"Tamas" (1986) TV mini-series

User Rating:

8.9/10   

Director:

Govind Nihalani

Writer:

Bhisham Sahni (novel)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

This TV miniseries ("Darkness" in English) became famous in India in the mid/late 80s for its realistic...

Plot Keywords:

Sikh | Partition | Religious Intolerance | Civil War | Hindu Temple

Cast

Om Puri	...	Nathu
Deepa Sahi
Amrish Puri
Bhisham Sahni	...	Karmo
A.K. Hangal
Manohar Singh
Dina Pathak
Saeed Jaffrey
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Riju Bajaj
Veerendra Saxena	...	Jernail Singh (singing voice)

Also Known As:

Darkness (International: English title)

Runtime:

297 min

Country:

India

Language:

Hindi

Color:

Color

Company:

Blaze Entertainment

Outstanding! Stories that bring humanity to the "Partition" of India

This 1986 miniseries is now being shown as a very long (a few minutes shy of five hours) feature on 35mm film at Indian Film Festivals. It is now making the rounds in South America, and may be viewed with English or Spanish subtitles.

The nonstop five hour marathon is well worth the discomfort and inconvenience of sitting so long. The stories of the suffering refugees as a result of the 1947 Partition humanize this great human tragedy. The film is adapted from a book by a Punjabi who opted for India, and was displaced from West Punjab (now in Pakistan) to the east (today's India). It is therefore told from an "Indian" perspective, in spite of all the concessions made to the "Muslim" (Pakistani) side in the first half of the film.

The inviability of one soul Indian state with a Hindu majority is persuasively defended. However, the migration of Sikhs and other non-Muslim characters make it clear that India alone was to become a true plural society. The film, like the book, only addresses the division of the Punjab. But the Punjabi partition was, along with the Bengali partition, the most tumultuous.

This film features an early major performance by Om Puri, one of the sub continent's greatest actors of the last 30 years. His character and his wife make up the Punjabi Hindu family most featured in the film. The other major family highlighted is an elderly Sikh couple.

There are bad, but mostly good Pakistani Muslim characters who interact with the Hindus and Sikhs. The film (and book) go to great lengths to balance the suffering, guilt, and barbarity amongst all the religious groups. But, it has a definite pro-Indian slant.

This is probably not a bad thing, but rather a reality. Sixty years of history now have proved India to be, and to continue striving to be, the plural society it envisioned. Pakistan, on the other hand, has been unstable since its inception, having lost East Pakistan (now pro-India Bangladesh). No end is in sight for its eternal problems: political instability, religious intolerance and fanaticism, corruption, and under development.

This epic film is a must for anyone wanting to further understand and explore the sub-continent, and the complicated history and diverse peoples who inhabit it. It is in my opinion THE modern Indian epic, the DEFINITIVE "PARTITION" film. It is not to be missed.