The Hazara people in Pakistan are one the most targeted and persecuted communities in the world, especially in Quetta, where they form one of the city’s major ethnic groups. Not much is being done to bring their killers to justice. Instead ‘security measures’ have only contributed to the increasing ghettoisation of the community.

Directed by Berlin-based Bani Abidi, the 18-minute documentary The Lost Procession gives a stunningly detailed visual and audio picture of life and death, loss and celebration in one of Quetta’s ghettos — Mariabad. The two main characters are the filmmaker, Abidi, whose voice narrates the film and provides a brief context only when it is needed, and Asef Muhammad Ali, a photographer she reached out to from the community, who could help her film. The Lost Procession says much without saying much at all. That’s what makes it so powerful.

The film was screened online as a part of the second installment of the Documentary Association of Pakistan’s (DAP) Chalta Phirta Documentary Festival. Because we are currently living in a pandemic, instead of taking the films through different cities, DAP is hosting the entire festival online on their YouTube channel. The Lost Procession was the first film from this season. The festival will conclude on November 24, 2020.

In terms of its storyline, The Lost Procession is quite simple. It follows the Hazara community in Berlin, where they have taken refuge, far away from their home — but where they can engage in a Muharram jaloos [procession] without fear of death — to their sealed neighbourhood in Quetta, Mariabad, from where they have escaped.

'The Lost Procession' gives a stunningly detailed visual and audio picture of life and death, loss and celebration in the Hazara community

There’s a moment in The Lost Procession where Abidi narrates that she told Ali she wants visuals of the Martyr’s Graveyard in Mariabad, and he points the camera outside the window and asks her, ‘That one?’ It’s a stunning example of how normal living with death has become for the community.

In the film, whether its scenes showing still photographs or even when there is movement, there is something always left outside of the frame. You know something is there, but you never get the ‘complete’ picture and that constant, quiet curiosity keeps you hooked. At times, it feels like the film lingers, almost voyeuristically, on the people, their faces and on a celebration of life surrounded by death.

But it’s not just the scenery, the sound moves, almost as if it is independent of the scenes in the film, as a constant presence in the background, reminding you of the moment you first heard it. There’s the tap tap tap of the artisan using his tools to carve headstones, the hypnotic rhythm of the maatam [self-flagellation] — thump thump thump — that sounds oddly like a beating heart, connecting the beginning and the end of the film almost seamlessly. The sound design creates a vivid audio picture that’s connected to, but almost independent of, the actual scenes running through the film. You can see this film even with your eyes closed.

“The relationship that the community has with death, you don’t have in other urban centres. People literally come and spend time with family members that they have lost. Asef was telling me about the boy who died and his friends would come and play football near his grave,” said Bani Abidi from Berlin, in a post-screening online chat. She was joined by Haya Fatima Iqbal, one of the DAP representatives and who is a filmmaker herself based in Karachi. Asef Muhammad Ali, who is featured in the film as well as did some of the camera work and sound, was also a part of this conversation.

“It wasn’t the kind of documentary where I do interviews and people listen,” she added. “I was interested in the idea of the disembodied jaloos. Ashura ka jaloos is very symbolic. It’s actually a protest. For over a century you’ve done that.”

The conversation also covered the approach the filmmakers had taken when filming the documentary, as well as the moments that stood out for Abidi. “Asef, his mother and I were standing in the graveyard in search of a grave,” related Abidi about one such moment. “Asef said, ‘Let me find a friend.’ I get goose bumps to this day. We don’t have these conversations every day.”

Ali spoke about how things were different in his childhood and how they have changed in the past 20 years of near-constant violence, resulting in loss but also of an exodus of the community to other parts of Pakistan and even countries abroad. He mulls over whether it’s even possible to bounce back from the sustained violence and trauma the community has faced and whether the Quetta of his childhood can be rebuilt.

“Can you undo what has been done?” he questioned, “Eventually you give up. For that moment you give up. But then you go back home, you sleep it off, and wake up with a fresh mind.” He laughed.

There is more to the Hazara people in Quetta than just doom and gloom. “Asef is a productive member of the community,” said Abidi, also referring to his YouTube channel in which he makes funny videos that have a strong following by the community here and abroad. “He’s the hope. The cultural industry within the Hazara community is huge. We’re just outsiders and we may never know it. People aren’t just victims.”

While The Lost Procession is no longer available to view on YouTube — it was up for only three days — the talk with Bani Abidi, Asef Muhammad Ali and Haya Fatima Iqbal is available for view on DAP’s Facebook page and YouTube channel. Not everything is lost.

Published in Dawn, ICON, August 30th, 2020