Abstract
This paper looks at two noteworthy cinematic representations of events in Punjab in the last two decades. The films Maachis and Hawein are important in the severely limited subsection of films on Punjab. A critical reading of these films throws up many conflicted junctures of representation, political commentary, historical envisioning, and gendered narratives. Both films tend not to engage with the larger political questions and remain sequestered in microcosmic renditions of the events, which, though necessary, continue to represent Punjab, the insurgency or the riots, as isolated events of a larger national history rather than defining moments which point to the very instability of the nation.