Review on "JASHN-E-AZAADI"

          In this documentary 'Jashn-e-Azadi'-- 'How We Celebrate Freedom' is as explicit to speak of violence in Kashmir as the violence itself. Jashn-e-Azadi, is not only a rear glance of life with military, it is a smidgen more, in and out, interlacing the cowed survivals and the recurring pangs of death.

          The movie start with a desolate father looks for his son's grave in a Shaheedi Qabristan (martyr's graveyard), a teenager girl describes the body of a young man in the neighbourhood, killed during an army operation--"The body is lying in the crossroad amidst the houses, no one is allowed to approach, even the dog did not go near it." Her stoic, flat voice, communicates a long endurance.Post trauma centres, flood with disjointed minds, doctors listen to the staccato stories of a woman, and more. In her dreams, shrouded figures appear - and never reveal their faces.

     At Independence Day. Orphaned, children sing Iqbal's ' sare jahan se achchha, hindostan hamara,' and mark the glorification of their lives being spared, while their loved ones got killed. A feeling as alien like freedom would not tick these young hearts to sing, slaved within the terror of the past and an uncertain future.

       The way the film captures self defending attempts by the armed forces to manage for itself, an image of credibility is poignant in sense of negation. The images of the army run schools and orphanages, the donation of portable radio sets by them to the victims, the insistence to sing the national anthem, and an added pinch of "operation successful", as claimed by the forces, give bouts of disillusionment to the boasted claims of peace. Lives put to discord and then mend up with patches of compensations are received as a mockery.

        The movie doesn't escape to obtain martyrdom as it is hugged by Kashmiri youth. Martyrdom in Kashmir is more often a given status than achieved. One encounter and ten martyrs are recognised, another encounter, a score more.

        Theatrical performances demonstrate a five century old colonisation of the valley, and its fate being decided and re-decided by the any one but the people of the land.However, with all the ugliness, the beauty of symbolism is maintained. The symbol of tourists wearing colourful Kashmiri attires to be clicked in as a remembrance of Kashmir, when the movie opens and the same attires being replaced by a military scarf that a girl chooses to be clicked in as the film closes, leaves a strong impression of the slow generated change. The change of recognition of Kashmir, from beauty to the spectors of death.