RUPA Mody’s hope to find her missing child has been rekindled once again with Parzania, the movie based on her son Azhar who went missing in the 2002 Gujarat carnage, hitting the theatres across the country on January 26.
Mody has been living with the hope that she will get back her son and hopes the film will do its bit towards that end. “We want everyone to see the film,” says Mody “I hope someone would someday see Azhar somewhere and give us a call,” she added.
“We couldn’t give up hope just yet,” she says adding that they still visit hospitals when they get to hear about any unidentified boy being brought there.
Talking to Newsline, Rupa pointed out that NRI filmmaker Rahul Dholakia is a great friend of her husband Dhara Mody, who works at the Science City. The family lives in Bhai Kaka Nagar near Thaltej. During Uttarayan, like every year, Rahul is scheduled to visit Ahmedabad. Incidentally, Rahul was on a flight together with them on January 14, 2002. “A month later, life had changed beyond recognition,” Dholakia had said later.
Azhar went missing on February 28 during the Gulbarg Society massacre. “Till the last moment, he was with me,” says Rupa adding that along with her neighbours, her family too took refuge at the residence of former MP Ehsaan Jafri. “My daughter Binaifer was holding Azhar when they set the house on fire,” Rupa recalls adding that as they started running away from the house, she fell down. “My daughter tried to pick me up and in the confusion, let go of Azhar,” she adds.
“I was shouting and asking them to run, Azhar too ran along,” Rupa recalls, adding that once her daughter let him go, the family never again saw him. “Our eyes were blinded by the smoke and we couldn’t see properly at that time,” she says. Azhar, who was a student of Amrut High School, Shahibaugh Cantonment, was all of 13 years then. “Ab to woh unnis sal ka ho gaya hoga (Now he would be 19),” Rupa says.
“We haven’t heard anything about him after that, and no, the police hasn’t really done anything,” she says. “Agar woh kuch karte to hamein insaaf na mil jata? (Had they done something, wouldn’t we have got justice?),” she asks. “We want millions of people to see the movie and understand the trauma that a family that has lost its child goes through,” says Rupa.
“We’ll not be in Ahmedabad when the movie is released, but we will see the movie, wherever we are,” she adds. The film looks at the Gujarat carnage through the eyes of American researcher, Allen Webbings, who by a twist of destiny becomes a witness to the frenzied violence that marked one of the darkest blots in Gujarat’s history. Allen’s search for peace in the land of Bapu gets juxtaposed with the search of the family for its child.
Armed and ready with a certificate from the Central Board of Certification, Parzania is ready to hit the Indian theatres on Republic Day. According to the maker of the film, it has been cleared with minor sound cuts and no visual deletions. Dholakia, who is in India currently, is learnt to be in talks with the distributors across the country.