Azamgarh, Review: Saving the honour of a city, and a religion

Quite often, the religious minority of Indian Muslims is targetted for producing and harbouring young men who join terrorist groups, both within and outside India. While maybe a hundred or two hundred such misguided souls are either killed in encounters or found guilty of terrorist attacks and accordingly punished by the law of the land, there are an estimated 20 million Muslims whose motherland is India and who live in peace. That gives us a figure of 0.0001% for who have gone astray. Therefore, condemning Muslims roundly, as many fanatically inclined people are prone to do, is nothing, if not unfair. Azamgarh derives its title from a district in Uttar Pradesh, which has a notable Muslim population, and has produced famous personalities, but which has, in the film, produced a bunch of terrorists as well. Can the stains of disrepute, splashed by the sons of the soil, be washed away by a few good men? A laudable theme, but tacky treatment and amateurish direction, fail to nail the issue.

It is 2004. Aamir is an outstanding student and has topped the Intermediate exam in the entire state. His mother was expecting it, so brings out a plate full of sweets, to be distributed among the inhabitants of the small town. However, nobody is willing to partake of the offering because a religious scholar from Azamgarh, Ashraf Ali, has been arrested on a charge of master-minding bomb attacks. The news is spreading, thanks to television, and the mood is sombre, with a sense of outrage. Already, four Muslims from Azamgarh have been killed in police encounters. Fellow townsmen taunt Aamir that he will follow in the footsteps of the terrorists. First he will go to Aligarh Muslim University (a highly reputed educational institution), then to Delhi and then to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, Lahore and finally to Karachi (cities in Pakistan), where the real masterminds of terror attacks in India live.

He does go to Aligarh Muslim University, with most honourable intentions, but becomes highly introverted. As it happens, he is approached by some fellow students, who want to celebrate the release on bail of their leader, Ashraf Ali. Gradually, he becomes a sympathiser of their cause and is finally initiated into their group of ‘jehadis’ (Muslims who wrongly believe that jehad means inflicting harm on and causing the death of non-Muslims) and ‘fedayeen’ (those who are ready to sacrifice their own lives while causing maximum damage to life and property). Ashraf Ali continues his activities from a small house, where he lives with three henchmen. A fourth appears there in the shape of Aamir, who is welcomed by Ashraf Ali and immediately put under training. Part of his ‘internship’ includes engineering bomb blasts in small towns, which he successfully carries out. However, he is seen by the police, who put-up posters, announcing a huge reward for anyone who gives information about him.

It is Kamlesh Mishra’s debut feature, and, sadly, it looks it. He has a very thin story line to work on, and depends a lot on the climax to get his message through. But viewers might not make it to the climax. All characters are stereotypes, whether it is the brilliant student or his pious mother or the taunting townsmen, or the TV anchors or the recruiting henchmen, or the terrorists or the police inspector. Too much footage is given to the Inspector, who says nothing new. The fact that he spares Aamir’s mother torture because she is woman does show some compassion. Yet there is one character who rings true, and that is the other Maulana (religious scholar), who speaks from the heart while being interviewed by a TV channel. In fact, one senior police officer talks for so long on TV that it almost becomes a speech. All TV anchors speak very fast, which may be the norm these days, but when they are shown in split screen, with captions below, it becomes hard to follow. Aamir walks about freely, in spite of there being a reward on his head.

It has been reported that the film was started eight years ago, and with no stars whatsoever, getting a release of any sort must have been a task in itself. Pankaj Tripathi is the only known face, and he will not attract audiences in such a set-up. There is so much screen time given to TV footage that it appears that certain channels are backing the project, though that is definitely not the case. It has also been reported that this was to be a 60-minute film but has been expanded to 90 minutes on the editing table. If this is true, the act has done disservice to the project. Mishra pays tribute to the great men who were born in Azamgarh, like Maulana Shibli Nomani and the poet-lyricist, Kaifi Azmi, and laments the fact that, of late, Azamgarh is in the news for the wrong reasons. Maybe he is from Azamgarh himself! The idea of infiltrating the ranks of the ‘enemy’, by performing barbarous acts, only to plan vengeance, is a tried and trusted formula, not a piece of great writing. Many of the scenes in Aligarh Muslim University are similar and predictable.

Pankaj Tripathi is mis-cast as Ashraf Ali. He remains Pankaj Tripathi for most of the film, but gets into variety mode on a couple of occasions, for a change. For some strange reason, Anuj Sharma is not given any dialogue for about thirty minutes. Explaining his mute persona, Ashraf Ali says, “He is a man of few words.” In an anomaly of sorts, Anuj, as Aamir, looks older in 2004 and younger in 2007! This might be thanks to finding the right wig and/or a more competent make-up man. But he does not lack sincerity or effort. As Aamir’s mother, Amita Walia rolls out emotions after emotions, but looks more like Aamir’s elder sister. Adil Shekh can pass off as Headley, the real-life half American who abetted the conspiracies of real-life Pakistani mastermind, Hafiz Saeed, but his accent is as false as they come. Playing the Inspector, Ramji Bali has plenty of focus; if only he had been given a better written role. Putting in a cameo as Radhe, the Muslim-hating young man, Vivek Jaitely is passable. Also in the cast are Sudarshan Bhatt, Shrikant Varma and Naresh Gosai.

Although he managed to convert a 60-minute film into a 90-minute one, editor Biren Jyoti Monty could not avoid jerks in cutting and in the narrative. The music often drowns the dialogue completely. One would have thought that all the Muslim characters in Azamgarh would have correct diction, having studied Urdu and speaking it at home. In fact, the best diction comes from a male TV anchor on the left of the screen, who speaks both English and Urdu fluently. There are two songs in the film. Of them, the qawwali is better. Yet, it cannot be denied that the on screen singer and the recorded voice do not match. That is surprising, because the two voices belong to the same person, one of the Nizami Bandhu. It is written by Pratap Somvansh.

Azamgarh is a well-intentioned fiction tale, inspired by true events. Simplistic, unimaginative treatment, however, come in the way of the moral and the message.