Primary Characters:
Shanta--the ayah of (Hindu)
Lenni-babi--the character through whom we see the action (Parsi)
Dil Navez--Ice Candy man. (Muslim)
Hassan--Masseur. (Muslim)
Lenni-babi's parents--Parsi. Chameleons. Sugar in the milk. Bum lickers.
Sher Singh: The Sikh among the band of friends.
Papoo--Married to an old Christian mini-man for the family's survival.
Appearance of the British only in the opening dinner scene. Almost like the prime mover--they create the universe, set it into motion, and watch from above. Historical knowledge important here--how the actual partition came into being--how Montbatten really botched it. What is the role of this particular British fellow--to insist that they will not be able to govern themselves and also to goad the Sikh man into betraying his "nature."
Otherwise, to look at the days of Independence through the eyes of 4 different ethnic groups in one particular location. The setting which is established is a world in which this artificial partition on a map breaks up a social world where the various ethnicities co-exist quite peacefully (if we are to trust this portrayal.) Attempt at balance--both in the portrayal of the acts of atrocity and the acts, which make us relatively sympathetic to the characters.
Why use the youthful character of Lenni-babi? (A not altogether sympathetic brat).
Why use this secondary character--the Ayah, Shanta?
Echoes of Draupadi and The Mahabharata. An image which is solidified by the final scene, where she is being dragged, as it were, into the hall.
It is another great battle which result in unparalleled destruction. A war which pits brother against brother, as it were.
At the heart of the story--a woman of great beauty, "the sum of all men's desires" as Yudishthira says of Draupadi. A woman with a number of men, although there are two primary suitors.
Mehti doesn't try to elevate this girl. She is a bit frivolous, enjoying these times of her youth and the attention of these addled men. Nothing particularly "heroic" in her nature--she is hard-working, honest, and does have a kind of inner integrity together to her wish of obliviousness in the matter of the troubles.
In the end, Dil Navez is the ultimate evil, although even here our condemnation comes tempered with a bit of sympathy. We think of his personal tragedy as the fuel for hatred and feel that it is very effective fuel indeed. There is also the personal side of it. What is his rationale for his marriage proposal to Shanta?
Hassan in the end the ultimate good. Hides his lifetime friend, puts love above religion (although some may be puzzled by this and feel it is a little too much), and throughout keeps up a kind of visage, a face of sadness and of being troubled by the events occurring around him.
In The Mahabharata, the events occur to renew a world which is forever being born afresh. This narrative, not guided by a Hindu vision of cyclical eras of world history, has a quite different vision of the final outcome. One sees, for instance, a lack of finality when the speculation about what had happened to the Ayah after the brutal last scene--just as one is uncertain about what happens to the subcontinent at the end of Partition--even 50 some years later.
Back to "why chose Shanta?" I think also part of the answer, besides the symbolic, is the making personal the historical--again the great power of literature and of art as a whole, when directed toward human experience. We may hear "over one million died," and "over 6 million were displaced--forced to leave their home," and still be left a little cold. When an effective enactment is created through convincing and sympathetic characters, the level of felt experience, of felt history, is elevated considerably.
Just as we look to literature to see some specific symbols, metaphors, temporal juxtaposition, etc,. to account for the effectiveness of literary works, I think the making of a piece of film has some similar attributes. We think of a portrayal of the kind of figure we get in Dil Navez, for instance. We see him as the poet of the group, and in his poems he is emulating the great writers of the Ghazal, a form of almost mystical symbolism created in rhyming couplets. He is poetic and passionate and funny and not real hard to look at, as well as being something of a seducer--"let me show you how to fly that kite."
His leitmotif--repeated refrain through which we establish the presence of this character--the act of smoking. This particular imagery is used very effectively in the film.
And perhaps the most dramatic shot of the guy is when the window into Shanta's bedroom is filled with his face, seen only by Lenni-babi. The effectiveness of the drama of this shot is indicated by audience reaction--where the laughter that accompanied the realization that Lenni-babi is witnessing the entire sex-act transforms into a kind of gasp of horror as we see whose face is in the other window. What is revealed in the act of smoking after this scene would win Aamir Khan the actor an Academy Award if anyone really cared.