MK Raina walks out of Jaipur Literature Festival session after complaining about ‘lousy’ depiction of Kashmir in films

On Friday, veteran theatre director and actor MK Raina walked out of a session with singer and fellow actor Ila Arun on day two of the Jaipur Literature Festival on Friday, leaving the latter puzzled.

MK Raina walks out of Jaipur Lit Fest

The two colleagues were promoting their memoirs — Raina has written Before I Forget and Arun has recently come out with Parde Ke Peechhey — at the session Memories from the Screen and Stage. The two were joined by Anjula Bedi in the session.

At one point during the conversation, Arun was discussing her latest play Peer Ghani, which is adapted from legendary playwright Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt and is set in Kashmir.

Raina, who has grown up in Kashmir, then said he has been seeing less and less of the Valley in Indian theatres. “I’m sorry, I see bad films of Kashmir, accusing Kashmir of all kinds of things, lousy films… Kashmir is not being represented at all because they don’t know that state, is my assertion,” he added. A while later, he walked out of the session as Arun was performing a scene from her play Peer Ghani. It caused a flutter with people wondering what had happened.

Ila Arun responds

Someone then told Arun about Raina’s departure from the session. “Albert Pinto ko gussa kyu aya?” Arun responded, a recall of Saeed Mirza’s 1980 film Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyoon Aata Hai.

Curator Asad Lalljee moderated the session. Raina’s memoir Before I Forget chronicles his life’s highs and lows and his experience of growing up in Kashmir. Arun’s book Parde Ke Peechhey documents her extraordinary life, both onstage and behind the scenes.