Mr. and Mrs. Iyer
Love in the Time of Violence - a film in English by Aparna Sen. A bus rolls down a narrow winding hilly road. On board is Meenakshi Iyer, with her nine-month old son, Santanam. With them is Raja Chowdhary, a wildlife photographer who was introduced to her through a common friend before boarding the bus. Since Meenakshi is travelling alone with her infant, Raja is given the responsibility of looking after her and everyone on the bus assumes them to be a couple. The journey is a pleasant one, amidst a collage of people from different parts of India, creating a sort of mini-India in the bus. The calm is short lived. The bus is stopped by an angry mob of Hindu extremists on the prowl for Muslims. They're out to avenge the burning of a Hindu village. A storm of communal violence and hatred has swept over the entire area, with people killing one another and bloodshed and fire all around. The news sends a chill down Raja s spine. He is Muslim. Born and brought up in an orthodox Brahmin family, Meenakshi is shocked to learn of Raja s background. She starts to maintain her distance from him. But fate has other ideas. Looking at the inhuman way in which Muslims are being killed, she can't help but save his life. She lies to the Hindu extremists, saying that they are a married Hindu couple, "Mr. and Mrs. Iyer". But they have to leave the bus soon, in search of another way to reach home. Now they have no one but each other for support. The intense violence and enmity they witness all around brings them even closer. Humanity reshapes their old, conventional beliefs and religious differences are soon forgotten. They now feel a strong attraction for each other. Confused and scared, they don't know where the journey will lead them. Mr. and Mrs. Iyer is Aparna Sen's second English language film after the critically acclaimed, 36 Chowringhee Lane. Written in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and 6 months before the Gujarat riots, the film is almost prophetic in nature.