'Qissa' can also be called 'kahani', and both mean the same, story. But the equivalence is not exact: a 'qissa' has the feel of a yarn, a rambling tale told, perhaps by the fireside, with threads loose enough to twine and separate, whenever the storyteller wishes to pick it up again.

'Unique' and 'distinctive' are two words that repeatedly spring to mind as the contemplative, splendidly well crafted Qissa unfolds on the screen. It touches upon a clutch of vital themes skillfully dovetailed into its Partition-era drama about a displaced Sikh family caught in a destructive spiral. Qissa, with Punjabi dialogue and English subtitles, is writer-director Anup Singh's second film. In the manner of his first - The Name of a River, a memorable tribute to Ritwik Ghatak - Qissa is unlike anything that we have seen, or are likely to see, in years.

The film begins in Pakistani side of Punjab before Partition. Sepia tones and a melancholy mood effectively capture the anguish of uprooted Sikh families crossing the border and arriving in India. Like the rest of his tribe, Umber Singh (Irrfan) leaves the ghosts of his past behind and starts to rebuild his life and home. While Umber is struggling to find a sense of belonging in the new land, his wife Mehar (Tisca Chopra), who has three daughters, is worried she will deliver a fourth girl.

The daring show of how one man's misogynist nature results in ruining the lives of those close to him. This film is exemplary for all those instances of female oppression that our country has been plagued with since times immemorial.