ON June 9 last year,soon after Byari was released in two theatres in Mangalore,an SMS went out among the Beary community members not to watch what was the first film ever made in the Beary dialect. Orthodox Bearys campaigned that the film dealing with the misuse of talaq was anti-Islamic and watching it would be haraam (sin). The film,with just two prints,ran for two weeks. Earlier this month,Byari won the national award for best feature film. However,for the Muslim community it is based on,residing in the coastal areas of Kasargode in Kerala and Mangalore in Karnataka,that wont change how they feel about it. I thought the community should have supported the first movie about it. Story writer Irfan Chokkabettu and a couple of cast members were from the community, says Althaf Hussain,also a Beary,who produced the film and was the lead actor as well. One of the earliest Muslim communities of the country,the Bearys number about 15 lakh and are traditionally traders. The dialect Beary,going back 1,200 years,is a mix of Kannada,Arabic and Malayalam. It has no script of its own but uses Kannada alphabets. Abdul Rasheed,a local politician at Ullala a town dominated by Bearys says the community should have taken pride in the venture. In a way the film is a culmination of the cultural awakening being seen within the community in recent years,though it still remains close-knit with weddings restricted to fellow community members. The new wave has opened doors for the Beary women. Mangalore has a Beary womens magazine,Anupama,with five women on its seven-member editorial board. For religious reasons though,Byari still remains out of reach of the Beary women. Many of them are now waiting to catch it on CD. If all goes well,Hussain plans to have another film release in Mangalore. The national award,he hopes,will prove too big to ignore.
