Explained: The Big-Budget Remake Of 'The Legend of Maula Jatt'

The Fawad and Mahira Khan starring Pakistani film The Legend of Maula Jatt was scheduled to be released in Punjab, India on December 30, making it the first film from across the border to come out in India after 11 years. But as per the latest reports, the release has been 'postponed indefinitely'.

Reports further mentioned that no new date has been locked for the India release. Pakistani artists and filmmakers have been missing from India's creative industry ever since the 2016 Uri attack, which claimed the lives of at least 19 members of the armed forces.

The Legend of Maula Jatt/Youtube

The writer: Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi

The film is an adaptation of the Pakistani classic, Maula Jatt, which was released in 1979. The protagonist of both films is the central character of one of the most prominent voices of the progressive writers' movement, Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi.

Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi was born on 20 November 1916 in Sargodha, a city in Pakistan¡¯s Punjab. After receiving his elementary education in his village, he went on to Punjab university and was awarded an MA in 1935.

Wikipedia|Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi

Qasmi met Manto in 1941 in Delhi. Manto at that time was writing movie scripts and Qasmi wrote the lyrics for these films which never saw the light of day.

In 1947, he was elected as the secretary general of the progressive writers¡¯ association of Pakistan but the tenor of his words and their political underpinning landed him in jail for seven months.

What was the Progressive Writers¡¯ Movement?

The Progressive Writers¡¯ Association was a consortium of writers that held an anti-imperialistic and socialist viewpoint. The Progressive Movement began in 1935 and impacted Urdu literature the most.

The movement was a watershed moment in Urdu literature as it was the first time that a clearly demarcated political and anti-authoritarian zeal was reflected in the literature produced in those times.

The first Progressive Writer¡¯s Meeting was held in 1936 and was attended by Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Ismat Chughtai, Saadat Hasan Manto, and Habib Jalib. Munshi Premchand presided over the first meeting and defined literature as the ¡®criticism of life¡¯ and the need for ¡®utility¡¯ in literature.

Maula Jatt|IMDb

A short description

Returning back to Qasmi¡¯s Gandasa, which translates as a blade(for cutting or scything), is a short story set in rural Punjab.

The protagonist of this story is Maula, who is hell-bent on revenge against Ranga and his sons who have murdered his father. The story describes the manifestation of an all-consuming rage, the fires of which are extinguished by love.

Gandasa opens with a crowd that has thronged to see a kabaddi match and there is almost a gladiatorial quality to the spectacle. The sun is bright and people have selected their side of the teams and divided themselves; drums are pounded and the players are getting ready for the match by oiling themselves up.

Maula the attraction

The Legend of Maula Jatt/Youtube

Maula is the one they all have assembled to see. Maula completes the ritual of oiling, circling the drums thrice, and raising his hands to say the name of Ali when someone shouts that his father has been murdered.

Maula¡¯s mother informs him of the doer of the deed- Ranga and his sons- and Maula possessed, darts to Ranga¡¯s house where the latter along with his sons are awaiting Maula with sticks that have blades fixed at their ends (Gandasas).

The people run after Maula and a holy man, Noor Shah, interrupts the scuffle by asking both parties in the name of the Qur¡¯an to break up and return to their respective homes. At home, Maula¡¯s mother berates him for letting his father¡¯s murderers pass freely. While Maula, along with his relatives, carries his father¡¯s body to the police station.

The Legend of Maula Jatt/Youtube

In the police station, what might be considered magic realism, Ranga¡¯s sons arrive at the police station to lodge a complaint against Maula for the alleged murder of their father with his Gandasa. But Maula was all this while, besides the corpse of his dead father, reciting prayers through prayer beads.

When both the affected parties are released due to the absence of witnesses, Maula returns home, kisses his mother, and goes to meet his best friend, Taaja. He hugs him tightly and thanks him for his horse that carried Maula swiftly after he sliced open Ranga¡¯s belly with his Gandasa.

Maula Jatt|IMDb

But the talk of the village was that Qadir carried out the murder of Maula¡¯s father, and Ranga was just encouraging them to murder.
Qadir was then found dead on his terrace. Upon the complaint by Qadir¡¯s family, Maula was arrested and tortured. And was released after months and when he returned his mother kissed him on his forehead and asked him to kill the other two surviving sons of Ranga. And only after their deaths, would she find peace.

The birth of Maula

Maula¡¯s personality, which had been little exposed before, goes a radical sea change he now wears huge gold earrings, applies fragrant hair oil, and uses elephant tusks to comb his hair. He is now the wrath of his mother¡¯s wishes and is baying for the blood of the remaining boys of Ranga.

The Legend of Maula Jatt/Youtube

Maula¡¯s village is terrified by his new avatar and Maula now loves throwing his weight around. If he sits in an alleyway, with his stick on the other side, then no one dares to cross.

Maula¡¯s legend grew across the land and people copied his style: from his moustache to his demeanour, people copied everything that made Maula.

The escape of Ranga¡¯s sons

Maula was obsessed with carrying out his mother¡¯s wishes. Upon his return from jail, fearing for their lives, Ranga¡¯s sons fled from the village- Fala joined the army and Galle went into the service of the influential Chowdhry Muzaffar Elahi. Chowdhry Elahi stole cattle and sold them; he also used to associate with powerful figures such as businessmen and politicians.

Chowdhry¡¯s men once were taking the stolen cattle from Maula¡¯s village. Maula stopped them and bought the cattle to his doorstep and waited for the owners to come and take away their cattle.

But before playing vigilante, Maula was a misguided youth and a menace to society. One day a girl crossed over his stick while he was sitting in the alley and Maula was taken aback.

The girl had dropped some red chillies which fell while crossing his stick- the same stick that forbade people to pass once it was placed across the wall.

Upon asking her name after her transgressions, she told Maula that he is a lunatic. Maula grew red with rage but Raajo said calmly that since she knows that he is Maula the wielder of the Gandasa, she kept his stick aside and didn¡¯t crack his skull with it.

The birth of love

Maula stood fixated in his spot, lost in thought over what happened. But collecting his wits about him soon ran after Raajo and handed back some of the chillies that Raajo had dropped.

Upon asking her name and whereabouts, an old woman from one of the houses said that she is the wife of one of Ranga¡¯s sons. And this encounter made Maula forget about his stick which could never be separated from him.

The Legend of Maula Jatt/Youtube

When Maula met Raajo again, she was on her way to sell ghee (clarified butter). Maula asked her to sell it all to him and took her home.

At home, crouched beside her, Maula studied carefully the geography of her face and was raptured by the sweat on her nose, the mole between her chin and lower lip, her brow that was bent like a bow and carried upon it pearls of dust, and her nostrils which were unlike anyone, because the way they flared at the smell of ghee was as if they were smelling roses.

Love and Maula

The Legend of Maula Jatt/Youtube

Later, when Maula meets Ranga¡¯s son, Galle, who slaps him on the orders of Chowdhry Elahi, Maula lets him go. And when his mother asks him why didn¡¯t he lift his Gandasa when Galle slapped him, he started weeping.

This was the third time he wept. The first was when his father died, the second time when Raajo came to sell ghee at his home and his mother didn¡¯t take it kindly.

And his answer was the same every time,¡¯ should I not even cry?¡¯.

The element of the progressives

The Progressives, much like the Romantics, wanted to make literature accessible and readable to all. The literature was to be for the common people and it should contain elements that people could relate with. And Qasmi with his story set in rural Punjab has the imagery and metaphors of rural, rustic life.