In writer-director Aparna Sen's award winning film "Mr. and Mrs. Iyer", a Muslim man and a Brahmin woman get to know each other on a fateful cross-country bus trip to Calcutta. Introduced my mutual friends, photographer Raja Chowdhary (Rahul Bose) promises to look after Meenakshi Iyer (Konkona Sensharma) and her infant son.

Filled with singing teenagers, doddering old people, card-playing drunkards, freshly-married love birds and a crying baby, the bus suggests a mini-India. Just when noise and claustrophobia threaten to overwhelm the film, the ship-of-fools scenario is tipped by unforeseen violence: extremist Hindus are on a rampage looking for Muslim blood to avenge the burning of a village. There's a curfew, and the bus can't go on.

"Mr. and Mrs. Iyer" isn't your regular Bollywood fare--there is humor but no songs, and the seriousness of the subject matter always intrudes. In one of the film's most haunting scenes, Raja finds the dentures of an old man who had been dragged from the bus in a riverbed where others brush their teeth.

Violence erupts occasionally but stays on the edges of the picture, with references to hotspots like Northern Ireland and Israel-Palestine to drive its point home. But the menace can't obstruct the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Iyer is, at heart, a love story. The backdrop of strife and unrest allows the guarded affection between Raja and Meenakshi to grow. (The raffish good looks of leading man Rahul Bose, the traditional beauty of Konokon Sensharma, and the lush exotic countryside also don't hurt.) As their journey progresses, the two grow closer and closer, but nothing can change the fact that Mrs. Iyer's real husband is waiting for her at the end of the line.

Shorter than the three hour song-and-dance marathons Indian cinema is known for, "Mr and Mrs. Iyer" is still not without its long patches and at times, the filmmaking lacks sophistication. But given that we live in an age of hyper-glossy American product, a few rough edges are not necessarily a bad thing. "Mr. and Mrs. Iyers" convinces as a vibrant and pleasing portrait of thinking globally and suffering heartbreak locally. Its political perspective doesn't penetrate any deeper than "why can't we all get along?" but perhaps that simple question is worth repeating ever so often.