Start the week with a film: ‘Dekh Tamasha Dekh’ skewers self-declared guardians of religion

Alongside a flourishing career on the stage, Feroz Abbas Khan has also pursued filmmaking. Dekh Tamasha Dekh (2014), his second movie after Gandhi, My Father (2007), unleashes playwright Shafaat Khan’s satirical gifts onto an examination of the communal divisions that plague India.

The Hindi drama is set in a generic small town where communal harmony is as precariously balanced as the giant cut-out of a local businessman that flattens a tonga driver. Muthaseth (Satish Kaushik) is apologetic about Hameed’s demise, but also sniffs a chance to raise his public profile.

The air is thick with opportunism. Hindu and Muslim hardliners compete to claim Hameed and decide on how he is to be laid to rest.

For the Hindus, led by Bavdekar (Sharad Ponkshe), Hameed was Kishen, one of their own who lost his way after meeting the widow Fatima (Tanvi Azmi). For the Muslims, whose champion is Sattar (Jaywant Wadkar), there is no question about Hameed’s faith.

Already, books on history written by the progressive professor Shastri (Satish Alekar) have been burnt. The inter-faith romance between Hameed’s daughter Shabbo (Apoorva Arora) and the photographer Prashant (Alok Rajwade) is in peril. Senior police officer Vishwasrao (Vinay Jain) tries to soothe tempers, but gets absolutely no help from the thick-skinned inspector Sawant (Ganesh Yadav).

Dekh Tamasha...

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