"Pakistan [has] such good houses?"

Thus read an Indian headline after the first Pakistani film in 43 years opened to wide audiences in India.

As the New York Times reports:

For 43 years no Pakistan-made film had been distributed commercially to movie theaters in India until the opening here of Mr. Mansoor’s movie, “Khuda Kay Liye” (“In the Name of God”)...

The Pakistani government imposed a ban on the distribution and broadcast of Indian movies after the war between the countries in 1965, one of three wars they have fought since the region was split by partition in 1947. No formal reciprocal order was issued by India, but initial political hostility to the idea of showing Pakistani films was superseded in later years by commercial considerations...

Despite the ban, pirated copies of Bollywood hits have always been hugely popular in Pakistan...

The effect has been a cultural two-way mirror dividing the countries, with Pakistan able to observe India (or a gaudier Bollywood version of India), but with Indians unable to see beyond their own frontiers.

As the Times report continues:

The film shows two brothers, both talented musicians in Lahore, growing apart as they embrace different readings of Islam. One falls under the influence of the local mullah, abandons his Sufi rock group and his rich, liberal parents in their interior-decorated home and heads off to join the Taliban.

The other leaves Pakistan to study music in Chicago, where he falls in love with the United States and marries an American. But he is then arrested and subjected to Abu Ghraib-style abuse by officials who are suspicious of his Muslim background, erroneously convinced that he played a role in planning the Sept. 11 attacks.

“That is the tragedy that a Muslim faces in these days,” Mr. Mansoor said. “We are beaten up by fundamentalists, with the label that we are too Western, and when we go out of the country, we are labeled as fundamentalists just because we have Pakistani names.”

Anyway, what was the Indian reaction to this film? Did Indians relate to the story? Apparently they did.

“People clapped here at the same places people clapped in Pakistan,” [the film's director reportedly] said.

Before you rush out to bet on the imminent reunification of the sub-continent, however, take heed of what Indian critic, Subhash K. Jha, had to say:

“Sadly, not too many people will be interested to see a film that reveals life as a Muslim..."

Why was this film distributed now? Shailendra Singh, the managing director of the company told the Times:

“We felt like we were being part of history,” he said.

It's nice to see this great divide narrowing after all these years. My in-laws trace their roots to Pakistan and my mother-in-law yearns to return to the childhood home she had to leave during Partition. She doesn't want to move back to Pakistan - the whole world opened up for her once she left. But she does long to see her old village. And stories like this will convince her she should.