A look at India's finest films and their grim, satirical take on politics

Has anything changed all these decades later? Clearly not

In an Odisha village surrounded by stone quarries, the headman, contesting a state election, announces a bribe of Rs 100 for each vote. An impoverished couple — their son is about to wed and they need every extra rupee — “adopts” a tuberculosis-afflicted beggar, their eyes on the money his vote will fetch. Before polling day, the old man’s condition worsens and he has to be carried through the quarries to a hospital. They lose their way and stray into a dynamite blast. The beggar is blown to pieces.