The strangest reason for a smile

What can be the reasons for someone’s smile? Having a happy and healthy family, getting married or holding your child for the first time... there are numerous such reasons. But when a person’s livelihood is earned by digging graves, his reason for a smile can also be someone’s death.

A man lives with his granddaughter at a desolated graveyard at Kaimgunj in
Farrukhabad district of Uttar Pradesh. Here, time stands still. But every time a dead body arrives, there’s a delicacy like mutton for dinner and “a strange smile” that no one has a reason for.

In his movie, The Strange Smile, which was premiered recently at the India Habitat Centre, director Arshad Eqbal has tried to simplistically portray poverty and hunger,
without any element of exaggeration.
The 40-minute short film is an adaptation of the story Anokhi Muskurahat, written by one of country’s distinguished psychologists, professor S M Mohsin.

“When you’re making a film out of a story like this, you don’t know really how people will react to it. We made a short film because we were doubtful. Pata nahi yaha logo mei itna patience hoga ya nahi,” Eqbal tells Metrolife.

The story revolves around Barkati, played by Samridhi Dewan and his dadu, played by veteran S M Zaheer. Barkati was five when she lost her parents in the Gujarat riots in 2002. Since then, she has been living in the silent graveyard with her grandfather, who is a grave digger. She cooks dal and roti for him on usual days. But at times when as many as three dead bodies arrive, his grandfather earns some extra bucks with which he gets mutton for dinner, and also a smile on Barkati’s face.

“There was a kind of motivational factor in the story itself. It’s a unique story, which is so universal; all of us grow with it. Wherever there is hunger, such things happen,” says Eqbal, explaining why the topic intrigued him.

Things take a strange turn when Zeeshan Ayyub’s character enters the life of Barkati and her grandfather. He (Ayyub) too has nowhere to go. Here, the film offers romantic relief to viewers with short episodic love between Barkati and Ayyub’s character. They soon get married and have a child, who passes away because of pneumonia.

As Barkati is used to a smile seeing a dead body, she passes the strangest smile at his son’s death too. And in a place where superstition prevails, Barkati is considered a witch by the fellow villagers.

“As it is said, bhuk insan ko dewaana bana deti hai. Barkati’s smile at his son’s death was an involuntary reaction, like we all have for many situations in life. In such situations, the mind stops working,” explains Eqbal.

While the film had a very serious plot, the director made sure that there was
no exaggeration in portrayal of poverty, death or misery. The film, despite having a sad ending, does not make people cry. It rather, makes one introspect and think how someone’s death is someone else’s source of food and happiness.

“I always believe that kahani vahi kahi jani chahiye jo kehne ke layak ho. Every story needs a kind of language. I didn’t want to show any dirt because of poverty like flies moving around the food. An honest story should be told honestly,” says the director.