In June 1975, Coomi Kapoor was a young reporter at the Indian Express in Delhi, when Indira Gandhi declared a state of Emergency, suspending civil liberties and sending opposition leaders to prison. In the dark days that followed, she personally experienced the full fury of the misrule her journalist husband was imprisoned on flimsy charges under the draconian MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security Act), and her brother-in-law, Jana Sangh MP Subramanian Swamy, was on the run to evade arrest, while her family faced constant threats and harassment from the security forces. Meanwhile, Indira Gandhi, her son Sanjay and his coterie unleashed a reign of terror that saw forced sterilizations, brutal beautification drives that left thousands of people homeless overnight, and students and other innocent people jailed without cause or trial, while the press was firmly muzzled under strict censorship rules.

1975年6月，库米-卡普尔是德里《印度快报》的一名年轻记者，当时英迪拉-甘地宣布进入紧急状态，暂停公民自由并将反对派领导人送入监狱。在随后的黑暗日子里，她亲身经历了错误统治的全部怒火，她的记者丈夫被以严厉的MISA（维护国内安全法）的不实指控监禁，她的姐夫，Jana Sangh议员Subramanian Swamy为躲避逮捕而逃亡，而她的家人则不断面临安全部队的威胁和骚扰。与此同时，英迪拉-甘地、她的儿子桑杰和他的小圈子发动了一场恐怖统治，强迫绝育，残酷的美化运动使成千上万的人一夜之间无家可归，学生和其他无辜的人在没有理由或审判的情况下被监禁，而新闻界在严格的审查规则下被牢牢封杀。