'Sharda' in 'The Kashmir Files' is a tribute to all victims of Kashmir genocide: Bhasha Sumbli

Standing tall with the veteran star cast of 'The Kashmir Files' is a face that not many people knew before. The person behind the character of 'Sharda Pandit' may not be a big name, but Bhasha Sumbli has emerged as the face of Kashimiri Pandits' genocide after the portrayal of the character.

Much as the poster of 'Sharda Pandit' stirs one with her haunting expressions, Bhasha's role in the movie tears everyone's consciousness. In the movie, Sharda is Pushkar Nath's (Anupam Kher) daughter-in-law. She has very few dialogues in the movie, but her emotive scenes make everyone speechless and are very vital to the movie's plot.

She portrays the wife of telecom engineer B.K. Ganjoo, who was killed while he was hiding in a drum, and then Sharda is forced to eat the blood-soaked rice, a true happening that took place in the Chhota Bazaar locality of Srinagar in March 1990.

In the last scene of the movie, she portrays Girija Tickoo, who was gang-raped and cut alive with a carpenter's saw.

Bhasha, a displaced Kashmiri Pandit who was last seen in Chhapak, grew up at a migrant camp in Delhi amid trauma and misery, where she saw people fighting each other for bread and blanket.

When asked if playing Sharda disturbed her, she said, "Yes, it was traumatic. I was disturbed. The incidents shown in the movie are true incidents. We know them. We have grown hearing about these. We have borne all this. And when I was playing the character of B.K. Ganjoo's wife or doing the Nadimarg massacre scene... I was not acting, I was living them... Both have affected me deeply. It is a truthful depiction -- 'Satvic Abhinav' -- that was it."

Talking about being a part of the film, she said, "I am grateful that I was part of this movie. My character and this movie is a tribute to all the martyrs, women and children from our community who suffered.

I could vent out my feelings through this movie, the emotions that were subjugated just came to the fore. I can't go out and fight them physically but I could, through this movie, affect their conscience, jolt all those who have been sleeping for 32 years."