Bumbai (Bombay) 1995

The movie "Bumbai (Bombay)" is based on true incidents that happened in India. Arvind Swamy (Shekhar Mishra Narayan) plays a south Indian Hindu man who believes in love at first sight when he finds himself in love with a beautiful Muslim woman named Shaila Bano (played by Manisha Koirala). And where they are from, it is considered forbidden to be in love with someone of the opposite religion. Against their families wishes, the two lovebirds get married and move to Mumbai, where Shekhar is a reporter for a huge day to day newspaper of India. As they are living in Mumbai, Shaila becomes pregnant and gives birth to twin boys. The director documented the rest of the movie at the time of the December 1992-January 1993 quarter. That was when Ran Jammabhoomi and Babri Masjid were involved in a controversy which lifted up a lot of religious tension in Mumbai, along with other parts of India and sparked violence and riots. Both Shekhar and Shaila are far away from the twins. Unfortunately, Shekhar's father and Shaila's parents are killed when some rioters burned down their home. From both factions, a reporter is interviewing the police as well as politicans. Throughout the latter portion of this film, there is a moral of one's thought as an Indian rather than Hinduism and the Islamic faith is commonly occurring. At the end of the film, Shekhar and Shaila reunites with the twins after searching for them in hospitals, morgues, and shelters. Unfortunately for the twins, violence has left impressions in their minds that are impossible to remove.
Shekhar and Shaila are in love with one another and they want to get married. They only have one problem, they both are from different religious backgrounds. Shekhar's religion is Hinduism and Shaila is of the Islamic faith. In modern/secular India, their marriages creates a problem for both families. So they elope and move to Mumbai city, where Indians are more accepting and tolerant to people like them. December 6, 1992 was certainly a day of national humiliation for all of India, because a group of extreme right-wing Hindus were tearing down the Babri Masjid Mosque in Ayodhya, in which resulted in religious riots all around India- which includes a city in Mumbai called cosmopolitan. The Narayan's are the proud parents of Kabir and Kamal Bashir: their twin boys. During the time of the riots, both families make a decision to settle their differences by burying the hatchet and go to Mumbai to visit their children. Unfortunately, a fire broke out in their village, which caused Shekhar and Shaila to be separated from the twins and killing Shaila's parents and Shekhar's father. Now all of the Indians are afraid of the armed/angry mobs which leaves them asking (the same question that was asked in British India in 1948): "Are you Muslim or Hindu?" For the Indians the answer to that question, in a way, mean life or death. And the sad part is, not even the lives of young children will be spared. They stand a much better chance of being killed than adults, it's because they are so young, innocent and they probably don't understand what's really going on.
One could say that this film was the Indian version of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." In the first scene, Shekhar sees Shaila for the first time and falls madly in love with her. So he goes and does everything in his power to get close to her, including following her around and showing up wherever she would be. In fact, the man was so much in love with her, that he even disguised himself as a Muslim woman and got on the boat, just to be with her. And if that wasn't enough, he went up to the mountains and serenade her with a sing just for her.
In another scene, Shekhar was sitting at the dining table eating breakfast and talking to his father. (Interesting how the film makes no mention of his mother.) As the two of them are talking, Shekhar tells his father that he's in love with a Muslim woman and he wants to marry her. Of course, the father was not happy to hear that. So he stormed out of the house with some men and went to pay Shaila a visit. When he gets there, he has a war of words with Shaila's father, which started a type of family feud. Just like the one Romeo and Juliet's parents had over them. That's what I mean when I called this film India's version of Romeo and Juliet.
The war scenes were horrible and to the extreme. It was horrible to see all those people being punished killed for things that they haven't done. None of them deserved what those monsters did to them. My heart was grieving for the twins when the terrorists grabbed them and poured gasoline all over them. If it wasn't for Shekhar and Shaila saving them, they would have been burned to death. In this movie, the terrorists have proven that when they come around and place an attack, no one is safe, not even children.
The ending was the best part of the film. The family came back together, every terrorist that was armed dropped his weapon and the war that was going on, came to an end. Unfortunately, there were still some civilians that didn't survive the riot. It was interesting to see that when the house was being burn down, both Shaila's parents and Shekhar's father put the safety of the children first. Even if it meant for them to give up their lives. When you're a parent and your child is in a life or death situation, you're going to do whatever it takes to safe them. I know I would if I had any children. Everything about this movie was well done, especially the war scenes. The director made it seem so real. Good job.