The film is based on a true story. It has come at a time when voices are being raised on both sides of the border against the detention of innocent visitors from Pakistan to India.

Not many films have been made on this theme before; J P Dutta's Refugee is perhaps the only other movie dealing with the issue in recent times.

Archand (8), an innocent, illiterate Dalit boy from Nagarparkar in the Thar district of Sind hardly knew anything about the existence of a border between India and Pakistan. For more than three years, he languished in the Joint Interrogation Centre, the only of its kind in Gujarat. Shankar, the boy's father, inadvertently strayed into the Indian side of the International Border (IB) at Rann in search of his missing son. And Champa, the boy's mother, had no clue about the sudden disappearance of her husband and son until they resurfaced in Pakistan following their release three years later.

When Mehreen Jabbar, a young Pakistani director heard about this from well-known teleplay writer Javed Jabbar, who had worked as a volunteer in the drought-prone Nagarparkar area, she decided to make a film on it. The two met the father-son duo and Javed wrote a story on it, which was later converted into a screenplay by popular Pakistani teleplay writer Mohammed Ahmed.

Naseeruddin Shah makes a guest appearance by playing a learned maulvi while Nandita Das plays Champa, a Pakistani Hindu woman and the mother of Ramchand.

Archand (Ramchand in the film) and his father were caught in June 2002 by the Border Security Force and later handed over to the Kutch police to be lodged in the JIC that is meant only for hardcore terrorists and foreigners who are caught while crossing the country's border illegally.

Archand's father Jaimal said that his son wanted some more tea, but when his mother refused, he left home. After a while, when he did not return, Jaimal went out in his search and was caught by the BSF.

Deepak Mankad, a local journalist with a prominent vernacular daily here, who managed to talk to both the father and son in the high security JIC in August 2005, said that they had already completed three years without knowing their offence. Archand even pleaded for help in going back home where his sister Manju and brother Hariya were waiting for him.