Amidst all that has been happening these past few days, weekends don’t feel so celebratory. I mostly always wake up on weekends looking forward to spend two days at home and just be myself. This weekend wasn’t so much of that.

Saturday went by in coordinating home chores, which worked out because it kept me away from any news in general.

There’s a beautiful Gurudwara close to my house and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my Saturday evening. I don’t know if this happens with others, but the ardaas that they sing at Gurudwara is transcendental for me. I forget all my thoughts, and I feel one with the energy around me. I am not a spiritual person and I hardly follow any rituals at home. However, with time, I’ve come to realise that it is really not about what rituals you follow, which god you pray to. If we believe that there is some energy which is beyond our understanding, which aids the good things that happen in our life, then all we can do is respect that energy. Simplistic, yes, but that sums up faith for me.

After a walk back home from the Gurudwara, we decided to order in dinner and watch some television. We had come across this Ivory Merchant film while reading up about Shashi Kapoor few months ago and it was on our watchlist. Heat and Dust is a 1983 film released in London. I am not sure if this was released in India and I haven’t really checked much about the film online. I found a decent print on YouTube and decided to give it a chance.

The story is about a young British woman who visits India in search of her aunt’s stories from the time she was in India in the 1920s. She has inherited her aunts letters written to her mother describing India, her marriage with a young British officer and her passionate lover, an Indian Nawab, played by the ever handsome Shashi Kapoor.

The scenes subtly shift from the past to the present and my husband noticed the delicate change in lighting to show the two time frames. It was all so smooth, wouldn’t have thought of it as an 80s film.

Through the protagonist’s quest to find out about her aunt and the lover, she is slowly getting sucked into all things Indian. It feels natural to her, as though, a part of her aunt is with her on the same land. As she discovers her aunt’s story, she is writing one that’s her her own.

I wouldn’t imagine some of the scenes in this film are now about 30 years old because they felt refreshing and relevant even today. At one point, the protagonist visits a religious tomb, built in the memory of Saint Baba Farid where both Hindus and Muslims and just about anyone comes and prays everyday. At one point she says, “that’s how it is in India. Everything gets mixed up and absorbed”. Just so on point in terms of what is happening today. Our country really does have immense strength to just about absorb anything and live peacefully through it.

There are moments created of what one would think India would’ve been back in the 1920s. The Nawabs are being tolerated by the British only because of their status, the British are invited to Indian music shows which they sit through, only because they have to. They have several notions about Indians, mostly untrue and negative. In a very awkward scene, one of the British “Bada Memsaab” says, all the spicy food that Indians eat, creates a lot of heat in the men’s bodies. All they want to do is sleep with the white women. It’s all they can think about.

The film ends with the protagonist quietly settling down in the paradise that Kashmir is, just like her aunt did. A common chord of love that they both receive in the country is what deeply connects them. Just like her aunt, she too, finds her calm in this country.

I had watched the film Shakespeare Wallah and written about it a while back, which is also an Ivory Merchant film. The cast therefore, is not surprising at all. Jennifer Kendall, Shashi Kapoor, Ratna Pathak and several other known faces. There was one that surprised me the most though. Pandit Zakir Hussain. Yes, you read it right.

It’s a given that the actors do a fabulous job but it’s also filmed with a lot of care and nuance. When did we last see the east met west so seamlessly in an entertainment film? And no, I don’t mean Deepika Padukone in XXX. I mean, this sort of meeting of the two cultures, the perfect blend for a good story. Shashi Kapoor, a superstar, was doing it back in the 80s. He truly was representing Indian cinema worldwide in his own way.

-Aishwarya Bedekar