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This film by Indian director Ketan Mehta, whose socially conscious work has been compared to Spike Lee, centers around Holi, the Festival of Fire in India. A group of college boys are dissatisfied with their school's policies, including the announcement that they won't be getting the day off from classes for the holiday. The students are angered, and one of them is expelled for injuring the principal's nephew in a fight. The students gather in resistance, and as events and tension escalate, the students turn against the school and burn their furniture and textbooks in an impromptu festival of fire. Loyalties among the students are tested and broken, and tragedy becomes inevitable. The emotionally charged content of this film, tempered by the emotional distance of Mehta's directorial eye provides a rare glimpse of unrest in India.