“Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out,” says Martin Scorsese. But what is left out of the frame is equally crucial. The frames and dialogues are certainly the key elements of the film, but the implications and nuances arising out of the film are pertinent as well. The long-awaited and much-talked-about film, purportedly on the issue of the displaced Kashmiri Pandits, Shikara – directed and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, and written by Chopra, Abhijat Joshi and Rahul Pandita – makes you question what is left out of the frame and more importantly, why.
Thirty years since the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits, Chopra, a Kashmiri Hindu himself, has attempted to highlight the issue of Pandits through the love story of Shiv Kumar Dhar and Shanti Sapru, played by debutants – Aadil Khan and Sadia.
The romance of protagonists is interwoven with the turbulence and trepidation in Kashmir, coupled with deprivation in Jammu.