dangling in the neck of the stereotypical Muslim male!
The credit of this film goes to the director Srijit Mukherjee and music director, Anupam Roy, the famous duo of Bengali cultural fraternity. Anupam penned the famous song of Zulfiqar ‘Ek purano masjide/gaan dhorechhe murshide’….Why would a spiritual mentor start singing in an old mosque all of a sudden?
Srijit and Anupam, believe me, I am a Muslim and have walked the same corridors of Presidency College as you. I have sipped the same tea in Pramod-da’s canteen in Presidency and bought ‘dhop’-s from the same old Milan-da’s canteen in Jadavpur. Trust me, I was also there at the Ganga Dhaba in JNU. I have, like you and those of your likes, watched Kurosowa in Derozio Hall, had late nights at a JNU dhaba and watched Shakespearean plays in different parts of India and abroad. But I had no occasion to confirm that Muslims are generally so brutal and butcher-ish in nature in the underworld of an Indian metropolis.
I can assure you I started reading Rabindranath inspired by my father and my grandfather from a very early age. I have never seen Muslims smearing the face of Rabindranath with the blood of innocent people they slaughter. The harm unleashed by the cultural metaphor used in this film will take a long time to be rectified. I do know a thousand other Muslims in this part of Bengal who have also read Rabindranath, Sankha Ghosh, and if you ask me, also Joy Goswami and Srijato. Oh, Srijato! the poet who suddenly got lured into playing a cunning and corrupt Bengali Hindu port officer in Srijit Mukherjee’s Zulfiqar! I cannot comprehend what prompted Srijato into accepting this role of a buffoon government officer, only to be later hanged by a Muslim, Marcus Ali, alias Dev!
Srijit Mukherjee considers himself to be Bengali’s new ‘Satyajit Ray’. This is apparent from the advertisement of a mainstream Bengali newspaper where he appears as the ‘new age Ray’. I wonder if our director has watched Ray’s masterpiece, ‘Shatranj ke Khiladi’. ‘Shatranj ke Khiladi’ is Ray’s take on Wajid Ali Shah, Nawab of Oudh. If Srijit had watched ‘Shatranj Ke Khiladi’ or had read a little about Wajid Ali Shah, he would have understood how the exiled nawab of Oudh shaped the creation of Metiabruz and Garden Reach and how all this went into the making of the composite culture in Kolkata! Metiabruz and Garden Reach are something more than the Nancy (Fancy) Market and the Indian Restaurant which Srijit has portrayed in Zulfiqar. There exists a world beyond the beef-shops, the port and the underworld in Metiabruz.
The director has recorded his thankfulness for Firhad Haqim, MLA of Kolkata’s port area and Minister-in-charge of Urban Development, Government of West Bengal, in the title card. Had Srijit gone to Haqim to understand how the last rites of a Muslim are performed? We Muslims surely do not get celebrities like Srijit Mukherjee for a Hitchcock-style appearance in our zanazas and to raise slogans. But surely our men do not wear shoes during the last prayers for the departed soul.
Srijit, as I have mentioned before, I am not a celebrity like you but I come from the same academic institutions you flaunt in your CV. As a Muslim living in a contemporary cosmopolitan world, I have attended many Hindu funerals. I have been to Keoratala and Nimtala several times in the company of my bereaved (Hindu) friends and relatives. I bet you have not attended any zanaza.
In a recent meeting, MA Naqvi, BJP’s Muslim face and important minister in the present Cabinet (Minister of State, Parliamentary Affairs) has said, Muslims are second class citizens in the country. This has suddenly reminded us where we, Muslims, actually stand in this country. Being a Bengali, a Presidencian and JNU-ite, I, however, took pride in thinking differently.
Thank you Srijit Mukherjee for actually pointing out that Muslims are quintessentially ‘C-class’ (Criminal-class) in India. Alas! The only Hindu villain of your Zulfiqar is also an illicit son of a Muslim.
Srijit, along with making us C-class, you have also successfully ruined Shakespeare or Seikh Pir! In the famous PLT-1 or PLT-2 where most of the Union GB Meetings were held in Presidency, I had often wondered and imagined how the best political talents of Bengal have emerged from the furious debates and argumentative expositions. We are invariably reminded of the famous speech by Mark Antony in Julius Caesar epitomizing the craft of public oration. You have completely shattered the concept of an ideal political speech by putting Parambrata Chatterjee as Tony Braganza in the same podium as Mark Antony.
I do salute you for successfully turning a Shakespearean tragedy into Bengal’s best comedy. Thank you, Srijit Mukherjee and Anupam Roy for making the Christians and Muslims of Bengal a big laughing stock during the Sharadiya Puja Festival!
The author is a Professor of History at Burdwan University