ABSTRACT
The Partition of India created a rupture that was manifested in not just the birth of a macrocosmic bios-politikos, it also affected the sacrosanct paradigms of intimacy like home. The Radcliffe line and its aftermath was characterised by displacement, homelessness and exile where the self was ushered, coerced and conditioned into an essence of homelessness. Partition and its ensuing displacement hence was not just a catastrophe that was characterised by a material dislocation of dismembered and disenfranchised bodies, leading to the genesis of the refugee. Garm Hava, based on an unpublished short story by Ismat Chughtai, deals with the Mirza family of Agra and their trials and tribulations after the Partition of India. The film opens with the declaration of the ‘Independence of India, 1947’ in a voice-over with montages of still photographs of the declaration of independence and the formation of India and Pakistan, shots of Gandhi, Nehru and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, coupled with celebrations of independent Nations.
