Bollywood actress Taapsee Pannu’s Gandhari follows Bani, a mother searching for her five-year-old daughter Mishty after she is kidnapped from a train at Joypurra railway station. Her search soon takes her towards Blackhole, a child-trafficking network operating across the town. As Bani digs deeper, she discovers that the kidnapping is connected to people she once trusted.
The film, directed by Devashish Makhija and written by Kanika Dhillon, gradually turns Bani’s personal search into a fight against the wider trafficking operation.
Who kidnapped Mishty?
Mishty is taken by members of the Blackhole network. Bani initially believes that finding the gang and locating the hidden tunnels around Joypurra will lead her directly to her daughter. However, the investigation reveals that Blackhole has people working for it at different levels, making it difficult for the authorities to identify how the kidnapped girls are being moved out of town. Bani eventually discovers that the gang is preparing to move the girls during the Chaumukhi Puja. Her search also takes a personal turn when she learns that her own past is tied to the trafficking network.
What happened to Bani’s past?
One of the film’s major revelations comes when Uma Didi tells Bani that Jhunu Amba’s brother had sold Bani to the Blackhole when she was young. Bani had always regarded Jhunu Amba as a mother figure, making the revelation particularly painful. She also learns that Gokul was the person who had rescued her from the trafficking network and helped her build a new life. But the story does not end there.
When Jhunu Amba’s granddaughter is kidnapped, she makes a desperate deal with the traffickers. She gives them Bani’s location in exchange for her granddaughter’s safety. Jhunu Amba claims that she did not know the gang would target Mishty. Her decision nevertheless puts Bani’s daughter in danger.
Who is Dada Bhai?
Dada Bhai is the man at the top of the Blackhole operation. The film presents him as the central figure controlling the trafficking network and the movement of the kidnapped girls. Bani eventually reaches him at the docks, where the traffickers are preparing to move the girls. Dada Bhai knows that Mishty is Bani’s greatest weakness and uses her as leverage. Instead of backing down, Bani confronts him.
Does Bani save Mishty?
Yes! At the climax, Bani finally gets a chance to meet Dada Bhai. He intimidates Mishty and expects Bani to give up, but she retaliates. She kills Dada Bhai and rescues Mishty along with all the other kidnapped girls at the end of the Blackhole mission.
What is the fate of the other characters?
Jhunu Amba ends up dead following a fight with Uma Didi. She becomes yet another reason for making the complicated relationship of Bani with the woman she thought was her family even more complicated. Gokul survives the confrontation but is left facing the consequences of his connection with the Blackhole. His decision to prioritise Mishty over the other girls becomes one of the film’s central moral conflicts.
Bani, meanwhile, emerges from the ordeal having rescued not just her daughter but several other children.
What does the Gandhari ending mean?
The ending moves Bani’s story beyond a conventional revenge or rescue thriller. At the beginning, her fight is deeply personal: she wants her daughter back. But as she uncovers the trafficking network, she realises that saving Mishty alone would not be enough.
That is why she rejects Gokul’s deal. She refuses to accept that one child’s safety should come at the cost of another child’s life. The title Gandhari also ties into the film’s recurring ideas around sight, blindness and the things people choose not to see. Bani’s journey is not simply about physically finding Mishty; it is about seeing the larger system that allowed children to disappear in the first place.
By the end, Bani gets her daughter back, but the film frames her victory as something larger: she breaks the immediate hold of Blackhole and prevents the other girls from being trafficked out of Joypurra.
Also Read:
Gandhari Review: Taapsee Pannu, Ishwak Singh’s film loses its way in the rush to thrill
