West Is West Movie

East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.

(Rudyard Kipling”The Ballad of East and West”)

It‟s 1976 and the KHAN‟S are still in SALFORD. The chippy is still thriving and GEORGE and ELLA live under an uneasy truce. The banter still eases things between them, but ELLA is always on her guard against GEORGE‟s little schemes. TARIQ works in a Manchester boutique called The Pendle Witch. He‟s discovering his hippy soul, embracing an aspect of his Asian background for the first time. He loves and immerses himself in anything INDIAN, as long as it‟s limited to fashion. There is a lot of kudos from his hippy friends when he tells them he‟s half INDIAN: though he doesn‟t consider Pakistan as part of that equation. Being a “Paki” is still a problem for him, a social faux pas.

MANEER, the only practicing Muslim and obedient son amongst the Kahn kids, is in PAKISTAN, looking for a wife. Initially we hear about him through his letters home, which are an event, read out to all the family. We discover the problems he is facing in Pakistan. This proves a real wake up call to George. It will make him question not just his children‟s identity, but also his own.

SAJID is finding every aspect of his existence as the runt of the Khan litter a real problem. A small gang constantly harass him at school, call him „Paki‟ and „Kid Curry‟ and they make him suffer, mostly by pushing his head down the toilet at school.

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He spends more and more time avoiding school, and one of his attempts to jump over the school wall, brings him to the attention of the headmaster. Worse than that, one of his truanting expeditions ends in his arrest for shoplifting

George decides that the boy needs discipline: the kind of discipline you can only achieve by sending a 13 year old boy from twentieth century Salford to a Pakistani village in the middle of the Punjab, with no electricity, toilets or running water, into the bosom of a family who dislike, distrust, and don‟t want him there.

In Pakistan SAJID will become involved in the family politics. He and MANEER are not wanted there. We will see the terrible relationship they have with GEORGE‟s first wife, and daughters.

SAJID runs wild in this village, and seems uncontrollable, until befriended by a local holy man, a sufi, PIR NASEEM, who lives in the cemetery. His relationship with GEORGE‟s family disintegrates completely when he discovers that they themselves may well be the obstacle to Maneer finding a wife locally. They are highly suspicious of George‟s motivations: does he plan to bring his whole half-breed family out there? SAJID hates being in their stifling midst, and starts to hang out more and more with the holy man.

Meanwhile, back in SALFORD, ELLA too starts to wonder what the hell is going on. When

 

the frying oil runs out and the potato men fail to make another delivery, she discovers GEORGE has taken most of the money from their bank account. Is he intending to stay there? Or is it just more hard earned money going to his family? She decides she‟s not going to sit at home and twiddle her thumbs. Funded byTARIQ, she decides to go to Pakistan. Her best friend AUNTIE ANNIE, manages to persuade them that she should join in the call to arms (anything to get a rest from her husband).

What follows will be a learning curve for all of them. ELLA and the boys see where GEORGE is from: how this land made him the man he is and how it informed his relationships with each of them. ELLA, initially at odds with GEORGE‟s first wife, sees the harsh life lived here. She will discover the other woman‟s point of view: what it‟s been like to live without a husband for the last thirty odd years. Eventually Ella realizes that maybe they are not dissimilar from each other. GEORGE will discover some home truths about himself: that for all his talk of PAKISTAN, he too is a stranger in his own land. Seemingly at every turn, George is finding his home-coming to be a humiliating, deflating, and painful experience; he can‟t even handle the bulls any more.

The learning curve for George is particularly hastened by his near-loss of SAJID, the child he has until now been used to despising. George comes to realise that he‟s been wrong all along, and it‟s time to try and salvage something from the wreckage.

 

As for SAJID, he will grow up. He finds for his brother Maneer the wife of his dreams [who bears an uncanny resemblance to Nana Miskouri]. He will leave his childhood behind, and feel healed. GEORGE will be able to step back into his young son‟s life and stand a last chance of having a meaningful relationship with one of his children.