Two years have passed and the once-unbreakable bond between best friends Katie, Trudi, Jessica and Siobhan has been shattered. As the girls gather it's clear their relationship has changed dramatically: there's tension in the room and no happy greetings. What could have happened to bring them to this?Six months earlier, Katie returned from Australia after her relationship with Dan failed. Her life isn't back on track; she's lonely but pretending she's fine. When her widowed mum Vivienne turns up on her doorstep after travelling abroad she's less than thrilled. The pair have a frosty relationship and Vivienne's interfering doesn't make things easy. Vivienne sees Katie embarking on another potentially explosive and destructive relationship, but Katie refuses to listen to her mother.Trudi's cake-making business has grown and it's taken over her life. Richard is now a stay-at-home dad, and with three teenage girls to keep in line it's a tough job. Their relationship is struggling under Trudi's increasing workload so an offer from investor Chris Webb to buy the business is more than welcomed by Richard. However Trudi won't consider giving it up, causing Richard to confide in someone who could destroy everything.Jessica is desperate to have a baby. A miscarriage 18 months ago and no luck since has made her realise what she really wants from life: a family. With Mark still recovering from bankruptcy, IVF looks unlikely until he seeks a loan from a secret source.Siobhan is a happily single mum enjoying the quiet life with her daughter Elsa, but when Elsa's father Dominic visits from America it's not just his daughter who's thrilled to see him. There is a huge shock in store for her that will change her plans entirely.
This TV miniseries ("Darkness" in English) became famous in India in the mid/late 80s for its realistic depiction of the partition of the Indian subcontinent. In 1947, the sub continent became India, East (now Bangladesh) and West Pakistan (today's Pakistan). The series pretended to keep memories and truths about the partition alive, at a time when many Indians and Pakistanis seemed to be forgetting this historical tragedy. The miniseries became a landmark 297 minute, 35mm film, now shown mostly at Indian Film Festivals. The film is based on the book by Brisham Sahni, himself a refugee to India from West Punjab, now in Pakistan. Thus fittingly, this epic looks at Partition from an Indian Punjabi perspective, as the fate of Sikh and Hindu families in West Punjab is emphasized. The first part also underscores the Muslim viewpoint: the provocations they suffered from Sikhs and especially Hindus, and their ultimate supremacy in the West Punjab, which became the heart of Pakistan. The "Darkness" of those times of religious intolerance and civil war highlights two stories of refugee families, one Sikh and the other Hindu. These victims of hate and their Muslim counterparts had, until 1947, been brothers and co-existed for over a thousand years throughout the Indian subcontinent. With "modern freedom", the lands of this once "one people" was partitioned into Muslim, and Hindu republics. Non-Muslim religious groups, however (Sikhs, Christians, and many Muslims - as many as in all in Pakistan), migrated to the new India. Pakistan became, "de facto", exclusively Muslim.
