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Let’s create ‘Parzania’ together!

‘Parzania’ is nothing else but an imaginary world created by a small boy ‘Parzan’ in the movie. This imaginary world has buildings made of chocolate and streets made of ice-cream and there are no problems that we face in our real lives.

By: Ankush Khanna
‘Parzania’ is nothing else but an imaginary world created by a small boy ‘Parzan’ in the movie. This imaginary world has buildings made of chocolate and streets made of ice-cream and there are no problems that we face in our real lives. Our real world, however, is nowhere close to this imaginary world and that’s precisely the crux of the movie ‘Parzania’. As rightly mentioned by many, the movie is about a real life Parsi family, which loses its 10-year-old boy Parzan (Azhar in real life), during the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat. The film, however, is not limited to this family alone or its tireless search to find him; rather it deals with a much larger issue. In fact, the film is about sane people who turn into inhuman and beast-like creatures and commit heinous crimes like murder, rape and even worse (for whose description words don’t come easily), and all this in the name of religion. As far as the movie is concerned, everyone, except a few not-so-important characters, gave realistic and mature performances, especially Naseeruddin Shah and Sarika who delivered one of their career best performances. What makes Parzania better than other movies based on communal riots is the fact that Rahul Dholakia took utmost care in not sensationalising the film. Though it was a movie based on Gujarat riots where not only numerous people were slaughtered and women were raped, but even worse happened; no such scenes were shown in the two-hour-long film. The inhuman behavior of Hindu fundamentalists was mentioned in a scene where people from the minority community describe all that happened in an NHRC (National Human Rights Commission) hearing. It is important here to appreciate the decision of the filmmaker to choose English as the medium of communication as the language was able to do justice with the sensitivity of the subject.