Milenge Jannat Mein is an extraordinarily touching emotional short film on a girl’s sentiments

By Jyothi Venkatesh

Writer-director Sammir Iqbal Patel is well known for presenting novel subjects on celluloid. His films Hotel Beautifool, Your’s Truly Roohani, and PFA: Love Mom And Dad are testimonies of his skills and creativity. Your’s Truly Roohani is a web film starring Vibha Anand and Rishi Saxena is now streaming on Apple TV. His PFA: Love Mom And Dad is an award-winning film on a father and son, starring the late Yusuf Hussain, and is now streaming on Apple TV.

Now Sammir Iqbal Patel has come out with an emotional short film titled ”Milenge Jannat Mein”. The story of this short film is about a Muslim girl who wants to offer a prayer at the grave of her mother but she is not allowed to enter the graveyard as her religious practice doesn’t allow females to enter the graveyard. This story is based on a real incident and this happened in Sammir’s own life.

Throwing light on this incident Sammir says, “Last year in the month of July my mother expired and my sister also joined in her last journey. As the funeral reached kabristan she didn’t enter and stayed outside of the gate. From there she bid the last farewell to her beloved mother. Later I kept on going to the graveyard to offer flowers to my mother’s grave and one day I happen to see a board on which an instruction about no entry to women in graveyards was written. This increased my curiosity and to get an answer about it I contacted many religious persons and flipped through the pages of religious books but couldn’t get a satisfactory answer.  Then a thought occurs to my mind that I should put this question to the people of my community through a film and I started penning a story. When a producer Deepak Jayalwal came to know about the subject, he became ready to produce and thus this project took place”.

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The duration of this emotion-laced story is thirty minutes and it stars Brijendra Kala and Riva Arora. Brijendra is an old friend of Sammir and both used to work on stage together Riva acted in ”Mom” and she made viewers’ eyes moist with her emotional role in “Uri’. Here Brijendra’s character’s name is Suleman who is a grave digger while Riva’s character’s name is Shaheen, a Muslim girl who has lost her mother and watches the last rites of her mother, standing outside of the graveyard. The Kashmir Files and The Tashkent Files fame noted cameraman Uday Singh Mohite has cranked the camera for this short film and it was not an easy task to shoot this film. A production hand had managed to get permission for shooting at a graveyard but later the permission was declined so a set of a graveyard had to be erected and now the film is all set for the OTT platform.

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The film has all the potential to raise many questions and Sammir is ready to reply to those who may oppose the film. ”Here I have shown what the truth is. No one has a specific answer or logic why women are not allowed to enter kabristan. Surprisingly, in Pakistan and many Muslim countries women are allowed. In India and Saudi Arabia, the women are not allowed. What’s more, even in India women are allowed in the Shia sect but the women of the Sunni sect have no right to enter the graveyard. I hope to post the streaming of the film I may get the answer to why the women are barred” he says.

Post the release of the film a national debate may take place about the rights of women but here one must say that by making this film Sammir has touched the sentiments of lacs of women who couldn’t take part in the last rituals of their near and dear ones and they must be hopping that with this film may the beliefs and situation change.