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[Photo Credit: Screenshot via YouTube]
India has so much to celebrate on August 15 each year. For the last 69 years, this day has symbolized our country’s freedom. It has symbolized the bloodshed and hard work of the freedom fighters who tirelessly worked to make sure India doesn’t keep drowning in the clutches of the British Raj.
However, we often tend to forget this fact. We raise our hands to our heads and salute. We wave our tricolor flags. We eat sweets and we sing our beloved national anthem. As the next morning arrives, we go back to forgetting the real meaning of our independence day. Freedom.
But are we truly free and what does this freedom even mean? Does it imply a lack of responsibilities now or actually becoming more responsible? Is it easy or is it difficult? Did our ancestors fight and give up their lives for us to forget all about it? These are the questions filmmaker and actor Chandan Roy Sanyal deals with in his latest short film, “Azaad.”
In it, he plays the titular foreign-return character visiting his hometown in Rajasthan with Akira, his girlfriend. She is excited to see where Azaad’s roots lie. As they discuss his ancestry and bond with Toba Nek Singh, their driver, Azaad mentions that it is his grandfather’s death anniversary. His grandfather Agha was a freedom fighter. As the couple gets immersed in their books, Azaad looks up to see their cab surrounded by four men on a cycle who smile at him. This leads us to a flashback to his younger days as his grandfather (played by “English Vinglish” actor Adil Hussain) tells him a story.
In 1942, when Mahatma Gandhi was leading the Quit India Movement, along with three other friends, Agha was on a mission to deliver ammunition to fellow freedom fighters when they were being chased by Britishers. As the story continues, we see their struggles through their heartbreak. We may have heard tales of Gandhi and Bhagat Singh and Lala Lajpatrai Rai, all important to achieving our freedom. However, the tales of the ordinary men who pushed for our country have become buried along the way.
Through Azaad’s memories of his grandfather and these flashbacks, we witness the lives of these extraordinary gentlemen. As Azaad reaches the site of the school his grandfather ran for his memorial ceremony, he imagines what Agha and his friends must have been like. He goes up to the stage to speak only to hallucinate them again and pay his respects. In the final scenes, Agha’s voiceovers tell us that his story has come to an end but ours is only beginning. All of his responsibilities now fall on us.
“Azaad” is an impactful short film. It reminds us of the cost of our freedom. It was not easy. After 100 years of suppression, our ancestors banded together and said, “enough is enough.” Unfortunately, we tend to forget this. “Azaad” reminds us not to. It’s hard to imagine the type of suffering, the type of entrapment they must have felt before independence because it is so easy to believe we are free today. Through “Azaad,” we are forced to take a step back and look at the larger picture in the past and hopefully, live up to their expectations of us.
As Sanyal claims in his film, “Freedom is not personal. Freedom is being responsible for this entire country.”
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