The Most Memorable Goodbye Turns 50

‘Garm
Hava
understands
that
the
scorching,
hate-filled,
doubt-filled
affair
between
Hindus
and
Muslims
is
our
national
love
affair.’
‘It
takes
us
back
to
a
time
when
this
affair
was
at
its
boiling
point,
and
it
gets
at
a
pungent
truth:
The
decision
to
migrate
or
stay
back
was
more
often
not
a
pragmatic
decision,
one
that
was
based
largely
on
practical
considerations.’

Sreehari
Nair
revisits
M
S
Sathyu’s
classic
film,
featuring
the
incomparable
Balraj
Sahni
at
his
finest
in
his
final
role.

It’s
time
we
designated
Balraj
Sahni’s
walking
stick
in

Garm
Hava
as
a
cultural
treasure.

In
M
S
Sathyu’s
grainy,
Partition-era
masterpiece,
Sahni
plays
Salim
Mirza,
the
kind
of
sweet-souled
gentleman
for
whom
the
walking
stick
was
probably
invented.

Mirza
never
goes
anywhere
without
his
walking
stick
and
to
him,
it
is
something
more
than
just
a
provider
of
secure
footing.
The
stick
is
by
turns
Mirza’s
last-ditch
attempt
at
brandishing
a
status
symbol,
his
instrument
of
casual
mischief,
his
Excalibur.
He
wields
the
damn
thing
like
Luke
Skywalker
wields
his
lightsaber.

As
a
prop,
the
walking
stick
completes
Mirza.
More
importantly,
perhaps,
it
has
some
of
the
same
charms
as

Garm
Hava;
that
is
to
say,
a
marvelous
period
quality
as
well
as
an
aura
of
timelessness.

Watching
Mirza,
a
failing
manufacturer
of
footwear,
as
he
ambles
through
the
narrow
streets
of
Agra,
it’s
evident
that
the
stick
in
his
grip
is
a
shorthand
for
glorious
days
now
long
gone.

His
business
is
sinking
and
his

haveli
is
falling
to
pieces
but
once
inside
his
mansion,
he
tries
to
maintain
his
good
spirits,
poking
his
stick
at
his
favourite
daughter
on
the
wing,
getting
her
attention,
and
reminding
her
that
she
is
his
‘little
witch,’
a
charming
yesteryear
expression
of
hardboiled
warmth.

When
Mirza
dispels
his
son’s
doubts
with
an
‘Inshallah,
everything
will
be
all
right,’
his
fervor
is
so
total
that
he
points
his
stick
to
the
sky,
as
if
it
were
an
antenna
to
God.

In

Garm
Hava,
Salim
Mirza
and
his
companion
of
stunning
chestnut
wood
are
mostly
captured
in
wide
shots,
but
what
a
tale
they
tell!

In
a
beautiful,
beautiful
scene
of
behavioral
acting,
Mirza
starts
to
set
himself
down
at
his
creditor’s
office,
and
then,
taking
heed
of
a
note
from
his
creditor,
he
stops
just
inches
short
of
his
chair,
resting
his
entire
weight
on
his
walking
stick,
and
holding
that
stance
for
a
good
seven
seconds.

The
movie
features
some
of
the
finest
instances
of
‘being
in
the
moment,’
as
showcased
by
the
least
self-conscious
actor
India
has
ever
produced.

You
hardly
hear
the
man
raising
his
voice,
let
alone
uttering
apercus
or
aphorisms,
and
yet,
the
one
time
he
fixes
a
miscreant
with
a
stare,
he
makes
it
count.

Balraj
Sahni
is

so
assured
and
relaxed
here
that
his
performance
feels
less
like
a
classic
from
the
vault
and
more
like
something
that
might
have
dropped
on
a
streaming
platform
just
last
week.

And
now
that
I
have
established
his
relevance
to
our
age,
let
me
break
it
to
the
uninitiated
reader
that

Garm
Hava,
which
turned
50
this
year
(it
was
premiered
in
India
in
1974),
was
Sahni’s
last
hurrah
(he
died
on
the
day
he
had
finished
dubbing
for
the
film).

Watching
it
again
recently,
I
wound
up
asking
myself
if
the
Indian
silver
screen
has
witnessed
a
more
memorable
goodbye.

