Sand Dune and a Lullaby

Glimpses of lives from a village in Assam reveal the relationship between its history and the present. People’s lives and beliefs are entangled with ecological strings , as nature stands witness to the narratives that unfolded there. A young boy, Rahul, hopes to write a book on his experience of growing up in this village. His mother, being deeply connected with nature can sense messages and signs arising from nature.. Urmila, a pregnant lady, is driven by sensorial experiences. But, In contrast to the serenity and harmonious living; there lurks a violent societal past.These peaceful and quiet lives intersect in a space where traumatic memories of death and loss in Assam’s thirty years of secessionist movement keep resurfacing.

An elderly couple lives a mundane life in a remote village in Assam.An atmosphere of absence pervades their household. One morning, a young boy comes to sell winter clothes and talks about his home which is three states away. A pleasant breeze signals the subtle change of season and hints towards a solitary time packed with memories of youth.

The Film-maker’s childhood friend dons a borrowed uniform and poses as an ULFA rebel. Another friend opens an old diary. Some other friends rehearse a play from the film-maker’s childhood days. A poem by an ULFA rebel is recited. The film embarks on a journey to revive the memory of growing up in Assam in the 1990s – a turbulent time when the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) was heading an armed rebellion for independence from India. Violence, death, and disappearance dominate the stories from the film-maker’s childhood. The film recollects and reconstructs fragments of those memories through personal narratives of the film-maker’s friends, parents, and relatives.