Garm Hava

Garm Hava is a 1973 Indian drama film directed by M. S. Sathyu, with Balraj Sahni as the lead actor.
It was written by Kaifi Azmi and Shama Zaidi, based on an unpublished short story by noted Urdu writer Ismat Chughtai. The film score was given by the classical musician Ustad Bahadur Khan, with lyrics by Kaifi Azmi. It also featured a qawwali composed and performed by Aziz Ahmed Khan Warsi and his Warsi Brothers troupe.
Set in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, the film deals with the plight of a North Indian Muslim businessman and his family, in the period after the 1947 Partition of India. Made with a shoestring budget, the entire film was shot on location in Agra. In the grim months after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948, the film's protagonist and patriarch of the family, Salim Mirza, deals with the dilemma of whether to move to Pakistan, like many of his relatives, or stay back. The film details the slow disintegration of his family, and is one of the most poignant films made on India's partition. It remains one of the few serious films dealing with the post-Partition plight of Muslims in India.
It is often credited with pioneering a new wave of art cinema in Hindi films, along with Ankur, a film from another debutant director, Shyam Benegal. Both are considered landmarks of Parallel Cinema in Hindi. Parallel cinema had already started flourishing in other parts of India, especially in Bengal and Kerala. The movie launched the career of actor Farooq Shaikh, and marked the end of Balraj Sahni's film career, who died before its release. It was India's official entry to the Academy Award's Best Foreign Film category, was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, won a National Film Award, and three Filmfare Awards. In 2005, Indiatimes Movies ranked the movie amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films.

Plot

The Mirzas are a Muslim family living in a large ancestral house and running a shoe manufacturing business in the city of Agra in the United Provinces of northern India. The story begins in the immediate aftermath of India's independence and the partition of India in 1947. The family is headed by two brothers; Salim, who heads the family business, and his elder brother Halim, who is mainly engaged in politics and is a major leader in the provincial branch of the All India Muslim League, which led the demand for the creation of a separate Muslim state of Pakistan. Salim has two sons, the elder Baqar, who helps him in the business, and Sikander, who is a young student. Halim's son Kazim is engaged to Salim's daughter, Amina. Although he had publicly promised to stay in India for the sake of its Muslims, Halim later decides to quietly emigrate to Pakistan with his wife and son, believing that there was no future for Muslims in India. Salim resists the notion of moving, believing that peace and harmony would return soon, besides which, he has to care for their ageing mother, who refuses to leave the house of her forefathers. This puts Kazim and Amina's marriage plans on hold, although Kazim promises to return soon to marry her. Halim's stealthy migration affects Salim's standing in the community. In the aftermath of partition, the sudden migration of many Muslims from Agra left banks and other lenders deeply reluctant to lend money to Muslim businessmen like Salim Mirza, who had previously been held in high esteem, over fears that they would leave the country without repaying the loan. Unable to raise capital to finance production, Salim Mirza's business suffers. Salim Mirza's brother-in-law, formerly a League supporter, now joins the ruling Indian National Congress in an attempt to get ahead in independent India, while his son Shamshad unsuccessfully woos Amina, who is still devoted to Kazim and hopeful of his return.
Halim's migration to Pakistan makes the family home an "evacuee property" as the house is in Halim's name and Halim did not transfer it to Salim Mirza. The Indian government mandates the take over of the house, forcing Salim Mirza's family to move out of their ancestral home, which is very hard on Mirza's aged mother. Salim's wife blames him for not raising this issue with his brother Halim before he left for Pakistan. Mirza resists his wife's hints that they also move to Pakistan and his elder son's calls for modernizing the family business. Mirza finds it difficult to rent a house, facing discrimination owing to his religion and fears that a Muslim family would skip out on rent if they decided to leave for Pakistan. He finally succeeds in finding a smaller house to rent, but his business is failing and despite his son's exhorting, refuses to change with the times, believing that Allah would protect them. Salim Mirza's passiveness and disconnection from the outside world leaves his wife and son frustrated. The Mirza family house is bought by a close business associate, Ajmani, who respects Mirza and tries to help him. Despite growing troubles, the family is briefly buoyed by Sikander's graduation from college.
Amina and her family have almost given up on her marrying Kazim after Halim breaks his promise to return soon from Pakistan. Kazim sneaks across the border and returns on his own, and reveals that his father had become opposed to his marrying Amina, preferring that he marry the daughter of a Pakistani politician. Having received a scholarship from the Government of Pakistan to study in Canada, Kazim desires to marry Amina before he leaves, but before the marriage can take place, he is arrested by police and repatriated to Pakistan for travelling without a passport and not registering at the police station, as is required of all citizens of Pakistan. Amina is heart-broken, and finally accepts Shamshad's courtship. Sikander undergoes a long string of unsuccessful job interviews, where the interviewers repeatedly suggest that he would have better luck in Pakistan. Sikander and his group of friends become disillusioned and start an agitation against unemployment and discrimination, but Salim prohibits Sikander from taking part. Despite his political connections, Salim Mirza's brother-in-law ends up in debt over shady business practices and decides to flee to Pakistan. Amina again faces the prospect of losing her lover, but Shamshad promises to return and not leave her like Kazim. Salim Mirza's reluctance to modernise and cultivate ties with the newly formed shoemakers union results in his business not receiving patronage and consequently failing. Disillusioned, his son Baqar decides to migrate to Pakistan with his son and wife. Salim's aged mother suffers a stroke, and through his friend, Salim is able to bring his mother to her beloved house for a final visit, where she dies. While Salim is travelling in a horse-drawn carriage, the carriage driver, a Muslim, gets into an accident and a squabble with other locals. The situation deteriorates into a riot, and Salim is hit by a stone and suffers injuries. With his business and elder son gone, Salim begins to work as a humble shoemaker to make a living. Shamshad's mother returns from Pakistan for a visit, leading Amina and her mother to think that Shamshad would also come soon and their marriage would take place. However, Shamshad's mother merely takes advantage of Salim Mirza's connections to release some of her husband's money, and reveals that Shamshad's marriage has been arranged with the daughter of a well-connected Pakistani family. Shattered with this second betrayal, Amina commits suicide, which devastates the whole family.
Amidst these problems, Salim Mirza is investigated by the police on charges of espionage over his sending of plans of their former property to his brother in Karachi, Pakistan. Although acquitted by the court, Mirza is shunned in public and faces a humiliating whisper campaign. Mirza's long aversion to leaving India finally breaks down and he decides in anger to leave for Pakistan. Sikander opposes the idea, arguing that they should not run away from India, but fight against the odds for the betterment of the whole nation, but Salim is called a spy for Pakistan and decides to leave anyway. However, as the family is travelling towards the railway station, they encounter a large crowd of protesters marching against unemployment and discrimination, which Sikander had planned to join. Sikander's friends call out to him, and Salim encourages him to join the protesters. He instructs the carriage driver to take his wife back to their house, and the film ends as Salim Mirza himself joins the protest, ending his isolation from the new reality.

