Moving frames

Mukesh Gautam: Youngsters need role models

Sajda for Randhawa is defined by sensitivity

MANY people in Punjab and Chandigarh know one aspect or the other of M.S. Randhawa’s personality. It is sad that this hero of Punjab remains unsung. It was heartening to know that Mukesh Gautam has made an hour-long film on his life to pay a tribute to Randhawa, whose death anniversary falls on March 3.

Director Gautam was a talented student at the Department of Indian Theatre, Panjab University. He has chosen extraordinary topics for his documentaries. During the period of terrorism in Punjab, Gautam roamed in the dreaded Mand area, shooting on actual locations of terrorist hideouts. Later, he made an hour-long film on Bhagat Puran Singh and a two-hour film on Shiv Pujan Sahay, a writer from Bihar.

It was, India’s Most Wanted, of which he directed 35 episodes, which finally brought him name and fame.

The idea of Sajda was born because Gautam is an extremely sensitive person who believes in worshipping the great men who walked this earth. He believes that the younger generation needs to have idols to emulate. In Sajda, he has portrayed, in an imaginative and creative manner, lives of Baba Sheikh Farid, Waris Shah, Buleh Shah, Sobha Singh and Surinder Kaur. Randhawa has been one of his heroes for a long time. That is why he furiously worked on this film. Punjabi poet Bubbu Tir has written the script of the film. She has done a remarkable job of defining each aspect of Randhawa’s personality. Balwinder, a well-known researcher on Sufism, has meticulously studied Randhawa’s life and career. Rajinder has done the cinematography of the film. He has shot this film because of his reverence for Randhawa. Gautam has handled the subject with sensitivity and depicted the passion of Randhawa’s personality.

A real-life incident of Randhawa inspecting a jail as an ICS officer has been shot in a touching manner. According to Randhawa’s account in his diary, then Indian prisoners were not only tortured in jails but also locked in barracks by 4 pm even when the official time was 8 pm. When he went for inspection, prisoners raised slogans against him as a protest. They hated him—an Indian—for working for the British. A prisoner even spat at him. This incident disturbed Randhawa no end.

He writes that he would have resigned immediately but for the advice of his wife. It was she who convinced him that he would be able to serve India and Indians in a far more just manner than the British.

In this scene, a theatre artiste of Chandigarh successfully conveyed the contempt, revolt, anger and agony. The interview with Randhawa’s wife at his Kharar home is equally impressive. — R.S.

HOME