The Poetry Has Gone From Our Lives, but Hate Cannot Last Forever| The Wire Talks

Thirty years ago, Saeed Akhtar Mirza made his final feature film, Naseem, about an aging Urdu poet, played by Kaifi Azmi, and set in the days preceding the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The film opened with a title card which said, “That one act of demolition wrote the epitaph of an age that has passed, perhaps never to return!” “ The Babri Masjid epitomized the final collapse, you know, of an idea of India, of a sovereign, secular, democratic republic, equal for all, equality and justice. You saw it collapse in front of your eyes.” He said. “I was in despair but I was also angry when I made the film,” Mirza said in a podcast conversation with Sidharth Bhatia. He has not made any feature film since, though he still makes documentaries and has written two books. Mirza spoke about how the “Hindu-Muslim binary was stupid” and said that those who promoted it hadn’t read any history. Their idea of history is “fundamentally flawed” he said.