31st October: Vir Das-Soha Ali Khan film shows aftermath of Indira Gandhi's assassination

When it comes to aspects of Indian history that have been depicted in Hindi films, we have a fairly small, circumscribed set of events that have been brought to the big screen so far. Hoping to change that is the film 31st October, starring Vir Das and Soha Ali Khan. The film attempts to trace the aftermath of the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984, and the backlash against the Sikh community in Delhi. [caption id=“attachment_2985256” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Still from ‘31st October’[/caption] Vir and Soha portray a young Sikh couple who live in the capital with their two little boys. When the Sikhs are hunted down, the couple must find a way to take their children (and themselves) to safety. Will they succeed? The trailer of 31st October, released on 31 August, doesn’t let on all that much. It does give a glimpse, however, of a carnage that not too many in India now dwell on. [caption id=“attachment_2985258” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Vir Das in ‘31st October’[/caption] In one of the sections of his book The Way Things Were, the writer Aatish Taseer had written very poignantly of the struggles of a Sikh family in the post-Indira Gandhi assassination era in Delhi: It made the fear, the humiliation of the proud community so very real. The trailer for 31st October doesn’t give us enough to go by, on whether or not it will manage to adequately bring out the horror of that time in 1984, and of the tragedy so indelibly linked with that period of modern Indian history. But we can definitely hope that it will. Watch the trailer for 31st October here: