Sakinas Kiss by Vivek Shanbhag

A middle-class couple in Bengaluru, Venkat and Viji, find their quiet life upended - and the flaws in their marriage exposed - when two strange young men come knocking at their door one evening, claiming to have business with their daughter, Rekha. Since Rekha, a college senior, happens to be visiting relatives in the countryside, Venkat sends the boys away - but they come back the next day, and this time they're not alone.

Venkat begins to fear for his daughter's safety and is haunted by memories of similar sinister events from his own youth, events that culminated in a betrayal and disappearance he'd prefer to forget. As Venkat's guilt-ridden imagination leaps between knowing and unknowing, evasion and confrontation, Shanbhag reveals not just the tensions in a marriage or a family, but also the fissures of class, politics and threatened violence that can tear communities apart