Chauthi Koot (2016)

Evocative and provocative, this realistic saga synthesises two different stories set in a post-Operation Blue Star Punjab in the '80s. Fear and paranoia pervade the atmosphere as the general public is caught between excesses of both Khalistani militants and the Indian government forces fighting them.

The first story is about a militant diktat in Punjab that prohibited family-owned dogs from barking, and the other is about two Hindu friends travelling to Amritsar in a nearly empty train. The film merges the two plots into one by making one of the friends travelling in the train recount the first story.

This touching tale opens with two Hindus friends Jugal and Raj looking for a train to Amritsar late in the evening. Having missed the last passenger train, they, along with a Sikh man in the same position, force their way onto a freight train. The small compartment already has a security man and two other young Sikhs besides a couple of railway employees. The fearful atmosphere makes Jugal recount to Raj an earlier incident involving him, his wife and their young daughter.

The narration takes the audience into flashback. Lost at night in the countryside, Jugal, his wife and daughter reach a farmhouse in the outskirts of the village. While they are frightened to knock at the isolated house, they are not left with much choice. The family in the house, also suspicious at first, later lets them in, as the head of the house Joginder shows them the direction to take.

Later at night, Joginder and his family are visited by the Sikh militants who demand Joginder that he kill the family dog for drawing attention with its incessant barking. The family's woes continue the next morning when the paramilitary men arrive looking for the separatists. They turn the house upside down before leaving.

The narrative moves back to the train on its way as the guard asks his unwanted passengers to leave before anyone notices them.