In search of a ‘soulmate’

Rana Siddiqui Zaman

Khoj is a 28-minute poignant, captivating, stunning, hard-hitting, matter-of-fact film. The film begins with the marriage of young Gurpreet (played by Zara Khan) with Bikram (Navinder Bhatti), an NRI from the UK at a gurdwara in Punjab.

Gurpreet, who is an orphan, has been brought up lovingly by her maternal uncle and aunt. The boy’s marriage is being mediated by his friend from Punjab who is a resident of the UK, Karan Randhawa (played by Hassan Khan).

After two days of marriage, Bikram leaves for the UK. Thereafter, he keeps no contact with Gurpreet and her family. After three months, the pregnant Gurpreet decides to find him in London. Back home, this means a stigma for the family that the girl has run away from the house after marriage, leading to her and family’s ostracisation. The relentless Gurpreet is ready to pay the price. Depending on another girl from Punjab living in the UK,  she leaves her country.

Once there, she realises that it is not easy to find him. But for a few marriage photographs,  there are no legal documents that could prove their marriage. His identity in his Facebook account is also fake as also his London whereabouts. The UK police is not of much help either. With the help of her friend and her African-American partner, they are able to trace his friend Karan Randhawa who refuses to acknowledge her. After pestering Karan, she is successful in getting Bikram’s whereabouts. To her horror, she finds that Bikram was already married in the UK and has a grown up daughter from that marriage. He refuses to meet Gurpreet at his home and comes to settle it out in her hotel. Here Bikram offers to return her jewellery but refuses to accept her as wife or take responsibility of her unborn child.

A fight between the two follows and Bikram tries to kill Gurpreet and the child by attacking her repeatedly with the kirpan she’s carrying for her protection. In this scuffle, Gurpreet loses her child. 

The last shot of the film shows her seeking admission in Khalsa College for Women, filling the option “unmarried” in the marital status, moving on with heavy steps. The film ends with statistics on the number of married girls being abandoned by their NRI  husbands, who rob them of their dignity, virginity, finances, self-esteem, apart from leaving them ostracised from the community and the village. Last year’s data collected by an NGO records 15,000 such abandoned wives.

The protagonist Gurpreet is played by Zara Khan, daughter of actor Salma Agha of Nikah fame. Says Zara, “A lot of preparation went into looking like 19-year-old Gurpreet. My makeup artist Charlottee Annice Spruch did great work.  I enjoy doing meaningful films, and do not like getting stereotyped by being merely a pretty face.”

Shot in London and Punjab, this Punjabi film has subtitles in English, is supported by a tight script by Kajri Babbar. Kajri  has studied film direction from  Arts University Bournemouth, UK, and is an active member of the Ekjute theatre group. 

“I chose to make this film after I read several articles by the BBC with alarming data on such abandoned wives. Unfortunately, after hundreds of stories being done and films being made, the situation hasn’t changed much even today,” says the 23-year-old director whose first film Pardaa made it to the semi-finals in the Oscars last year. Kajri is sending this film to the Oscars too.

The film has been produced by Rochelle Johnson from Britain. Director of photography Darius Shu and editor Amol Datta have together woven a heart-wrenching story with less words and intense shots. Most of the cast is British. Punjabi actor Amrit Pal Singh Billa plays Gurpreet’s uncle.