Author: PTI
Publication: The Times of India
Date: October 8, 2001
The shadow of the Taliban looms
large over the celluloid depiction of the traumatic experience of a Bengali
housewife in Afghanistan, with the husband threatening to give talaq out
of fear for the safety of his relatives.
The student militia have threatened
the family members of Janbaz Khan, a Pashtun money-lender here in Kolkata,
if the shooting of the film Escape from Afghanistan, with Bollywood star
Manisha Koirala playing the role of the wife, is not stopped.
The film, to be screened in English
and Hindi, is being currently shot in Ladakh, and is directed by Ujjal
Chatterjee.
The real life husband, Janbaz Khan,
said, "I am being pressurised to give talaq to my Bengali wife, Sushmita
Bandopadhay, whom I married here in Kolkata in 1989, if the shooting of
the film is not stopped. The Taliban has sent word they cannot guarantee
the safety of my family members who live in Sharana village near Ghazni
if the film is made."
Sushmita, who has penned the books
Wife of an Afghan Money- lender, Not a Single Word is Untrue and Afghan,
Taliban and I also seems to be afraid.
She filed an FIR with the Bowbazar
police after she was accosted by a number of burly youths at a coffee house
on Central Avenue, last Friday. "I feel threatened. I want to live in peace.
I want my husband's family members in Afghanistan to live in peace," said
Sushmita, who fled Afghanistan in 1995.
She has also informed the deputy
commissioner of polite that she felt threatened. The staff members of the
coffee house came to her rescue and the youths left after directing menacing
glances at her.
"After my marriage, I spent three
years at Sharana village alone. My husband had returned to Kolkata. I was
subjected to physical and mental torture by my male in laws which I wrote
about in my books", she said at her Santoshpur residence.
"My husband has been threatened.
He has been told to divorce me if I fail to stop the film from being shot,"
Sushmita said.
She, however, does not know how
the film is being made on her autobiographical accounts. "I have neither
seen the script, nor did director Ujjal Chatterjee discuss its contents
with me. The only contract I signed was with the publisher after my autobiographical
accounts were published serially in a vernacular daily," she said.
"However, if they surreptitiously
included making of the film as part of the deal, it was done without my
consent," Sushmita said, adding that her husband had objected when she
had published her first book. "It soured our relations for some time and
we lived apart then. But I don't want it to happen again."
Yasmin Nigar Khan, the president
of All-India Pashtun Firga-e- Hind, claimed to be the country's only association
of Pashtuns, knows about the controversy surrounding the publication of
Sushmita's autobiographical accounts.
"We are against the Taliban. Had
he depicted the Taliban only we would not have objected. But going by the
contents of Sushmita's books, the Pashtun community in general is denigrated.
Although we came to know about many contentious parts in these books, we
did not object at that time as the reach of Bengali publication is limited,"
said Yasmin, the great-grand daughter of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan.
"But in case the film is made, it
will show the Pashtun community in a poor light and create a wrong image
about Pashtuns among Indians. We think it is unethical on the part of the
director to shoot the film without bothering to show us the script, or
discussing it with us," she said, adding, "We will consider approaching
the censor board if nothing stops the producer."
The director and producer of the
film could not be contacted as they were away shooting in Ladakh. (PTI)