Goodbye
makes
for
a
recurring
motif
in

Garm
Hava.
The
movie
opens
with
Salim
Mirza
at
the
railway
station
seeing
off
a
loved
one,
and
this
soon
develops
into
a
routine,
a
spell,
a
curse,
as
one
after
another
Mirza’s
relatives
board
the
train
to
Pakistan.

Off
they
go,
and
Mirza
waves
at
them
through
the
smoke
and
the
Agra
haze.
He
might
as
well
keep
waving,
for
Mirza
loses
something
or
someone
valuable
through
the
entire
length
of
the
movie.

He
first
loses
his
brother,
then
his

haveli,
loses
a
son
to
migration
and
a
daughter
to
heartbreak
and
loses
his
social
standing
when
charged
with
espionage.
But
through
all
this,
he
never
loses
his

khushnumai.

Trailing
his
stick
through
Agra’s
over-thronged
streets,
dressed
in
his
superbly
tailored
suits
and
his
astrakhan
cap,
which
he
later
loses
in
a
riot,
he
refuses
to
lose
his
delicacy
and
his
noblesse
oblige.

He’s
a
dandy
trying
to
keep
his
poise
in
the
face
of
a
tragedy,
and
this
is
what
makes
him
so
irresistible.
Montaigne
could
well
have
been
thinking
about
Salim
Mirza
when
he
wrote,
‘Cheerfulness
is
the
surest
sign
of
wisdom.’

Mirza’s
cheerful
inertia
transcends
patriotism,
and
M
S
Sathyu
is
attempting
something
quite
singular
here:
He
is
using
the
aristocrat
and
his
silent
pride
to
make
clear
to
us
the
costs
of
Partition.

Garm
Hava‘s
episodic
structure
and
its
openhanded
staging
of
scenes
carry
us
along
on
this
journey
—
the
technique
of
the
film
may
not
correspond
with
a
polemicist’s
way
of
approaching
a
historical
event,
but
it’s
every
bit
a
poet’s
way.

Salim
Mirza
is
interminably
bound
to
the
land
of
his
birth
because
he
is
afflicted
by
nostalgia
and
lethargy
(a
delicious
combination
that
has
inspired
a
whole
range
of
artists
from
Cervantes
to
Truffaut).

Other
members
of
the
Mirza
household,
the
ones
who
are
not
wired
like
Salim
Mirza,
do
not
however
suffer
from
this
affliction;
and
as
they
hop
on
the
train
to
Pakistan,
they
leave
behind
a
trail
of
confused
rhetoric.

There’s
the
elder
brother
Halim
Mirza,
for
instance.
Down
to
his
last
teeth,
Halim
Mirza
speaks
at
Muslim
League
rallies
about
his
right
to
live
in
India.

You
see
Halim
at
these
rallies
wallowing
in
his
own
image,
marinating
in
it
(‘There’s

Khuda
above
and
Halim
down
here,’
he
says,
thumping
his
chest
at
one
point),
and
when
somebody
so
grand
and
so
impossibly
theatrical
decides
that
he
can
no
longer
stay
in
India,
you
can
tell
how
bad
the
situation
is.

When
our
liberals
try
to
enter
the
debate
about
Muslims’
loyalty
toward
this
country
on
sentimental
grounds
alone,
they
do
not
do
the
Indian
Muslim
community
any
favour.

Garm
Hava,
on
the
other
hand,
is
a
heart-rending
tale
told
by
a
hard-as-nails
realist.

The
movie
understands
that
the
scorching,
hate-filled,
doubt-filled
affair
between
Hindus
and
Muslims
is
our
national
love
affair.
It
takes
us
back
to
a
time
when
this
affair
was
at
its
boiling
point,
and
it
gets
at
a
pungent
truth:
The
decision
to
migrate
or
stay
back
was
more
often
not
a
pragmatic
decision,
one
that
was
based
largely
on
practical
considerations.

When
Salim
Mirza’s
seven-year-old
grandson
boards
the
train,
you
can
see
how
the
kid’s
innocent
dinnertime
question,
‘Abbaji,
do
they
fly
kites
in
Pakistan?’
is
about
to
be
answered.

And
it
is

this
pragmatism
that
Salim
Mirza
lacks.

