For three criminal clans in India’s coal country, life is defined by family and their vendettas. The two are not mutually exclusive in Anurag Kashyap’s epic “Gangs of Wasseypur.”
The family tradition began with Shahid Khan, who robbed British trains while masquerading as an infamous Muslim dacoit Sultana. Expelled by the real Sultana’s clan, Khan toils in the Dhanbad coal mines, working for the ruthless Ramadhir Singh as his chief muscleman. Mindful of Khan’s ambitions to replace him, Singh murders Khan and would have killed Khan’s young son Sardar too, if he weren’t rescued in the nick of time.
As a boy, Sardar Khan swears vengeance against Singh. Then as a man and budding crime lord, he is in a position to take it. However, Singh is shrewd enough to call a temporary truce, while forging a secret alliance with the heir to his father’s old nemesis, Sultan Qureshi. Distracted by the demands of an increasingly complicated family, consisting of five sons from two wives (and no divorce), Khan effectively defers his vengeance to the next generation.
