Winner for all ages

There would be little surprise if Haraamkhor turns out be the year's best independent film

It took four long years for Shlok Sharma’s paralysingly beautiful Haraamkhor to pass through the Kafkaesque Indian Censor Board to get released at the cinemas. The Anurag Kashyap protege has outclassed his mentor in touching the audience’s raw nerve, in a good way. 

The plot, set somewhere in the Indian hinterland, revolves around Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s teacher character, Shyam, who takes a liking for his 14-year-old student, played excellently by Shweta Tripathi as Sandhya. 

If the movie echoes a trope similar to Coetzee’s Disgrace, or “you are the fire of my loins” Lolita, the comparisons shall stop there. The movie instead