Though
he
may
declare
for
effect,
‘Business
is
business;
it
knows
no
borders,’
he
wouldn’t
stray
too
far
from
the
narrow
lanes
of
his
childhood,
or
from
the
Tomb
of
Chishti.

Later,
when
he
says
to
a
landlord,
‘I
am
Salim
Mirza.
I
am
a
Muslim.
Are
you
still
interested
in
leasing
your
house
to
me?’
we
can
see
how
reedy
and
shrill
the
idea
of
patriotism
is
when
pitted
against
a
man
who
just
wouldn’t
move.

This
is
Ismat
Chughtai’s
lyric
hard-headedness
speaking
through
Kaifi
Azmi
and
Shama
Zaidi’s
lacquer-free
evocation
of
an
era.
Look
closely,
and
the
movie
fingers
our
liberals
and
our
right-wingers
in
equal
measure;
it
pooh-poohs
Meghna
Gulzar’s
wailing
heart
as
much
as
it
does
Neeraj
Pandey’s
ever-suspicious
eye

There’s
another
key
difference
between
the
sensibility
that
informs

Garm
Hava
and
the
salon
sensibility
of
those
Indian
film-makers
who
have
tried
to
show
us
the
Muslim
way
of
life.

In
our
cinema,
building
a
case
for
Muslims
has
always
amounted
to
portraying
them
as
a
pious,
scary,
misunderstood
lot.
M
S
Sathyu
does
not
turn
the
Muslim-in-peril
into
a
snowflake;
if
he
has
a
strategy
it’s
not
to
reduce
his
characters
into
treatise-worthy
subjects
but
to
widen
their
range
of
meaning.

The
Muslims
in

Garm
Hava
have
the
gift
for
life
and
for
holding
nothing
in
reserve.

There
may
even
be
an
excess,
a
‘too-muchness’
about
these
characters
—
as
evident
in
Salim
Mirza’s
mother,
a
catty
old
woman
who
has
nicknames
for
all
her
children
and
a
measure
of
everyone’s
weakness
(she
has
graded
them
just
about
right).

In
her
irritations,
the
old
crone
is
immensely
likeable,
and
you
assent
to
her
belief
that
left
to
her,
the
Partition
business
would
have
been
handled
more
efficiently.
The
tough

materfamilias,
she
desperately
wants
to
know
what
her
children
are
saying
about
her,
and
even
when
you
laugh
at
her
everyday
anxieties,
you
laugh
out
of
the
wrong
side
of
your
mouth.

It’s
true
that

Garm
Hava
may
seem
out-of-touch
with
this
age
of
victim
commemoration.

Sathyu
does
not
confer
automatic
sainthood
upon
his
victims
of
history,
and
you
know
them
better
through
their
delusions
and
miscalculations,
through
the
fire
in
their
side
glances
or
the
ribbing
that
happens
between
husbands
and
wives.

Salim
Mirza’s
begum,
for
example,
wouldn’t
cede
an
ounce
of
her
self-respect,
not
to
her
mother-in-law,
not
to
her
impoverished
dandy.
Mrs
Mirza
sews
all
day,
and
by
night
is
left
with
no
energy
for
domestic
patchworks;
so
when
Mr
Mirza
throws
a
minor
fit
one
evening
and
announces
that
he’s
going
to
bed
without
dinner,
she
chomps
on
her
rotis
and
lets
him
keep
his

roza.

There’s
enough
poetry
in
such
bickerings
but
there’s
also
actual
Urdu
poetry
waiting
to
trip
you
at
every
corner,
and
for
every
skillful
poet,
there
exists
a
clumsy
poet
with
a
talent
for
spoiling
a
fine
verse
by
poor
enunciation.

This
is
a
Partition-era
movie,
sure,
but
it’s
also
an
Agra
movie,
and
that
sense
of
artistic
pursuits
commingling
with
the
harsh
realities
of
life
is
close
to
perpetual.

Even
the
period
details
are
striking
and
unflinchingly
so.

Among
the
workers
at
Mirza’s
shoe
factory
are
little
children
who
go
about
their
duties
with
a
stoic
face.
The
shots
of
those
child
labourers
are
deeply
disturbing,
and
the
power
of
the
imagery
is
magnified
many
times
over
by
Sathyu’s
insistence
on
presenting
it
without
a
trace
of
garnish.
His
attitude
to
such
upsetting
trinkets
from
the
past
is
clear-eyed
but
humane.

