When the film opens, the British are finally preparing to quit their empire in India and the searing process of splitting British India into Independent India and Pakistan is about to begin. This argument is patsy compared to the ones being carried out between people of different sects all over Lahore.
Bitter words metamorphose into slogan shouting mobs and arson.
Angry Hindus storm through Lahore one day, and angry Muslims the next. Then the serious killing begins. The savagery is thrust into Lenny's idyllic world. Lenny is with Ayah and a group of Ayah's admirers outside the servant's quarters of her home when troubling reports of violence around Gurdaspur in India begin coming over the radio. Whilst the group, gripped with fear, listens to the radio, Dil Navaz, the Ice Candy Man, waits for his sisters at the Lahore Railway Station.