Sreela Majumdar

Based on the acclaimed novel by Moti Nandi, Baranda explores the complexity of human relationships through the lives of two lost souls - Runu and Girija. Haunted by a harrowing past and perplexed by the present, the two find themselves on a downward spiral when other people enter their lives and relationships are strained to the point of breaking.

For years, an aging Rukmini Bai (Shabana Azmi) has been the Madame of a brothel in Hyderabad, India. The women in the brothel live in harmony. Rukmini Bai takes pride in the talent of her women, especially Zeenat (Smita Patil) who is a classical singer and Basanti (Neena Gupta) who is a classical dancer. Rukmini Bai is quite possessive about Zeenat and does not let her get engaged in prostitution. Ramgopal (Om Puri) is a photographer who frequents the brothel. Ramgopal is lusting after Basanti, but she is not interested in him. The Doctor (Annu Kapoor) comes every month for health check-ups. Phoolmani (Sreela Majumdar) is a new entrant into the brothel. She was sold to the brothel for Rs 4000 by a supplier Srikanth (who had married Phoolmani and then lured her to the brothel) and she had a torrid start to her first day. She was frightened, ran all over the brothel, tried to escape and then finally lost the energy and calmed down. Rukmini is protective of her from the customers who wish to deflower Zeenat. One day Rukmini Bai gets the news, that she, now, has a new landlord Mr. Gupta (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), whose daughter Malti (Ratna Pathak) is to marry Mr. Aggarwal's (Saeed Jaffrey) son, Sushil (Aditya Bhattacharya), shortly. Given the finesse of Zeenat and Basanti, Mr. Gupta invites Rukmini Bai with her women to perform at the engagement ceremony of his son. During the performance, Sushil is smitten by Zeenat's beauty and approaches her in the dressing room. Zeenat also gets attracted to Sushil. In the meanwhile, it is shown that the City Councilor, Shantidevi (Gita Siddharth), who also runs the Women Organization of the town is averse to Rukmini Bai and her brothel. In reality Shanti Devi is coordinating with Mr. Gupta to build public opinion against the brothel, so he can get it demolished for his new construction project at the right time. Shantidevi's assistant (Pankaj Kapur) Via Mr Gupta, Shanti gets news that a minor Phoolmani has been kept at the brothel without her wishes. Shanti enters the brothel with a large public crowd to rescue the minor. But Rukmini traps Shanti's assistant in a room with one her other girls, who claims that he was trying to sexually assault her. This puts Shanti on the back foot, and she is forced to withdraw for the time being. Meanwhile Nadira tries to force Phoolmani into her first time. She has a stroke and later tries to commit suicide. To save Phoolmani the Doctor asks Rukmini to take her to a hospital, but since it is a suicide case, a police report is required first. And that means the entire brothel will be kept in a lockup, just so that Phoolmani can be saved. Mr. Agarwal bails the girls out. In a Municipal Committee meeting, Shanti proposes that the brothel should be moved out of town, in order to protect the town from getting corrupted. The committee agrees to her demands and Rukmini Bai and her women are forced to relocate to a new place in the outskirts of the city, which happens to be near the Dargah of Baba Karak Shah. Mr. Agarwal comes to apologize to Rukmini that he could not stop from the brothel being relocated but promises to take care of the Phoolmani case. Agarwal also gets Mr. Gupta to offer Rs 51K, a house and land to Rukmini at the new site, to help her relocate. But the new location attracts a lot of people (as it the religious grave site of one Baba Kharak Shah, whom the locals revere and visit often), and Rukmini Bai's brothel starts thriving. In the meanwhile, Rukmini Bai gets to know about the budding love between Zeenat and Sushil and she forbids Zeenat from going ahead with the relationship. She reveals that Zeenat is the illegitimate child of Mr. Aggarwal and another prostitute, and Rukmini Bai had kept it as a secret for years, in order to save the face of Mr. Aggarwal. It makes Zeenat and Sushil siblings and renders their romantic relationship as prohibited. The complications set in when Sushil refuses to marry Malti and runs away from his house in order to pursue Zeenat. He asks Zeenat to elope from the brothel with him in search of better existence and Zeenat accepts his proposal. The whole brothel is in a state of panic when the news of Zeenat's elopement breaks out. Rukmini Bai and Aggarwal go in search of the children. However, during the way, Zeenat is overcome by guilt as she is aware of their biological relationship and thus, runs away from Sushil as well. Sushil is heartbroken. Rukmini Bai too, is unable to come to terms with the news of Zeenat's disappearance. She is sobbing in her brothel and instead of getting sympathy, she is rebuked by a Nadira (Soni Razdan), a prostitute who works for her. She asks Rukmini Bai to exit the brothel as the women do not need her anymore and can run the brothel on their own. Rukmini Bai is in a state of shock and with a heavy heart, she quits the brothel with her faithful helper Tungrus (Naseeruddin Shah). On their way, due to exhaustion, they halt for water. While looking for water, Tungrus accidentally comes across a Shiv Lingam. He calls out to Rukmini Bai and they both pray to the Shivlingam for a better future. Just then, they see Phoolmani, a former brothel woman, running towards them. Rukmini Bai is delighted at the sight of Phoolmani and thanks the almighty.

