Vishal Bhardwaj has given us a monumental movie. Haider keeps the audience glued to their seats from the beginning to the end. Though the story is adapted from Shakespeare’s Hamlet , it takes on a fresh life of its own drawing its vitality from the complex situation that existed in Kashmir in the 1990s when militancy snowballed rending the whole social fabric of the state. The Pandits were forced to flee in large numbers. The Indian armed forces became a ubiquitous phantom amidst the dark shadows that hovered over the earthly paradise. In the movie, however, the armed forces appear briefly only. Shahid Kapoor mesmerises us with his enactment of the young idealistic poet’s dilemma as he is torn between his romantic idealism and the horrible reality that unfolds before his very eyes. Terrorism and the evils it spawns are sidelined by the betrayal of the young poet’s dreams about love and relationships. Is his mother guilty of marital infidelity? Is his paternal uncle a
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