“Do you believe there is still a demon here?” Asifa asks. “No,” says Gulzar. “So what’s the problem now?” she wonders. “There are no more saints,” he quietly replies. —Valley of Saints, 2012
THE air in the Valley is besieged by the dust storm that the assembly elections have kicked up in the last month. Jammu & Kashmir sees its first assembly election in ten years—its significance tied to the rescinding of J&K’s special status after the abrogation of Article 370. Some are promising a return to normalcy; others say, it is already normal.
Where does one go to unearth the truth in a fragmented place? To a constellation of images; a metaphor. To find Kashmir, one must look in the fragments; not in reports, speeches or slogans. Kashmir changes, yet remains unchanged—and only cinema can grasp this flux.
Militarisation and political turbulence are enduring backdrops in the precious few Kashmiri films that have been made in the past seven decades. Valley of Saints (2012), directed by Musa Syeed, is set in the milieu of the 2010 unrest—following the staged encounter of three Kashmiri youths by the Indian armed forces in Baramulla. In a story about love and longing, the impasse becomes the barbed wire in which the protagonists are trapped.
“No time for love”—a board reads, propped atop a shikara, steered along the Dal Lake by Gulzar (Gulzar Bhat), the pensive protagonist in Valley of Saints. The message stands in for the lingering sentiment in the film and its space—love is difficult to come by in a region so deeply embroiled in conflict. The Dal Lake, a central character in the narrative, is an allegory of Kashmir, both in its beauty and imperilment.
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