He
seems
to
be
saying,
‘These
are
the
plain
facts.
They
have
to
be
uttered.’

M
S
Sathyu
is
above
all
a
realist
—
this
is
his
blessing
and
his
burden
—
and
as
with
all
committed
realists,
he
cannot
help
but
make
the
sentimental
portions
downright
clunky.

The
two
doomed
romances
of
Salim
Mirza’s
daughter
(played
by
Gita
Siddharth,
that
dew-drop
beauty)
are
maddeningly
constructed,
as
are
the
unending
professional
woes
of
the
youngest
son
(a
wiry
and
very
skittish
Farooque
Sheikh).

When
Sathyu
has
to
drive
home
the
point
of
the
Mirzas’
being
treated
as
second-class
citizens,
he
goes
woefully
off-kilter,
even
to
the
point
of
garishness.

A
terrible
close-up
of
Balraj
Sahni
biting
his
lower
lip
in
anguish
reminded
me
of
how
effortlessly
statuesque
the
same
man
had
looked
in
a
shot
of
his
sleeping
with
an
Urdu
newspaper
covering
his
face.

Sathyu
is
no
laureate
of
the
obvious.
It’s
also
pretty
clear
that
he’s
not
so
much
a
storyteller
as
a
man
nurturing
his
curiosity.

Even
the
greatest
of
films,
such
as

The
Godfather,
are
very
carefully
calculated
to
deliver
their
intended
wallop.
Sathyu’s
calculating
side,
the
mechanist
side
of
him,
is
palpably
weak.

But
there’s
an
undercurrent
of
constant
awe
about
how
Mysore
Shrinivas
Sathyu
(a
Hindu)
looks
at
the
Muslim
way
of
life,
and
the
truly
brilliant
parts
of

Garm
Hava
are
charged
with
a
sense
of
discovery.

There’s
a
scene
in
which
a
young
member
of
the
Mirza
household
makes
a
brief
return
from
Pakistan,
and
the
camera
dances
up
and
down
in
that
scene,
it
whizzes
past
a
procession
of
faces
appearing
from
many
rooms,
as
a
mixture
of

aadabs
and
hellos
and

salaams
slowly
fills
the haveli.

I
may
not
know
what
‘pure
cinema’
is,
but
I
can
make
out
those
moments
when
cinema
becomes
‘purely
about
the
love
of
people,’
and

Garm
Hava
is
packed
to
the
gills
with
such
moments.

Come
to
think
of
it,
Sathyu
shows
us
the
costs
of
Partition
without
giving
us
a
single
scene
of
slaughter
or
bloodshed.
The
movie
is
proof
that
the
emotional
investment
of
an
artist
is
enough
to
expand
his
audience’s
sympathy.

And
at
the
very
epicentre
of
the
great
churn
is
Balraj
Sahni’s
Salim
Mirza,
a
lapsed
romantic,
as
tragic
a
figure
as
the
last
Mughal.

The
noble
bearing
masks
his
exquisite
frustrations,
and
his
walking
stick
hangs
about
him
as
if
it
were
his
coat
of
arms.

I
have
friends
who
consider
the
sweaty,
sinewy
rickshaw
puller
of

Do
Bigha
Zamin
to
be
Sahni’s
finest
hour
on
screen,
and
there
are
others
who
believe
that
the
kindly,
bearded
Pashtun
of

Kabuliwala
has
a
quiet
force
that
can
never
be
surpassed.

But
I
would
always
like
to
remember
Balraj
Sahni
as
Salim
Mirza,
steady,
slow-moving
Salim
Mirza,
ripe
on
the
streets
of
Agra,
thinking,
deliberating,
calculating
his
losses,
even
as
the
world
around
him
takes
to
pamphleteering
or
waits
for
the
next
train.

Garm
Hava
may
have
been
his
goodbye
but
Balraj
Sahni’s
final
performance,
rich
and
flowing
like
a
river,
offers
the
perfect
counterpoint
to
death.
It
makes
you
feel
the
sheer
ecstasy
of
being.