Ek Oknar, which means one god, is about racism, hatred, love, humanity and compassion. Photo courtesy of Kavi Raz Studios

ELK GROVE, CA (MPG) – A well-known Elk Grove musician has composed the score for a Punjabi-English action film due in theaters Nov. 13. The film is based on true events.

Neil Nayyar, 21, who the Elk Grove Citizen has published stories about before, has extended his music repertoire with compositions for the movie EK Onkar.

Nayyar composed the background score and a rap song called Shadow for the movie. He wrote the lyrics for the song and arranged the song for the film, he said.  

“This is my first film I have ever got to work on in my career,” said Nayyar, who can play 140 instruments.

Nayyar was playing 44 instruments by the time he was 12 years old and 107 by the time he was 13, he said.

A visit with Jennifer Hudson and a tour of Warner Bros. studios are what inspired him to become a film composer, he said.

Ek Oknar, which means one god, is about racism, hatred, love, humanity and compassion, said actor and filmmaker Kavi Raz, by email.

The movie tells the story of “a family deeply rooted in their faith” struggling “to overcome the death of their young daughter,” Raz said. “Their son, feeling responsible for that death, struggles with his own existence and faith in God.”

The children’s parents work to guide their son back to the family’s faith and to accepting God’s will to avoid another tragedy, Raz said.

“I was drawn towards the subject of ‘Ek Onkar’ (One God) by the tragic events of the 2012 Wisconsin Sikh temple massacre of six innocent worshippers by a white supremacist,” Raz said. “In view of the current wave of racism and hatred directed towards those who don't fit the ill-conceived MAGA mold, it makes Ek Onkar relevant and timely.”

Raz faced racism and hatred growing up in a small town in England, he said.  

“Ek Onkar is an examination of that hatred,” he said.

The movie is about what hatred “does to the heart and soul of man when engulfed by such indoctrination, falling so deep into the cesspool of detestation, that it makes it impossible to climb back out,” Raz added.  

But the movie, too, is “about the oneness of humanity and that we are all created equal in God's vision,” Raz said. “At the core of this film are the beliefs and teachings of the Sikh faith that speaks of that equality in volumes.”

Raz declined to give away the ending.

“There is a moment in time and space in the film, when forces of good and evil do meet and are tested on the anvil of faith,” he said. “Throughout the film these forces keep crossing paths but never interact, until that fateful moment in the end.”