The Miniaturist of Junagadh: A tribute to the loss of home and uprooting lives

Naseeruddin Shah-starrer short film 'The Miniaturist of Junagadh' was released on YouTube five days ago and is garnering praise for the subject matter as well as the narrative. Directed by Kaushal Oza, the film tells the story of a family forced to move to Pakistan after the partition.

The 30-minutes show the day the family is leaving their ancestral home of eight generations and handing it over to the new owner who insists they do not take anything valuable from the house. The lady of the house set the tone for the movie early on by saying they cannot take the German-made gramophone or top-quality rosewood furniture or anything else in the house in their few boxes.

Naseeruddin Shah has flawlessly portrayed the blind miniature artist who hopes to come back to his homeland once the politicians reach an agreement. Rasika Dugal and Padmavati Rao play the daughter and wife of the artist.

As the story progresses, the audience realise the family has stayed back in Hindustan as long as they can when their neighbours left one by one. Oza carefully unpacks the trauma of displacement and religious intolerance. The Miniaturist of Junagadh is about the bond the family has to their home and exposes the pain of uprooting their entire lives.

Played by Raj Arjun, The new owner of the house is a bigot who does not have compassion or empathy for the family forced to leave everything they know about their life. He also has his eyes set on the priceless paintings done by the head miniaturist of the former nawab's court.

Director Kaushal Oza has based the story on Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig's short story Der Unsichtbare Sammlung (The Invisible Collection) and adapted it to partition-era India.