Kharij opens with a sequence where a small child comes to work in the household of a middle-class family. The couple are both working, and have a small lovable child. A few sequences later, the scene of action moves to the kitchen. The kitchen is locked from inside. The previous night, the servant had gone to sleep in the kitchen ( usually he sleeps in the basement of the house) and is not answering the frantic calls of his master and other members of the household. After trying for quite a while, the door is broken and the boy is found to be lying in an unconscious state. The doctor is called, who announces the child to be dead. As it is a case of unnatural death, the police is called. By now, inquisitive neighbors have already got wind of the incident, and have converged as a crowd in front of the couple's residence. Some sympathetic neighbors comes to help the couple in this crisis. Police arrives and takes stock of the situation. They conduct their routine investigations, and takes the body of the boy for "postmortem." The husband will have to report to Police Station in the evenings. A helpful neighbor, sensing it to be a complicated case, advises the husband to consult a reputed lawyer to prevent him from getting implicated in legal wrangling. When the husband goes to the lawyer, the lawyer exposes the husband's false claims of treating the servant-boy as one of their family members. When the deceased boy's father comes to the couple's house to take his son's monthly salary, he receives the shattering news of his son's demise from the other small boy working in the household. When the couple actually goes to meet the servant's father, the man breaks down and naturally, is inconsolable. Some of the sequences are indeed very touching. When the deceased boy's father has to stay that night in the couple's house, the couple sets up a nice bed for him at night, full of warm quilt and thick mattresses. However, the boy's father's sentiments prevented him from availing of such luxury, and he said that he would like to sleep in the kitchen where his son was found dead sleeping. Post-mortem gives verdict that the boy has died from carbon-monoxide formation. The boy had gone to a late night film show the previous night, and returned around midnight to the house. When he felt that it was cold, he went to sleep in the kitchen (normally he slept in the basement). There was no ventilation in the kitchen room, and the charcoal cooking item was dimly burning. Ignorant of the perils of sleeping without proper ventilation, the servant succumbs in his sleep. After the postmortem report, the boy is taken to the burning Ghat and set aflame. The denouement sees the hapless father finally asking permission from the couple to return to his home in the village.

The daughter of a middle-class family fails to return home one night.

The daughter of an economically middle-class family fails to return home one night. The bread-winning daughter in a middle-class family fails to return from work one evening. The night begins with worries at home, followed by midnight searches and finally a deepening crisis arising out of economic and moral constraints prevalent in the society. Yet the film speaks of hope, of strength hidden behind despair.