Stranger Than Fiction:
It is a story begging to be filmed: in the early Eighties a woman claiming to be the Begum of Awadh, a descendant of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, turned up at a Delhi railway station with her fancy belongings, servants, pets and two children. She set up residence at the station and demanded that her ancestral property seized by the British be returned to her.
It created a small media storm at the time, but it took a decade for her claim to be recognized and the family be allotted a dilapidated hunting lodge in a forest. Eventually, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Ellen Barry investigated and revealed that the royal family was fake, but their tale was fascinating all the same.
Debutante writer-director Akriti Singh has made Eight Down Toofaan Mail, a small crowd-funded film based on the idea. She plays Begum Alamaara, who arrives at New Delhi station and moves into the first class waiting room, with her trunks and her entourage of faithful servers, lead by Arshad (Arshad Mumtaz), who insists she be addressed as His Royal Highness.
The bewildered station master Gupreet Singh (Surya Rao) tries to evict her with little success. She sends letters to then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, asking for a palace to be allotted to her in Delhi, or her own properties in Lucknow be restored to her. “But you can’t stay her, this is a waiting room,” sputters the hapless Gurpreet. “Yes, so I am waiting,” she replies calmly.
Around the same time, a railway strike is announced and the focus shifts to the workers’ demands, rather than a lone woman, who speaks like royalty, talks of preserving the culture of Awadh and receives attention in the media, both Indian and international. She sets up her own furniture, a chandelier is installed and fine crockery unpacked. Her wardrobe and jewellery are certainly not cut price.
It is impossible to determine if she is an imposter, or, as a scared rickshaw puller mutters, a djinn, or a Pakistani spy. Gurpreet, the son of a refugee from Pakistan, whose mother often talks nostalgically of their mansion in Lahore, is disturbed by the woman’s presence, but also moved by her plight, and possibly a little in love. As she talks grandly of offering him a job and reward, Arshad furtively accepts money from the station master to buy food.
Indira Gandhi (not seen, only heard (in Geetanjali Kulkarni’s voice) is busy with the tumult caused by the strike and a recalcitrant opposition that led to the imposition of the Emergency a few months down the line. Still, she is intrigued by the woman.
Akriti Singh does not make any attempt either to prove or question the veracity of the Begum’s story. She gives it a tinge of myth or urban legend and subtly brings up the matters of love, loss, identity and memory. If a woman cannot prove she is telling the truth, is she a liar? And if she is a con, then is it possible to fool so many people for so long?
The limited resources show in the bare bones making of the film, but the plot is terrific, and maybe a producer with a bigger budget can do justice to it. Akriti Singh’s film is a brave indie effort and worth catching on the streaming platform where it has landed after doing the festival rounds.
(This piece first appeared in seniorstoday.in)
