Sufiyum Sujatayum 2020

Sujatha Aditi Rao Hydari is a mute, single daughter of Mallikarjunan Siddique and Kamala Kalaranjini, a Hindu family, and she is also a talented Kathak dancer whose movements tell stories as clearly as words could. One day Sujatha meets Sufi Dev Mohan on a bus. Sufi is a whirling dervish and a Muslim scholar who returns after an expedition to meet his Ustad, carrying a quiet depth that draws Sujatha toward him. There, he loses his misbaha (prayer beads), which Sujatha returns to him with careful, respectful hands, and this small act seeds something larger between them. Later, Sufi gifts his misbaha to Sujatha, a cherished memento that had been a gift from his mother, and the gesture binds their hearts in a shared sense of fate and faith.

Soon after, they fall in love and decide to elope, driven by a hope that their bond could transcend circumstance. Yet pressure mounts when Sujatha’s father threatens to end his life if she follows through, and she chooses to stay behind to protect him. Ten years pass, and Sujatha is now married to a NRI doctor named V. R. Rajeev in Dubai, with a daughter of their own, and she begins to fear that the once-bright flame of their romance has dimmed in the distance.

Sufi returns to the village after a decade, where Ustad is no longer alive. He visits his grave at the mosque cemetery, and an Imam invites him inside, inviting him to reconnect with the community after years apart. Sufi then leads the call to prayer, gathering people with a voice that seems to reach the soul, only to die during that very prayer, a moment that shakes the village and leaves Sujatha devastated by the loss. Rajeev, who loves Sujatha deeply, decides to bring her back to the village to attend Sufi’s burial, hoping that a final farewell might help her find closure. They reach the funeral only after the burial has begun, and Rajeev observes the solemnity from the edge, as females aren’t typically allowed inside.

That evening, Rajeev discovers his passport is missing. After a long search, he suspects it may have fallen from his pocket into Sufi’s grave. Mallikarjunan and Kumaran—their tenant, Kumaran Manikandan Pattambi—join in the effort to unearth the grave, but the three men clash and bicker when the passport cannot be found. In the midst of the tension, Sujatha arrives with the passport, having hidden it so she could return the misbaha after the grave was unearthed. With the passport found and the truth acknowledged, they prepare to catch a flight back to Dubai, and Sujatha rests her head on Rajeev’s shoulder as they move toward a hopeful, if complex, future together.