BENGALURU: Had Anhad (Bounded-Boundless) has taken award-winning filmmaker Shabnam Virmani through a six-year-long journey, traversing through Ayodhya, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Pakistan. And through myriad beliefs, through Kabirs of many communities and ideologies.
The documentary, which looks at Kabir through the lens of communal conflict, will be screened at Delhi’s Habitat Centre on Friday.
“I have met upper-caste Hindus deeply offended by the assertion that Kabir speaks especially for Dalits, and Dalit activists who scorn research on Kabir by Brahmin scholars. Hindu lovers of Kabir uncomfortable with the term Sufi being linked with him, and Sufi singers who guffaw with laughter at the very thought that Kabir was not a Sufi!” she writes in an article published in an English monthly magazine. “Atheist activists who use Kabir couplets as slogans and devout Kabir Panthis who deify him with temples and aartis. The sociology of the many Kabirs itself becomes a fabulous device that pushes us towards opening up our minds and hearts.”
So who is her Kabir? It’s this ambiguity, which made her uncomfortable during the initial legs of her journey, she now finds comfort in. “My Kabir is a Kabir not confined to any ideologies, to any ‘ism’s,” she says in a chat with City Express. “His voice is in conversation with other poets, but it’s distinct. Kabir’s voice stands out.”
Virmani first learnt of Kabir in her early 20s. “I wasn’t introduced to them through school or college text books, or even through my family,” she says. It was through Hindustani artiste Kumar Gandharva’s music.
But it was only later, in the late 1990s, while she was “travelling for radio and films” that she heard his poetry, in the village madalis of Gujarat. “I was disturbed by the communal riots in 2002, and began reading Kabir,” she explains.
Soon after, she moved to Bengaluru, to be part of a research project on the mystic saint. While she started out with trying to explore the politics of religion, which is what made her turn to the poet in the first place, through Kabir, she discovered many fascinating facets of his along the way.
Some of these also went on to become films: Chalo Hamara Des (Come to My Country — Journeys with Kabir and Friends), Kabira Khada Bazaar Mein (In the Market Stands Kabir — Journeys with Sacred and Secular Kabir) and Koi Sunta Hai (Someone Is Listening — Journeys with Kumar and Kabir). Meanwhile, music CDs and more have come out of the process.
The Film
Through song and verse, the 103-minute film asks the question, ‘Who is Kabir’s Ram?’. Had Anhad explores the politics of religion through multiple answers on both sides of the ‘hostile’ border that divides India and Pakistan. For details, log on to www.kabirproject.org