Movie Reflection: Mammo (1994)

Bollywood Muslim socials have come a long way from merely qawwalis, courts and courtesans. Since the mid-‘90s they have been venturing more domestically within the Muslim milieu. How faith interplays in and gets affected by matters of the home and beyond. This is consummately evident in Shyam Benegal’s National Award winning Mammo. 

Source: IMDb

Written by Khalid Mohammed, the film serves as the first instalment of his Muslim trilogy. Though the films that follow (Sardari Begum and Zubeidaa) harken back to the stereotypical courtesans and Muslim aristocracy, Mammo is a slice of life story embittered with the macabre of the Partition and the administrative apathy in assuaging its brutal aftermath. 

Mammo follows the life and times of Mehmooda “Mammo” Begum (Farida Jalal), as she visits her sister and grandson in India, coming all the way from Pakistan (on a temporary visa) to escape her abusive in-laws. Domestically and legally speaking, Mammo is homeless. At most she is (and most pejoratively) a guest at both her sister’s place and India. Here is where the pathos of the film lies. Mammo, who was born and brought up with her sister in undivided India, now stands othered by both of them. But Mammo is not one of those who sob and flagellate themselves over the past. She has accepted her fate albeit through dried tears, and continues to play a jovial, fiesty and chirpy grandmother to Riyaaz (Amit Phalke). Eventually he too takes a liking for his chatterbox Mammo nani, whose presence makes the doting and dutiful Fayyazi (Surekha Sikri) play second fiddle in her affections to dear Rizzu, 

With an introduction of the plot, it would be cogent to bring up and comment on the theme song of the film (with annotated translations): 

“Yeh faasle teri galiyon ke humse tay na hue

Hazaar baar ruke hum hazaar baar chale”

Gulzar’s lyrics oozing of viraha (separation of the beloved) are reminiscent of one of his earlier songs “Ruke ruke se qadam, ruk ke baar baar chale”. But it is the pathos-filled voice of Jagjit Singh which embellishes the motif at the high points of the film. Closely reading the lyrics of the whole song would mirror them verse by verse to Mammo’s life and her quest for a homeland. 

“Naa jaane kaun si matti watan ki matti thi

Nazar me dhool, jigar mein liye gubaar chale”

The Partition of India was a slow-brewing bureaucratic plan but had a chaotic implementation. Caravans of helpless people across either sides of the Radcliffe line scrambled to leave one home to fend for the other. Which nagar? Which side? Which direction? Nobody knew. Not even Mammo, both before and after Partition.

“Ye kaisi sarahaden ulajhee hui hain pairo mein

Hum apane ghar ki taraf uth ke baar baar chale”

Just when everything is going well in the film, sometime before Eid, Mammo is deported back to Pakistan, owing to an illegal extended stay in India. As the police pulls her out of the house and embarks her on a train to Pakistan, Mammo’s sole question is: “why am I being deported from my own home?” Mammo is sent back. The politically drawn iron-mortar boundaries prevail over blood relations. This seems to be the end. Until someone rings the doorbell twenty years thence. Mammo is back, just as alive in sass and spirit, but dead on the papers.

Watching Mammo, one wonders as to what to call home and homecoming? Where does Mammo’s true home lie? Is home where she lives, or is it where she dies? And is death the ultimate homecoming after all?