Shikara is a 2020 Indian Hindi-language romantic drama film produced and directed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra.

[4][5][6][7] The movie starts with an aged Shiv writing a letter to the President of the United States explaining to him the situation of Kashmiri Pandits who are living like refugees in their own country.

Soon they get married in a traditional Kashmiri Pandit ritual wedding and Lateef falls for Shanti's best friend Arti (who's also a medical student).

Their first marriage anniversary arrives and Shiv's cousin, Naveen, a doctor gifts him a typewriter to write his thesis on it.

However their happiness was short lived as Lateef's father, a politician who is out for a rally is fatally injured and gets admitted at Naveen's clinic.

It is stated that the police attacked him on the behest of the current central government (though nowhere in the movie any evidence of this situation is presented).

She even witnesses a shootout that kills 6 police officers trying to stop young men from boarding these buses to militancy.

Shiv is kidnapped by a few of his missing students and taken to meet Lateef who is now leading a group of militants against the Kashmiri Pandits.

It is at this moment Shiv starts writing letters to the POTUS (George H. W. Bush at the time) by the typewriter gifted by Naveen to tell them about refugees miserable condition.

Soon he gets a call to sell his house "Shikara" at a hefty cost to the local Kashmiri Muslims to which he denies remembering Lateef's father and Naveen's deaths and he accidentally finds Naveen's coat being worn by one of the brokers which Naveen promises to gift him after he completes his Ph.D. Over the years the Dhar family gets habituated to live in refugee quarters with Shiv continuing to teach local refugee students and writing letters to POTUS (now Barack Obama) while Shanti starts showing signs of having PTSD due to that horrible night prior to their forced exodus.

One night, Shiv and Shanti are called upon by the Indian Army to meet with a now captured terrorist Lateef in Kashmir Valley.

It is then that Shiv reveals to Shanti that it was him who booked the hotel and the postman got confused by the term "presidential suite" assuming that the president had invited them over.

In March 2018, it was reported that a film was shot under the title "Love and Letters" in Kashmir by Vidhu Vinod Chopra.

Shots in Kashmir included several places such as the Lalit Hotel in Srinagar, on shikaras in the middle of a lake, on the backwaters of the Dal, in a desolate Hindu house, near Hazratbal and many more.

[10] The film received mixed reviews from critics with few praising how bravely the true history was delivered without any unnecessary propaganda involved.

The Times of India gave the movie 3 out of 5 stars, and called it largely a one-sided story which does cater to the cinematic appeal of certain movie-goers.

[12] The Hindu gives a more critical review, saying that "Chopra buries politics under the garb of ‘love and hope’" and ends up making the movie simplistic.

The film's songs are composed by Sandesh Shandilya, Abhay Sopori and Rohit Kulkarni with lyrics written by Irshad Kamil, Bashir Arif and Raqueeb Alam.