Adaptation

The film was an adaptation of Ismat Chughtai's story by noted Urdu poet and lyricist, Kaifi Azmi. While the original story centred on a station master, stuck in the throes of Partition, Kaifi Azmi brought in his own experiences as a union leader for the workers of a shoe manufacturing factory to the film. He not only changed the profession of the film’s protagonist, but also placed him right in the middle of film’s emotional cauldron, as he watches his livelihood and family disintegrating rapidly, immediately making the trauma of the Partition personal, compared to the original story, where the protagonist is a mere observer, watching his friends and family migrate. This fulfilled the main object of the film, which was to show the human consequences of a large political decision, which none of the people were party to. In the words of film director, M.S. Sathyu, "What I really wanted to expose in Garm Hava was the games these politicians play...How many of us in India really wanted the partition. Look at the suffering it caused."
The screenplay was written jointly by Kaifi Azmi, and Sathyu’s wife, Shama Zaidi, with Kaifi Azmi adding dialogue to the film.
The movie ends with a poem/shairi by Kaifi Azmi:

Cast

Badar Begum as Mother of Salim Mirza, Halim Mirza and Akhtar Begum.
Balraj Sahni as Salim Mirza.
Shaukat Azmi as Jamila, Salim's wife.
Gita Siddharth as Amina, Salim's daughter.
Abu Siwani as Baqar Mirza, Salim's elder son.
Farooq Shaikh as Sikander Mirza, Salim's younger son.
Dinanath Zutshi as Halim Mirza, brother of Salim Mirza. He is a Muslim politician.
Jamal Hashmi as Kazim Mirza, son of Halim Mirza and thus Amina's first cousin. He is her first love interest.
Ramma Bains as Akhtar Begum, sister of Salim Mirza, wife of Fakruddin, mother of Baqar's wife and of Shamshad Mian.
Yunus Parvez as Fakruddin, husband of Akhtar Begum, father of Baqar's wife and of Shamshad Mian.
Jalal Agha as Shamshad Mian, son of Akhtar Begum and thus Amina's first cousin. He is her second love interest.
A. K. Hangal as Ajmani Sahib, a Hindu refugee from Pakistan. He is a broad-minded man, Salim's business associate and friend.
Rajendra Raghuvanshi as Salim Mirza's tonga driver
Gulshan Verma as Gulshan Verma
Vikas Anand