Best of Indian Parallel cinema

In the hope of earning enough money to pay off his debts and save his land, a poor farmer becomes a rickshaw puller in Calcutta and faces many difficulties.

Sanjay is on a pilgrimage journey to Varanasi and remembers his life in flashbacks.

Anirudh Parmar is blind, but he does not let this impairment bind him down. He runs a school for the blind as a Principal. He meets with social worker, Kavita. Kavita is attracted to him, and he slowly also gets attracted to her. When marriage is proposed, both agree to marry each other. Then Anirudh starts having doubts whether this marriage is going to succeed, as he feels he is being patronized, and pittied.

Belonging to a lower caste, Lakshmi and her deaf-mute husband Kishtayya serve the landlord's son, Surya. When Surya's young wife finds out about his affair with Lakshmi, they all find themselves at crossroads.

Young Krishna struggles to survive among the drug dealers, pimps, and prostitutes in the back alleys and gutters of India.

Film is Based on Duvidha by Vijayadan Detha, it's about merchant's son, whose relationship with his young bride, Lachhi is thwarted by his work and a ghost who falls in love with her, resulting in the ghost soon impersonating the husband.

After years of painstaking research at the cost of his domestic pleasure, Dr. Dipankar Roy discovers a vaccine for leprosy. The news is flashed over television and overnight, an insignificant junior doctor receives international recognition. Professional jealousy and abuse of power threaten Dr. Roy, even as the Secretary of Health reprimands him for breaking the news to the press. He is asked to report to the Director of Health. Professional colleagues Dr. Arijit Sen and Dr. Ramananda invite him to a lecture but it is merely a pretence to humiliate him. Dr. Roy suffers a mild heart attack but he refuses to go to the hospital. His wife and few others like Dr. Kundu stand by Dr. Roy, but the harassment continues; a letter from an American foundation is suppressed and Dr. Roy transferred to a remote village. The last straw is two American doctors receiving credit for discovering the same vaccine. Dr. Roy is shattered.

Arvind Desai is the only son of a rich businessman who deals in luxury handicraft products. His feelings for his father are mixed. While he hates his dominating nature, he admires his power and lack of scruples.

In a small village in Rajasthan, India, a woman named Shanichari was born - so named, as shortly after her birth her father died; & her mother, Peewli, ran away with a rich lover, the owner of a drama company, abandoning her. When Shanichari grew up she was married to a male named Ganju who lived with his ailing mother. Shanichari gave birth to a boy and named him Budhwa. The local Landlord, Ram Avtar's son, Lakhsman Singh, would like Shanichari to live with him as his mistress, but she must first abandon her husband and son, which she is unable to do. Her ailing mother-in-law passes away - Shanicharni is unable to weep; Years later, Ganju gets killed after consuming holy water from a temple - Shanichari is unable to weep; When Budhwa get's married to a local prostitute, Mungri, who becomes pregnant, and then subsequently aborts the child - Shanichari is unable to weep; When Budhwa runs away from home, never to be seen again - Shanichari is unable to weep. Then a woman named Bhikni enters her life - she is called Rudaali - one who accepts money in turn for loud laments, weeping, & beating of the chest when a rich man passes away for a small fee, some milk, oil, and flour. Bhikni would like Shanichari to also be a Rudaali, but Shanichari eyes are always dry. When Bhikni is called for a day in another town, it is then Shanichari receives word that Ram Avtar is no more and she is called to be a Rudaali. Knowing fully well that she cannot shed tears, Shanichari does attend the funeral - and it is here that she will receive the news that may bring real tears to her eyes.

On a lazy afternoon, a man shares his memories of a storyteller friend who once narrated a convoluted love story with intertwined plots. As these plots unravel, reality mixes with fiction.

An unemployed Muslim youth aspires to become a big-shot criminal but mends his ways with the help of his educated brother-in-law.

Close to the holy River Ganga, an ancient tree provides shelter and comfort to Uma, a mute, orphan, Brahmin girl. Treated like a drudge by her cruel aunt, Uma is also cursed by a horoscope that portends widowhood. This might not be such a bad thing as this is 1828 and it will be next year before the British outlaw the religiously enforced burning of widows on their husbands' funeral pyres ("sati/suttee"). However, the priest thinks it a sin that a girl over the age of puberty is not married and tradition has it that a younger member of the family cannot marry before an older one. A solution is found: Uma is married to the tree. When she becomes pregnant (the victim of an assault by the local schoolteacher) not even the superstitious villagers believe that the tree is the father and Uma is ostracised for having been unfaithful to her "husband". Sent to live in the cowshed, Uma is forced to shelter in her tree when the cowshed is blown away during a violent storm. Lightning blasts the tree and in the morning Uma is found dead amongst the shattered branches and stumps. To the wonderment and consternation of all the onlookers, this most despised member of society has blood on her forehead resembling the vermillion that a groom puts on his bride whilst the manner of her death resembles that of an exulted sati.

