A stranger among his own 1947 brought India great joy – gaining independence and at the same time a terrible tragedy – the division of the country on religious grounds into India and Pakistan. The latter event resulted in an unheard-of migration of vast masses of people who suddenly found themselves strangers in their own homeland, in the city or village where they were born, married, raised their children. These crowds became easy prey for Hindu and Muslim fanatics. A bloody fratricidal massacre began. Few families lost any near or distant relatives in those days. Often people simply disappeared and almost whole clans were dragged into the funnel of a bloody whirlpool that spared neither women, nor old people, nor small children. But even those of the migrants who survived those dashing years, more than one generation in a new habitat will be perceived not just as newcomers, not just as “snappers”, but “aliens” in the fullest, most disgusting sense of the word. These dispossessed, dispossessed and homeless will be seen only as potential traitors willing to surrender their new homeland at every opportunity. Thus, the border divided not only the territory of a once unified state, but a bloody scar fell on the souls and hearts of people.
An Indian cook at the border post, a native of Lahore and a simple Pakistani soldier who hails from the heart of Indian Delhi. Softly thick glasses with sad eyes and skinny as the pole of a warrior with suffocated skin in the sun and a prickly look. Formal opponents. It's a war. And all those on the other side of the border are enemies to be destroyed without hesitation, especially if they are going to sabotage "our" side. A soldier is never alone, his whole country is with him. This is how officers roar, digging their bloody fingers into the sweaty shirts of soldiers. This is how radios wheez, with their propaganda, adjusting future cannon fodder to the desired way for politicians. After all, in fact, no one but them, those who are sitting “in the top”, who have never smelled gunpowder, but who know how to send thousands to death with a stroke of a pen and a wave of their hands, is not to blame for the fact that the war cannot end “forever.” Geopolitics is a disgusting toothless old woman grinding human lives like minced meat for her soft cutlets.
A little piece of land. Rushing yellow-green scorched by the sun and shells grass. Dirty, tiny border post. With holes instead of windows, an eternal military mess inside. A small barracks, covered with straw on top. And if it were not for the corpses, bullets, and guns that come across at every step, there would be little difference between this ugly structure and a chicken coop. That's where the whole thing is. Almost all events take place in the immediate vicinity of this building or right within its walls. Two refugees, who initially felt themselves patriots of their newly acquired homelands, gradually, step by step, word by word, look by look and act by deed, begin to feel in each other kindred souls. They are so different in appearance and occupation, and in character are more similar to each other than those with whom side by side carried military duty at the border.
Two people with the same fate, rubbed by the huge millstones of two countries, trying to snatch some pieces of land and political priorities from each other. The country is everything, the man is nothing. So creepy and so everyday at the same time.