The film Ramchand Pakistani is not about religion but about people, this side and that side of the border. Mehreen Jabbar’s debut vehicle goes places where we the Indian audience have never been before. Filmed in the dusty wheat and corn fields of Sindh and in the dreary confines of an Indian jail, Jabbar manages to show us a different slice of life.

This is the story of a father (Rashid Farooqui) and his eight-year-old son (Syed Fazal Hussain), who accidentally stray across the border, into India, and are incarcerated in a Gujarat jail. It is about how their lives change over those five years in prison, while the wife and mother, Nandita Das, goes through various trials and tribulations back in Pakistan. The innocent, illiterate simpletons shed their rustic garb and slip into shirt and trousers, they speak a different language and they learn the tricks of the jail trade.

The jail sequences are very natural. The characters inside the jail complete the canvas. Be it the old man who tries to stop the crying child by making funny music with his mouth, or the mad man who keeps drawing graffiti on the prison wall, the havildar whose cycle Ramchand keeps toppling, or the sexy warder (she watches Sridevi films on ‘mute’ and mouths her dialogues) who teaches and mothers Ramchand.

Realism is the cornerstone of the film. It’s simple yet harsh, beautiful yet terrifying. Syed Fazal Hussain is endearing as the younger Ramchand; Navaid Jabbar equally effective as his elder avatar. Rashid Farooqui plays a vulnerable father and a frustrated victim of circumstances with conviction. In comparison, the Nandita Das scenes tend to drag.

The music by Debajyoti Mishra is very effective and beautifully combines old Pakistani songs and folk songs to create the right ambience.

This is a movie that doesn’t force messages down your throat; it simply urges you to pause and ponder.