Shibnath is released from prison after eleven years of incarceration for murdering a British officer.

In colonial India, subedars (tax collectors) went from village to village with soldiers, often demanding more than taxes. A subedar commands Sonbai, a beautiful and confident woman whose husband is away in the city, to sleep with him. She slaps him and flees for safety to a spice factory where women grind chillies into fine powder. The aged factory guard, Abu Mian, locks the door behind her, refusing to open it to the soldiers, to the cowardly village men led by the mayor, and to the subedar himself. The town's teacher, who follows Gandhi, and a few women, led by the mayor's wife, protest ineffectually against this village-approved rape. The stage is set for a final confrontation.

Maniram lives in a town and is a crooked businessman. The elder son is jailed for counterfeit currency. The younger son is a mad simpleton and married, but his wife loves another guy. She goes in business with land wrestled from Maniram.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was invited to South Africa in 1893 to settle a case for a wealthy Indian settled there. He expected to return in a few months but instead got involved in the freedom movement and eventually stayed for 21 years.

A political activist escapes the prison van and is sheltered in a posh apartment owned by a sensitive young woman.

A carefully constructed nonsense about a teenage boy named Om in a small Indian village.

A man whose wife is abducted seeks to have the culprits prosecuted for their crime, but no one will help him. Meanwhile, the wife-abused and berated by her abductors-cannot bring herself to face her husband.

A retired professor suddenly goes missing. Time passes by, life goes on, but his children and wife keep on looking back, trying to find their way through emotional torrents of the past and the present.

In order to improve their lifestyle, Lucknow based Ghulam Hussain decides to re-locate to Bombay, leaving his ailing mother and wife, Khairun, behind. He arrives in Bombay, and looks up his close friend, Lalulal Tiwari, who gets him a job cleaning taxis. Ghulam subsequently learns how to drive, and is hired to drive a taxi. Despite of his best efforts he is unable to save enough money to visit Lucknow. Lalulal has problems of his own, despite of being settled in Bombay for several years; having a sweetheart, Yashodra, he is unable to even rent a decent apartment, and lives in a shanty tenement, which is slated to be demolished by the Bombay Municipal Corporation. Will Lalulal and Ghulam be able to improve their lives or will they be caught up in just surviving on a day to day basis?

The delicate relationship between a 15-year-old girl and her grandfather is used to describe how the growing political tensions between Muslems and Hindus in 1992 led to the destruction of a medieval Muslim mosque and subsequently, violent rioting in the streets of Bombay. Naseem (urdu: sahar) means Morning breeze, and charts the story of a young school going girl Naseem in the months leading up to the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992. She shares deep and loving bond with his ill grandfather who represents the era of communal harmony between Hindus and Muslims in India, as he fondly recalls the times he spent in pre-Independent Agra. As communal tension erupts in the city of Bombay, Naseem get increasingly bewildered by changing dynamics at her school and in the neighborhood, while her grandfather watches helplessly at a city getting deeply divided over the Babri Masjid issue.

A woman's relentless struggle being married into an isolated village.

A girl learns music from her courtesan grandmother and breaks into the burgeoning show business industry of 1930s Bombay, which eventually leads to decades of superstardom as well as romantic entanglements.

13 year old Riyaz lives a poor lifestyle in Bombay, India, with his grandmother, Fayyuzi, and her sister, Mehmooda alias Mammo. Quite outspoken and embittered over his dad abandoning him, Riyaz does not have many friends, save for Rohan. When Mammo plans a surprise birthday party for him, Riyaz is offended as he believes his friends will make fun of him as his lifestyle is not as good as their's. Fayyuzi and Riyaz have an argument with Mammo, and she leaves for the Mosque at Haji Ali, but returns when both apologize to her. Although Mammo was born in Panipat during the British Raj, she was one of thousands of Muslims who left for Pakistan. She was married over there, could not conceive, was branded a "barren woman", and asked to leave. Having nowhere else to go, she came to live with her widowed sister in Bombay on a temporary Visa. Every month she would walk to the nearest Police Station and get an extension. She finally paid a Rs.4800/ as a bribe in order to get a permanent visa through Inspector Apte. When Apte was transferred, a new Police Inspector took over, processed her papers, held her to be an illegal immigrant, arrested her, had her escorted to the Bombay Central Railway Station, board the Frontier Mail, which would return her to Pakistan. Riyaz and Fayyuzi make every possible attempt to trace and bring her back, which was all in vain. Now 20 years later, Riyaz has grown up and has written a book about his Mammo, hoping that someday, somewhere she will find it and they will be reunited again.