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Far Pavilions, The (1984)
 

Synopsis

Warning: screenonline full synopses contain 'spoilers' which give away key plot points. Don't read on if you don't want to know the ending!

Part 3: 'Wally and Anjuli'

After Anjuli's marriage to the Rana of Bhithor, Ash makes his return home to Mardan just as war breaks out over the border in Afghanistan. Cavagnari imposes a peace on the Afghan Amir and sets up a residence in Kabul. Ash implores his friend Wally not to follow Cavagnari as there is bound to be great bitterness about the settlement, but Wally leaves. Ash resigns from the Corps of Guides but as a favour agrees to go undercover in Kabul to see how bad the situation really is. The Amir refuses to pay his troops and they descend on Cavagnari's mission, demanding the wages from him instead. Ash warns him that they must pay or face an attack, but Cavagnari refuses. The Amir is weak and refuses to help and so the Mission is quickly overrun. Cavagnari is shot and Wally is killed trying to take a cannon away from the Afghans. Ash is shot and left for dead, but is only grazed.

Ash learns that the Rana is close to death and that Anjuli and her half-sister Shushila are in great danger as he plans for both his wives to be ritually burned on his funeral pyre. Ash in unable to get help from the Corps of Guides as the situation is too politically sensitive, so he resolves to head to Bhithor and rescue the sisters with the help of his adopted father Koda Dad.

When the Rana dies, Anjuli goes to comfort her sister, but is devastated to learn that Shushila has turned against her. Scared that the Rana might prefer Anjuli, she has been responsible for keeping away from court. She has decided to die on the Rana's pyre and wants to be seen as his only wife; she plans to have Anjuli watch the funeral and to then have her blinded.

At the funeral, Ash and his men take the place of Anjuli's guards, but she asks Ash to take pity on Shushila and save her the agony of a lingering death on the fire. He shoots Shushila and then escapes with Anjuli. During the escape Koda Dad is fatally wounded. He blesses Ash's union with Anjuli. They make their escape and declare their undying love for each other. They travel on horseback and reach the snow-capped mountains that they used to look at it in their youth, the peaks known as the 'Far Pavilions'.