Ramchand Pakistani

Cast: Nandita Das, Noman Ijaz, Navaid Jabbar, Syed Fazal Hussain, Adarsh Ayaz, Maria Wasti, Adnan Shah

Director: Mehreen Jabbar

Producer: Javed Jabbar

Music: Debajyoti Mishra

Release date: October 2, 2008

“Ramchand Pakistani” is derived from a true story concerning the accidental crossing of the Pakistan-Indian border during a period (June 2002) of extreme, war-like tension between the two countries by two members of a Pakistani Hindu family belonging to the 'untouchable' (Dalit) caste, and the extraordinary consequences of this unintended action upon the lives of a woman, a man and their son.

The singular theme of the film is how a child from Pakistan aged eight years learns to cope with the trauma of forced separation from his mother while being held prisoner, along with his father in the jail of a country i.e. India, which is hostile to his own, while on the other side of the border, the wife-mother, devastated by their sudden disappearance, builds a new chapter of her life by her solitary struggle for sheer survival.

Belonging to one of the lowest castes in Hinduism, the family is also part of a small minority of Hindus in a country, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, in which 97% of the people are Muslims.

The boy and his father are held captive in India where, in contrast to Pakistan, the overwhelming majority of about 80% comprises of Hindus.

The film portrays the lives of a family that is at the bottom of a discriminatory religious ladder and an insensitive social system, which is nevertheless tolerant, inclusive and pluralist. The irony is compounded by the fact that such a family becomes hostage to the acrimonious political relationship between two neighbour-states poised on the brink of war.