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This quote, used in the opening credits of the newly released Canadian film Partition , perfectly sums up this latter-day Romeo and Juliet set against the chaos of war. Directed by Vancouver-based, Indian-born Vic Sarin, Partition begins in 1942 India; siblings Margaret and Andrew Stilwell are playing polo with journalist Walter Hankins and two of their finest servants, Hindus Avtar and Gian Singh. News arrives that Andrew has been drafted as a British regimental captain, and Margaret, played by Neve Campbell, best remembered for her emotionally charged role in the Scream trilogy, leaves her brother's well-being in the hands of Avtar and Gian. Fast forward five years later. In the midst of the Partition – the war between Sikh Indians and Muslim Pakistanis that resulted in the creation of the sovereign states of Pakistan and India - times have become grimmer. When Gian returns from the war to pay Margaret a visit, it becomes very obvious that Andrew was killed. As the war rages on, Gian, a man of very few words, returns to a local village on the border of Pakistan to see out his days as a farmer, extinguishing all the memories of the past. During one of the violent exchanges between the two religions, a 17-year-old Muslim girl, Naseem Khan, flees the melee and hides out in the bushes, away from the massacred. The raw power in some of these early scenes are incredible, with men, women, children and animals laying slaughtered everywhere. Remarkably, some of the Indian scenes were filmed in Vancouver. Gian soon finds the terrified and naïve Naseem and takes her in, feeding her and clothing her, much to the anger of the Sikh community, who seek redemption for the recent murder of dozens of their people on an India-bound train heading out of Pakistan. Gian somehow fends them off and she becomes accepted within the community. Soon the couple marry and bear a child … sounds like a typical love story, but wait, there's a twist, a huge twist. It all begins when Margaret locates the whereabouts of Naseem's family in Pakistan. Naseem immediately sets her sights on paying a short visit to her long-lost family, while Gian fears for their future together. ___________________________
What's most astounding perhaps is learning that director Sarin's inspiration behind the movie is a real-life love story gone wrong. Born in Kashmir, India, in 1945, amidst the disorder that was taking place between Sikh India and Muslim Pakistan, Sarin remembers the story this way. “My father had a friend, a Sikh man, who was in love with a Muslim woman, and my father would give them some space to spend some time together in his house. And one day my father came home and he was very upset because his friend was dead. The lovers had gone to a local river and jumped in. The woman drowned, but the man lived. Looking out into the river, he saw the dead body of his lover floating on the water. So he went back and jumped in again, dying at the second time of asking.” Sarin, already a well-established filmmaker when he immigrated to Canada, felt it imperative to portray this tragedy on the big screen. “I am thrilled by the wonderful response to the film,” he says. “Ninety per cent of people have responded very positively and have expressed that they were emotionally touched by the story and felt drawn in by the imagery.” He adds that the portrayal of the historical religious/ethnic conflict has continued relevance today. “Sixty years after the Partition, we continue to see the same atmosphere of hate in places such as Bosnia, Rwanda, the Middle East and now Iraq. I find to some degree it is still very much a part of life for many people throughout the world.” Sarin hopes that his film can play a small part in improving cross-cultural understanding and harmony. “I think making films such as Partition opens up a window and helps Canadians understand the background of various ethnic minorities in Canada. It can be a move forward in creating understanding amongst different cultures,” he says. “That is my hope anyway.”
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