It would seem a paradox that the cinema is said to be, in one sense, the most real of all media, but that it is also an enormously effective medium for the unreal, the fantastic and the dream-like”— a quote by Alexander Mackendrick that appears early in the book— makes an impression as you come to realise that it sums up the content of Tabish Khair’s second book Filming- A love story, and the lives of the characters that he introduces to us during its course.

From the perspective of the narrator, a writer, we enter the minds of these people. A sickly man, Harihar, his wife Durga and their son Ashok— who travelled from village to village creating intrigue with their precious bioscope. Harihar ate, slept and breathed cinema. His parents had made big sacrifices so that he could get an education, but all that mattered to Harihar was the enchanting world of cinema.

He sneaked into theatres to catch films, exhausted his money on books and magazines about films and cameras and was in awe of Indians who were making films. For now, the most he had achieved was leasing films and showing them to as many people he had managed to draw with his magic box. His head would be burning with fever and his nagging cough would be getting the better of him, but he could never dream of cancelling a show.

The show had to go on!

When Harihar and his family arrived at the haveli of the Thakurs in a village called Anjangarh, little had they imagined that their lives would change forever. All of Harihar’s dreams would come true... at a price, of course! Filming exposes us to various sub plots, each to do with a different character, all sharing a connection of some kind.

One minute, they are waves of mysteries, and in another, everything falls into place. The common factor in all these stories is dreams that are waiting to be realised.

Did you know that photography and barbed wire, “two tools perfected in 1880 to capture movement” in London came to India at the same time. While photography paved way for greater technological feats and went on to create the booming business of films (something that the Indian population would come to adore and worship), barbed wire became symbolic of the partition that went on to create a ‘Hindustan’ and a ‘Pakistan’.

Filming dwells on both topics alike, also touching on the assasination of Gandhi. It moves very much like a film, in reels and not chapters. The year 1947 is as much a character as Harihar or Durga is.

Tabish Khair cleverly weaves the subject of the growth of films in India with the growing unrest between Hindus and Muslims at the time of the Partition.

It becomes necessary to mention that many a time, you might find yourself struggling to make sense of some parts of the book, and the space that political turbulence takes up in the book might seem a tad too much at times, but Khair has you reading on.