Paar (film)

Paar (translation: "The Crossing ") is a 1984 Indian Hindi-language film directed by Goutam Ghose and produced by Swapan Sarkar. The film stars Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri. Naseeruddin Shah won a Volpi Cup for his role as Naurangia. The film was based on Bengali story Paari by Samaresh Basu.

Plot

The film of exploitation in rural Bihar, in which a landlord (Utpal Dutt)’s men wreck a village and kill the benevolent schoolmaster (Anil Chatterjee) who was a progressive force in the village. The labourer Naurangia (Naseeruddin Shah) breaks with a tradition to passive resistance and retaliates by killing the landlord's brother. Naurangia and his wife Rama (Shabana Azmi) become fugitives from justice. After many efforts to find sustenance elsewhere, the two decide to return home. To earn the fare, they agree to drive the herd of pigs through the river, causing the pregnant Rama to believe she has lost her baby. But they have to swim across a wide, swiftly flowing river, in which they nearly drown before reaching safety. At the end of the film Naurangia puts his ear to her belly and listens to the heartbeats of the unborn baby.