Call of the clergy

Saba Mumtaz’s professional arc as a screenwriter has seen the pendulum of her career graph swinging between extremes. From writing for some of the most popular and longest-running TV shows like ‘Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai’, ‘Bade Achhe Lagte Hain’, ‘Sasural Simar Ka’ and many more to a sensitive short film about a little girl whose desire to become an imam, like her father, ruffles a lot of patriarchal feathers. The opening scene shows the girl outside a mosque, trying to copy her father, immersed in prayers.

Saba, who has also directed and produced the film, says, “Since childhood, this image has stayed with me. Every Eid, we would go to our ancestral village in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh. The boys would go running into the mosque for Eid ki namaz while the girls would stand outside, peeping in. In earlier times, a mosque was a place where everybody could gather. But, slowly, women were driven out, and confined to praying at home. This really bothered me a lot. In most religions, women’s representation in leadership roles in religious spaces has always been negligible. ‘The Imam’ is an attempt to start a conversation about the need for this change,” says Saba.

Like Saher, the film’s protagonist, Saba’s journey to make ‘The Imam’ has also seen many obstacles. “I wrote the film during the pandemic. Originally, I had written the script for a feature film. The story revolved around an older girl in her twenties. I pitched it to many producers, including Aamir Khan Productions. Almost everyone told me that it was a touchy subject and the atmosphere was not right to make such a film,” adds the filmmaker.

But she was determined to tell her story. “Inspiration struck through Iranian films. The filmmakers there, despite strict censorship, manage to tell sensitive stories by using children as protagonists or through animation. So, I decided to base my film on a curious little girl who is full of questions. The innocent questions of a child are not offending, but the elders don’t have any answers either,” adds the seasoned writer, who eventually funded the film herself.

It has been shot at her ancestral village and its surrounding villages of Barwala, Gesupur, Bharkaun, Chandyana and Daulatpur in Bulandshahr and has many villagers in minor roles.

‘The Imam’ is a simple tale realistically told, but does highlight many stark truths. As one little girl asks another in one of the scenes, “Kya tum insaan ho?” (Are you a human?), comes the guileless reply: “Nahi, yeh to ladki hai.” (No, she is only a girl)

This simplicity though has come through much ‘unlearning’ for Saba, who has been writing for TV series and soaps for nearly 25 years now. She credits this process of unlearning and new learnings to Boman Irani’s screenwriting platform, Spiral Bound, which she joined during the pandemic. ‘The Imam’ is dedicated to the veteran actor, whom Saba calls her guru and mentor.

Part of the national and international film festival circuit since last year, ‘The Imam’ has won many awards. It recently picked up a gold and silver award at the 7th South Asian Short Film Festival for best direction in short fiction and best short fiction, respectively, best female director at CineDreams International Film Festival and best picture at the K Viswanath Memorial Short Film Contest.

The women in her daily soaps and dramas may have been confined to stereotypes, but in her films, they have always fought against patriarchal exploitation and oppression. Those living on the margins or common people caught in the vicissitudes of life that are not of their own making are other themes close to her heart. A postgraduate from Jamia Millia Islamia, her first film, ‘Disha’, was about rural children who are brought to the cities to work as house help. Another film, ‘Ek Kori Prem Katha’, spoke about the inhumane practice of virginity tests. The next project she is working on deals with yet another recurring social issue of how lives are destroyed when common people become victims of riots and how it impacts their ideologies subsequently.

Saba’s stories are as simple as the characters that inhabit them, reflecting the new genre of realistic cinema which entertains and has a message that’s subtle. In ‘The Imam’, too, Saher, obviously, does not become an imam in the end but there’s change for the better, as her mother determinedly asks her father to send the girl to school just like her brother. The last shot is the father putting his clerical cap on Saher’s head, symbolising a change that’s real and perceptible and not far-fetching, just as in life.