I Am

I AM, is one movie I can confidently claim was not made for a cozy Friday night at the theatres. This film and its subjects are purely what Onir, the director believed in and wanted to share. It appears to be somewhat of a private gathering for himself, the cast and a select few audience.
I AM is a fusion of four stories, of individuals in modern day society who feel defined at some point by the callousness and the cold bloodedness of the former. It is their struggle to break limitations, and a desire to regain their lives and individuality.
This film is not about some answers to societal pressure, neither does the director promise a contemporary standpoint to issues like, sperm donation, child abuse or being gay. It promised nothing. All it said was I AM Afia/ Megha/ Abhimanyu/ Omar and this happens to be my story.

Afia is a young, successful married woman, whose benchmark of achievement is motherhood. After her marriage falls apart, she decides to retaliate by raising a child on her own. The first story is Afia’s journey, her anxiety, her tribulations of finding the right sperm donor. Adoption could be the easy way out, but Afia believes that giving birth will help prove her point to society
A) there is nothing wrong with her biologically and B)You don’t really need a man to support you.
In her hunt of finding a perfect donor who matches her physicality, has good tastes and interests in life, is not genetically dysfunctional or has tendencies of being a serial killer, every man whether at a station, in the tube, at work or at a party starts to resemble nothing more than a sperm vending machine.When given a choice, you would want to ensure only the best of the X chromosomes.
The story treads along a line of vulnerability where even the donor is shown as more than just that. He too has anxiety, fears attachment and many a times, fears exposure.
Afia herself is torn between her maternal instincts and the judgment of doing the right thing, whether for her, or the baby. Onir, through this story has tried to reflect a few such moments inside the perturbed mind of a woman. In her moment, not wanting to go through this alone, when Afia suggests to Purab (the sperm donor) that he could come home sometime and meet the child, Purab retracts immediately. However after conquering mental battles and getting off the operation table, Afia looks at the note which Purab after all, left his number on, liberated and not scared anymore, she simply smiles and reduces the paper to smaller bits.

Meanwhile, Megha, has returned to the valleys of Kashmir. Her distress cannot be hidden under her oversized glares as she realizes how much or how little has changed in the last 20 yrs, ever since her family was forced to flee. Her childhood friend Rubina, overjoyed at Megha’s return recounts childhood memories, now only frozen in time. Megha however, chooses to distance herself behind the veil of gunshots, bloodshed, her family forced to flee under unearthly conditions, all circumstances that snatched away what she called home, peace and life as they knew how to live. She is now back, for business , to hand off the only remaining signs of her families roots. A Kashmiri Pandit handing over her existence to a Kashmiri Muslim family, could be no less a feat than our army placed at the Siachen.
A faceoff between Rubina and Megha towards the end of their story highlights a dual coin. While Megha was upset about her life being taken away, Rubina debated that the punishment of staying back in Kashmir , the carcass of a paradise that once was. Those that fled had a chance to pick up pieces again, but many that were confined behind, still live the aftermath of 1947 every day of their lives. Which sometimes makes me think, even when Kashmir receives a verdict, the wounds are too deep for generations to forget that above all, you are either a Kashmiri Pundit or a Kashmiri Muslim.

Abhimanyu is smart, manipulative and a social animal, who knows how to use people and is not afraid of doing so. The only person, who can see through this largely, is his colleague and confidant, someone whom he trusts enough to share a recurring dream with - a young girl and her mother, both dressed in white, walking through white orchids, the girl approaches a pond but is baffled to see only one reflection, that of hers, she turns around and finds herself deserted, all alone. At this point it’s hard to tell what’s more disturbing the fact that the little girl finds herself deserted or that the protagonist imagines himself as a girl! We see flashes of his childhood, a loving mother, a step father who gives into his every demand, and then the reason behind it all!
He finally decides to fulfill his step fathers dying wish for a last meeting, but reaches a day too late. Having taken a brave step to return hpme after 10 yrs he decides to take yet another one, and confides in his mother about being tormented as a child and sexually abused by the man she loved. Once again the little girl is left all deserted as the mother refuses to give into what she perceives as fiction. Abhimanyu returns back to the city, but this time we see the girl joyfully running through open fields, liberated, relieved, unfettered. This story is my favorite of the four, for not being a cliché and for the beautiful metaphors used.

I Am Omar, is what he said. And they got talking. A lovely evening was spent getting to know each other over dinner. Your place or mine was the next question which found its answer in a lonely deserted junction. The heat of the moment was mercilessly doused by a patrolling inspector on that unfortunate night. Article 377 (law under Indian Penal code which criminalizes homosexuality) was sited as a reason for harassment. Onir and Omar were both pulled out of the car. Since Omar was a struggling actor with no money, and Onir an established managing director, it was he who coughed up the bribe money. Digging a knife further into Onir’s soul and before leaving with Omar and the money in tow, the sub inspector insisted on Onir pleasing him down south. After being sexually assaulted he was worried about about Omar’s fate. Onir returned home, took his lawyer and searched every single police station for Omar, that night. Finally, he met that sub inspector again, but the inspector refused to recognize him, as if they’d never met before, as if the night had never happened, as if Onir was still living his worst nightmare. The others only laughed.

The movie has been doing the rounds of many film festivals and has received overwhelming response everywhere. The highlight of the film has been its 400 co-producers who funded the film post the request put up by filmmaker Onir on social networking sites! I would say money sensibly invested.