Aparna Sen, the director who hit world headlines with her disturbing yet true portrayal of an old woman's life in the critically acclaimed "36, Chowrangi Lane", is ready with her second English release, "Mr. and Mrs. Iyer". Set in the backdrop of communal riots that hit India after a 16th century mosque in Ayodhya was demolished by Hindu zealots, "Mr. and Mrs. Iyer" is a finely woven love story between a Hindu married woman and her Muslim companion.

Apparently the film seems on similar lines with Maniratnam's 'Bombay' which was again a love story set in the backdrop of communal violence. Aparna Sen justifies that her film Mr and Mrs Iyer is not a mainstream Bollywood film, it's a simple tale of two people thrown together in unforeseen circumstances. The film deals with characters from diverse backgrounds. The film begins with a curfew situation in rural Bengal, where Meenakshi Iyer (Konkona Sen) a married Tamilian Brahmin woman, saves her Muslim companion from blood-thirsty Hindu zealots by referring to him as her husband.

Meenakshi along with her child sets on a seemingly uneventful bus journey to catch a train. But on the way, communal riot breaks out threatening the life of the passengers. An old Muslim couple get killed. This shocks the hell out of the orthodox and  conservative Meenakshi who is otherwise strictly intolerant of other faiths. But the callousness of the destruction makes Meenakshi save the life of a young Muslim Photojournalist Raja (Rahul Bose) who happens to be a fellow traveler. Gradually the relationship between them develops through the rest of the journey. They fall in love but it's not striking just because she is married with a child and he is from a different community but because there is too much at stake and it's about how these individuals create a bond at a time of crisis. Though the inspiration was macabre, Sen has clearly struck a chord: The movie won a Junior Jury prize for best director at the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland and the script earned her a Netpac Jury prize for courage in raising an issue of relevance in a work of cinematic density.

What makes the film different is not just its strong inter-religious overtones but the striking insight into the working of an individual mind when caught in bizarre circumstances. In the film, she questions the trend of reducing a human to his one basic identity: religion. But the movie is not devoid of potholes. Meenakshi portrayed as a rigid conservative, saving the life of a fellow being on human grounds is understandable but the hasty way in which she overcomes her rigid ness and falls for the guy, is hard to digest. The liberal coincidences that put them together also at times seem unnatural. But despite these flaws the film has its high points. The heroine Konkana Sen, Aparna Sen's Daughter is superb as the typical Brahmin lady Meenakshi. Even her dialect is perfect. Some of the brutal scenes are portrayed sensitively. Mrs. Sen ends her tale practically with the couple going back to their respective lives keeping morality high.