Life, death and two Fawad Khans: Asim Abbasi on his new series, ‘Barzakh’

Barzakh — which means limbo — is stylistically and ambitiously so far ahead of what we are currently making in the subcontinent that I felt compelled to speak to its creator, the British-Pakistani director Asim Abbasi who had also created the burkha-vigilante show Churails (also on Zee5) that I had adored. Speaking on a video call from London, Abbasi told me what Barzakh put him through and what he was trying to accomplish through this wild, dreamy fantasy.

“I wanted to deal with themes of memory and passage of time, and death and afterlife, and what intergenerational trauma looks like between fathers and sons," Abbasi says. “I was conceiving this during the pandemic. I was coping with personal losses because my father had passed away a few years ago, but I was also just trying to make sense of loss as an entity generally for everyone." The filmmaker settled on a singularity. “I can comfort myself that actually, that’s not the end. Death is so heavily tied with rebirth and what was gone is coming back in whatever shape or form they’re coming back in."

“For me, the show is about what connects all of us and what will remain once we don’t remain in this universe as human beings." 

When Abbasi took the idea for Barzakh to Zee5’s Shailja Kejriwal, who also executive produced Churails, she immediately saw the loftiness of the ambition. “Oh my god, are we doing [Gabriel Garcia] Márquez?", Abbasi recalls her saying, and while he had loved the Colombian writer, Abbasi had entered many rabbit-holes of mysticism and paganism, discovering links between the afterlife mythologies of Persian, Hindu and even Sufi cultures. The show’s mythology is its own unique fairy tale mix. 

As a result Barzakh is set in a literal nowhere-land, a place that, Abbasi says, “could be India, it could be Pakistan, it could be some aspect of Persia, long lost." He shot it in Hunza, a spellbinding stretch of North Pakistan that could double for Ladakh and Switzerland. The vistas are magnificent. Abbasi connected with Hunza on more than aesthetics, however. “Hunza has a very rich history of shamanism, where they still believe that the shamans eat the juniper leaves at a certain time in the year, and they can communicate with the fairies."

Perhaps the juniper leaves hold their own wisdom. “When I spoke to locals, what I found fascinating is that they said that if we have one son and one daughter, and we can only send one to school, we always send the daughter," Abbasi marvels. “Which I thought was so different from the way the rest of Pakistan is, or India is, and for them its hugely important for their daughters to be educated because their line continues with the daughters." 

Two of Barzakh’s actors happen to be called Fawad Khan. One of them is the actor India has sighed over for years now, and the other is a theatre performer Abbasi had used in Churails in a smaller role and was sure he wanted here. The movie star Fawad he was less sure of. “Why would we go to Fawad?", Abbasi remembers asking his team when the idea was first brought up. “This is not a Fawad show, it’s an ensemble piece." 

Khan, however, took to the script instantly. “It occurs to me that he was also probably not looking for a star-show," Abbasi says. “They’re all craving a good ensemble. They’re all craving a show that they can get their teeth into and sort of experiment with."

A striking performance comes from Sanam Saeed playing an enigmatic character named Scheherezade, a character I would love to discuss but will be giving too much away. “Sanam, I think has this mix of hardness and softness," Abbasi says. “I love her for bringing what she brings to the character, especially in the later episodes, because you can’t say ‘Okay, you have to be like X actor in X film or X series,’ because there is really no blueprint for this one." 

The best part goes to veteran actor Salman Shahid, a wily old fox Indian audiences will recognise from Abhishek Chaubey’s Ishqiya movies. He is brilliant as the besotted groomsman in Barzakh. “I do think this is one of his best performances to date, and he was just otherworldly." Abbasi saying Shahid wouldn’t “switch off" character between takes, staying in the trance-like mood of the story. “He just wanted to do everything. Like on the mountain, if anyone would offer him a hand, he’d just whack it away. So he was very much like ‘I’m going to do every single part of the show, no matter how physically, emotionally strenuous it is, by myself."

His series is frequently scandalous. One of the early scenes has a little boy telling a shockingly inappropriate joke, and I ask if he’s worried about censorship and what local audiences may say. Who is your audience, I ask. “Me," he smiles. 

“I think there was an Amazon show [Tandav] that had a huge thing around it. And I am still hearing whispers that, at least for the Indian streamers, there is stuff you need to be careful about," Abbasi says about censorship, but with Barzakh, he didn’t care. “I genuinely viewed it as my single opportunity to make something exactly like I want, how I want to make it and how I want to edit it." He also thinks artists should create and people should talk. “After Churails, I’ve realised that people will always find something or the other to talk about."

That is what Asim Abbasi wants. “I wanted to create a show that left the same feeling in people that I felt after watching The Leftovers or Station Eleven, because those shows sort of destroyed me in a very good way." All he now hopes is that people discovering Barzakh engage with the show enough to discuss, debate and argue about it. We may or may not endure after we’re gone, but long may the arguments live on.

Streaming tip of the week:

Asim Abbasi’s Churails (Zee5) may have a horror movie title but is actually a rollicking series about burkha-clad women deciding to rip apart the patriarchy in the most grounded, chaotic way. A stylish show propelled by great performances, it’s an essential watch.