The film Sarbjit ends with a black screen, with many a line dangling in the air and many ellipses allowing them to do so. It tells us what the film’s makers declare happened to the real Sarabjit Singh and his crusading sister Dalbir Kaur, what continues to happen today, and then, with much solemnity, it ends with a three-line quotation. The critic to the left of me thought it would be Rumi, the one on my right thought it would be Tagore, while I — given the theme of suffering on both sides of the border — expected it to be some wise Pakistani wordsmith. As it happens, the quote — which I was too gobsmacked to write down, given the name that popped up under it — belongs to none of these people, and is attributed instead to Omung Kumar, this film’s director.

It is a telling thing for…