The Past Superimposed upon the Present: Shoojit Sircar’s SARDAR UDHAM
It’s impossible to watch the biopic Sardar Udham without identifying how the past still haunts India’s present, how old imperialism continues in the form of the new state. By Karan Madhok
Short story by Debi Mukherjee: “Unlike the little girls I see outside temples, draped in their pano bhaju’s stringing garlands of Marigolds, I dare not play with the flowers in our garden. Papa cautions me against the rows of Mogras, Shoe-flowers, Frangipanis and a multitude of others. He says that I must not be lured by a flower’s fragrance.”