Are arranged marriages good or bad? Unarranged, a short film by Rahul Bhatnagar, wades through murky waters in search of a heartwarming side. The 20-minute long short film by Rahul Bhatnagar zooms in on a bride-to-be (Tanya Singh), who sits and fumes in a room as she waits for the baraat to arrive. She doesn’t want to get married to a groom she has never even met.

Turns out she isn’t the only one in a strange state of mind. A knock on the door brings the groom-to-be (Syed Shabahat Ali) to her, in an unexpected first meeting. As the “modern” girl is confronted with this “conservative” boy, and they run away to a dhaba for chai pe charcha, more unexpected things happen.

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Bhatnagar, who also wrote the script and edited the film, told Scroll.in: “It’s a different take on an old ritual that we have lost, or rather, are losing. We wanted to put this old ritual in today’s modern world, and portray a positive side to the tradition, which people tend to miss these days.”

The filmmaker believes that the younger generation is anxious and fearful of the idea of marriage today, especially an arranged marriage. “Earlier, arranged marriages were the norm, but they’ve become very limited now in metropolitan areas,” he said. “Log bhaagte hain us cheez se (People run away from the idea of arranged marriage). They just want to go from one relationship to another, rather than take that step...That was the basic premise of the film.”