Manoj Punj

When the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb bans music in India because he believes it turns people away from God, musicians go underground.

In 1984 the former Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards, and since then the Sikhs have been a target of violent backlashes by radicals and the Punjab Police. During 1985 Gursharan Singh Soman lived a peaceful life as a farmer in rural Punjab, along with his elderly parents, Gurdev and Tejpal, and an unmarried sister, Guddi. Gursharan meets with and gets engaged to the Station House Officer's only daughter, Jassi Sandhu. Shortly thereafter her father is killed in a drive-by shooting, and a new Officer, Randhawa, takes over from him. Far from being ethical and honest, he is only concerned with fulfilling a quota of deaths of so-called terrorists by fake police encounters. Jassi and Gursharan get married as Jassi has no other relatives. When the police find a duffel bag of automatic weapons in Soman's house, they immediately arrest Gursharan and beat him up severely, even though he claims his innocence, alleging that real terrorists had forced themselves upon the family at gun-point. When a deputation from the town asks Randhawa to set him free, he does so, and the Soman family settle down. Guddi is soon to get married to a young man who loves her. Then in July, 1987, Sikh terrorists gun down a bus full of non-Sikhs, setting off a shock wave in the entire country. Punjab Police are instructed to maintain order, even if it means to do away with law. A large number of Sikhs are hunted down and killed in fake police encounters, scores are arrested and tortured. Gursharan is arrested again and severely beaten up in police custody. When Guddi goes to plead with Randhawa to release him, she too is imprisoned and beaten by a burly policewoman. Gursharan's American-based friend, Darshan Singh Gill, comes to their rescue and arranges for Gursharan to visit the U.S.A. on a travel visa as a hockey player. Once in America, Gursharan applies for political asylum, and is granted one, which also permits him to sponsor Jassi, and his new-born son to America. After Jassi's arrival, Gursharan gets a job in a corner store, while Jassi works as a Gas Attendant. It is then Gursharan gets the news that his father has suffered a heart-attack and may not live long. Gursharan is ready to leave for India to be near his family in this crucial hour, but his leaving America may well revoke his political asylum, and even if he does leave America and arrives in India, there is more than a bullet from the Punjab Police awaiting him. —rAjOo (gunwanti@hotmail.com)

Murad Hussein and Gul Baloch have been enemies for years. Murad would like to propose a truce so that the two families become friends again, and for this occasion he has chosen to marry his brother to Gul's sister. The wedding is arranged and Gul and his family are accordingly invited. Gul does attend the wedding, bless the couple, and when night came, he and his accomplices brutally kill every male in the household, including his very own brother-in-law. Gul's sister loses her sanity, and is taken back home, where he lives with his daughter, Jameela. Gul's sister gives birth to a baby boy, Yusuf Zayed. Years later, Jameela has grown up, albeit disabled with a thinking of a one year old in the body of a nine year old. She is fascinated by aspiring Bollywood singer, Amar, and Gul abducts him and makes him Jameela's companion. In the meantime, Yusuf finds out that his mother has been feigning mental illness, and is able to recollect everything that happened on her wedding night. She asks Yusuf to kill Gul and Jameela, to which Yusuf agrees. The question remains, will Yusuf be able to kill his very own maternal uncle, and cousin, with the same cold-bloodlessness as Gul had displayed several years ago, or will employ some other means? —rAjOo (gunwanti@hotmail.com)

The film is set in 1947. The exodus has begun after Partition. A Sikh ex-military man in his thirties finds a 16-year-old Muslim girl alone in a nearby village and brings her home. But the villagers tell him he should either marry her or leave her in a camp where people bound for Pakistan are located. But he decides that since he's far older, he'd better leave her at the camp. As he is about to send her off with a man bound for the camp and who is prepared to marry her there, she asks Buta Singh if he is so poor that he cannot even feed her two Rotis per day to keep her alive. Whereupon Buta Singh decides to marry her. They have a baby girl. And Buta is pretty happy that despite being overage, matrimonially speaking, he's leading a pleasant life. Others of his class usually had to actually buy women from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar whom they married. A jealous uncle who realizes the family property will now go to the Muslim girl, forcibly dumps Buta's wife into a truck bound for Pakistan. Buta realizes what has happened, sells all his land and goes along with his child to Pakistan illegally. He's quickly arrested and brought before a judge who's quite willing to free him if his wife owns up. But, under pressure from her family, the girl backs off. A disillusioned and distraught Buta jumps with his daughter before an oncoming train. He dies, but his daughter is saved. Pakistani youth, overcome by this, hail him thus: Shaheed-e-Mohabat (a martyr in the cause of love), erect a memorial and a trust in his name. —Jalwehra