Director: Jabbar Patel; Writer: Jabbar Patel, Sanjay Pawar; Producer: Ashok Mhatre; Cinematographer: Shankar Bardhan; Editor: Vijay Khochikar; Cast: Sonali Kulkarni, Avinash Narkar, Shreeram Lagoo, Reema Lagoo, Vikram Gokhale, Caleb Obura Obwatinyka, Madhu Kambikar, Prashant Subedar
Summary: Wordy melodrama suggesting a link between
the condition of Dalit ‘untouchable’ castes in
Maharashtra and the lot of African-Americans
(the Dalit Panther movement in 1970s-80s
Maharashtra had expressed support for the
Black Panthers). Mukta (Kulkarni), daughter of
a US-based Marathi poet (Gokhale), returns to
her ancestral village to complete her education.
At university she joins a street theatre group of
Dalit activists and falls in love with the group’s
leader (Narkar). The group attacks
governmental indifference to violence against
Dalit women and Mukta’s participation
severely embarasses her uncle, a State Minister
in the ruling Congress Party. The ‘local’
problem, posed by Mukta’s Westernised
liberatedness, escalates into a new dimension
when her black American friend (Obwatinyka)
visits her, leading briefly to a love triangle. In
the end, the divides in the family as Mukta’s
parents prefer to split the joint family rather
than curtail her right to decide her own future,
are mapped onto new political allegiences. The
unusual twist in the plot comes when the
American youth accompanies Mukta’s
grandfather (S. Lagoo) on a pilgrimage to
Pandharpur, recalling the Marathi Saint poets’
struggle against caste inequalities, and sings
black songs while urging the old man to
recognise the intensely contemporary nature of
race and caste discrimination.
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