Mr. and Mrs. Iyer

Mr. and Mrs. Iyer is a 2002 Indian English-language drama film written and directed by Aparna Sen and produced by N. Venkatesan. The film features Sen's daughter Konkona Sen Sharma as Meenakshi Iyer, a Tamil Iyer Brahmin who is a Hindu. Rahul Bose portrays the character of Raja Chowdhury, a Bengali Muslim wildlife photographer. The story revolves around these two lead characters during a fateful bus journey amidst the carnages of a communal strife in India. Zakir Hussain, an Indian tabla maestro, composed the background score and music for the film; Goutam Ghose, a film director himself, was the cinematographer. Mr. and Mrs. Iyer premiered at the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland and was showcased at other prominent film festivals. The film opened to Indian audiences on 19 July 2002. It was met with critical acclaim upon release, and won several national and international awards, including the Golden Maile award at the Hawaii International Film Festival and the Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration in India. The film, which was also released as a DVD, had English as its predominant language with a sporadic use of Hindi, Tamil, and Bengali. Plot Meenakshi Iyer and her infant son, Santhanam, embark on a bus journey to return home, after visiting her parents. At the bus station, Meenakshi is introduced to Raja Chowdhury by a common friend. Raja, a wildlife photographer, is requested by Meenakshi's parents to look after their daughter and grandson during the journey. The passengers of the bus include a boisterous group of youngsters, two Sikh men, an elderly Muslim couple, a young couple high on romance, a mentally challenged boy and his mother, and some card-playing men. The bus faces a roadblock and the bus driver attempts a detour, but is stopped by traffic jam caused by sectarian violence between Hindus and Muslims in nearby areas.