The film festival at Asansol is held around this time of the year. This comprises a handful of good films - English, Hindi, Bengali - that are shown over a week at the Rabindra Bhavan. This time we decided that we would go to watch a film. We decided on Amu that has been written, directed and produced by Shonali Bose. We had heard about this film as one in which the firebrand activist/ feminist and Indian Communist Leader Brinda Karat had acted. However we did not know anything about the story of the film.

The film as it turned out was quite well made and excellently executed. It was a gripping story that enmeshed in itself issues and events like those relating to adoption, the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Bureaucratic culture of Delhi, and dashes of Bengali and Punjabi family life. The lead role was played by Konkana Sensharma, who has recently hit the Bollywood high with her role in Page 3. In this film also, she alongwith the others (including Karat) has acted very finely. We also see another well known face - that of Suhasini Ali in the film.

The film is about an adopted girl brought up in LA, who comes to India and searches for her roots. And, one event leads to another.

Not to miss, the film also had concealed political message. This relates to the irony that the Indian political scene has thrown up in the last two decades, whereby we have seen the two main political parties of India being involved in riots (while in Government) for their political advantage - the anti-Sikh riot of 1984 (around which the film actually revolves) and the post-Godhra Gujarat riots of 2002 that is spoken in a very subdued manner and only indirectly at the very end.

From the technical aspect, this was the first film I saw that had dialogues in the original languages - the way people actually speak in India. So we hear dialogues delivered in English, Hindi, Bengali and Punjabi. This apart from the language and accent of Dilli, where the story actually revolves and takes shape. All these diasporic linguistic dashes makes the film quite real.

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