Maachis

Maachis Matches is a 1996 Indian Hindi film directed by Gulzar and produced by R. V. Pandit. The film stars Om Puri, Tabu, Chandrachur Singh and Jimmy Shergill in the lead roles. The title of the film is used as a metaphor that conveys that the youth of any nation are matchsticks that could get ignited due to the deficiencies in the political and policing systems. The film portrays the circumstances surrounding the rise of the Sikh insurgency in Punjab in the 1980s and traces the transformation of a youth from a boy next door to a dreaded terrorist bent on wreaking vengeance.

The film is set in midtolate 1980s in the Indian state of Punjab which had been wrecked by a violent insurgency in the aftermath of Operation Blue Star, the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and the subsequent 1984 AntiSikh riots. The story is relayed by a series of flashbacks.Jaswant Singh Randhawa Raj Zutshi and his sister Veerendar Veeran Tabu live with their elderly mother Biji in a small village in Punjab. Kripal Singh Chandrachur Singh is Jaswants childhood friend and Veerans fiance and lives close by, with his grandfather. Their peaceful lives are interrupted by the police led by Assistant Commissioner of Police Khurana and Inspector Vohra, searching for JimmyJimmy Shergill, who allegedly had attempted to murder Kedar Nath, a member of the Indian Parliament. Jaswant mockingly leads the police to his dog who was named Jimmy. Angered by his insolence, Khurana and Vohra take Jaswant for questioning but he fails to return for days. Kripal struggles to locate Jaswant, visiting various police stations in the area, while taking care of Jaswants family. When Jaswant finally returns afterdays, he has been badly beaten up by police which enrages Kripal. Unable to obtain help by any legal means to fight police brutality, Kripal sets off to locate his cousin Jeetay, who had ties with militant groups. Unable to locate Jeetay, Kripal instead encounters a man named Sanathan Om Puri, whom he observes planting a timebomb on a bus. Running into him again at a dhabha, Kripal asks a wary Sanathan to listen to his woes. Sanathan agrees to let Kripal travel with him on his truck being driven by the Commander Kulbhushan Kharbanda and carrying sacks of homemade bombs and two militants. Upon arriving at their hideout, Kripal explains his predicament and finds out that Jeetay was killed by the Commander himself for being a police informer. Fully aware of Kripals background, family and his predicament, the Commander rebukes Kripal for coming to them as if they were pr

Source: Wikipedia