The White Tiger

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Balram Halwai is not even his real name. Balram was given to him as a nickname by one of his teachers, for lack of having one. Halwai is just a reiteration of the caste he belongs to, that of sweetmakers and confectioners. True enough, Balram spends most of his formative years working at a teashop as some sort of reckoning from the town mafia. It is through a leap of faith that he ends up as a family car driver in Delhi, serving one of the mafia bosses’ sons and his Americanized wife. In Delhi, Balram learns the harsh truths of life and decides to hold his own fate in a chokehold. Witnessing how corruption and government operations work through his boss Ashok’s shady dealings, Balram is not yet aware that this knowledge and his street smarts will soon lead him not just out of poverty but into a life he has never imagined possible for someone like him. After all, a White Tiger like him is a once in a generation kind of thing.

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

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Anjum used to be called Aftab after s/he was born intersex to parents who were praying hard for a son. Living as a Muslim Hijra already seems complicated enough as it is, given India’s diversity of socio ethnic groups that find it difficult to live together, and so Anjum ends up squatting at a graveyard which is fashioned bit by bit to become the Jannat Guest House. One of the guests is a man who calls himself Saddam Hussain and has a revenge plot against a police officer responsible for the death of his father. Later on, the guest house also welcomes S. Tilottama, a Syrian Christian who works as an architect and has ties to three men from different spheres of influence: a journalist from a family of diplomats named Naga; Biplab, a high ranking officer of the country’s intelligence bureau who has always harbored a crush on her; and Musa, the love of her life who is a militant fighting for Azadi in Kashmir. The arrival of an abandoned baby tagged as kidnapped shakes up the dynamics of daily life at the graveyard.

The God of Small Things

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After two decades of separation, once inseparable twins Rahel and Estha are reunited at their childhood home in Ayemenem, but under not so ideal circumstances. Accompanied by the family’s loyal house servant, their maternal great-aunt Baby Kochamma is all who’s left at the once jampacked family estate. The house has borne witness not only to the long-anticipated reunion of the twins but also to the lives of its previous inhabitants, among them: Ammu, the twins’ divorced mother; Chacko, their divorced Oxford-educated uncle who is a closeted communist; Pappachi, their grandfather who vented out his career frustrations on his wife Mammachi, their grandmother who had traded her dream of being a talented violinist for a life of questionable domestic bliss. Secrets abound within the house’s four walls which include a forbidden love affair, a covered-up murder as well as a fatal accident that will change the course of their lives forever.

Q & A

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18-year-old waiter Ram Mohammad Thomas is arrested by police at Dharavi, Asia’s biggest slum at the heart of Mumbai, after he is accused of cheating his way into winning the one billion rupee jackpot prize on a game show called W3B. According to the producers, there is no logical explanation for a mere waiter without an education to breeze through 12 difficult questions and laugh his way to the bank. Tortured to provide a confession, Ram almost gives up until a young lady by the name of Smita, posing as his lawyer, intervenes and takes him back to her flat to review the DVD of the episode. Asked to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, he links each round of Q&A to separate episodes of his own life, from escaping a syndicate planning to blind him and his best friend Salim to time he spent working for has-been film star Neelima Kumari. Can he prove his innocence and get his money or will he rot in jail for a crime he did not commit?