An inspector for the physical education department in the Delhi school system, Ram Karan supports his widowed daughter, Anita and eight-year-old granddaughter, Asha, by collecting bribes for a Congress party boss. On the eve of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, one reckless act bares the lifetime of violence and sexual shame behind his dingy public career and traps him in a farcical, but terrifying, political campaign. An astonishing character study, a portrait of a family and a country tormented by the past, An Obedient Father recalls Dostoevsky’s guilt-ridden anti-heroes. Corrosive, funny, and frightening, this is a stunning delight.