Junak Baruah wants to win the prestigious short film competition in his university. But with hundreds of participants and a stellar jury on board, winning means making a film that's never been made before.
And that means breaking the rules and taki...
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At first, everything was going fine.
Dikhou's sister Jiri and her husband Anurag were nice people. Amiable. Cheerful. Good conversationalists. Dikhou did not have a lot of things in common with his brother-in-law – he was a manager at a local firm – but Anurag really tried to engage with Dikhou about his studies or cricket. And with Jiri around to talk and talk and talk, the air around them was never uncomfortable.
Except now.
They were sitting at the dining table, enjoying a delicious fish curry that Jiri knew was Dikhou's favourite. And for the first couple of minutes, Dikhou was having a great time – Jiri asked him for updates on the people in the village and Dikhou was dutifully filling her in on all the gossip he knew.
But then Anurag said, "So you're here to record some song?" and Dikhou felt his throat constricting.
"Y-Yeah. A friend is recording a song and asked me to help with the music."
"Friend?" Jiri's face twisted into an expression of undisguised displeasure. "You mean Baruah koka's grandson?"
Dikhou gulped. "Junak, yes."
"Who's Baruah koka's grandson?" Anurag asked. "Have I met him?"
"No," Dikhou replied, while Jiri said, "He's the son of the man due to whom we lost most of our property."
Dikhou sucked in a deep breath and braced himself for what was coming.
"Wait, really?" Anurag said, with as much distaste as Jiri held and it was obvious why: no land for Jiri meant no land for him. "You're friends with him?" The accusation was crystal clear in his voice.
Dikhou squirmed in his seat. "Yes."
"Why?" Anurag asked incredulously.
Dikhou stared down at his plate, his appetite burning into flames. "He's a good guy."
Anurag's mouth fell open as he turned to his wife. Jiri shook her head and said, "Dikhou thinks everyone's a good person. It's his fatal flaw."
Dikhou gritted his teeth to bite back a reply. It was not that he thought everyone was a saint, it was that he was amiable towards everyone. He had to be, to stay out of trouble. To protect himself. To keep his secret safe. Jiri would never understand. She was her mother's daughter: bold to the point of being blindly and stupidly stubborn.
"Listen, Dikhou, I know you don't remember this because you were too young back then." Jiri had the elder sister voice on, the one that said look I'm trying to be accommodative of your views but at the end of the day I'm right. "But I remember. And trust me, it was awful to lose my father and half of our property at the same time. We lived on scraps for months!"
Dikhou was not a mindless child then. He remembered. He remembered the broken look on his mother's face, the anger in Jiri's heart and the tears in Kopili's eyes. He remembered because he was there, holding their hands through it all, even though everyone considered him too young to understand anything.
