The Ink-Stained Hand and the Missing Thumb

In a small village in the mountains of Uttarakhand, a daughter is lured by the possibilities of city life, while her mother is haunted by the prospect of their land’s desolation.

In the high Himalayas, the village of Lohari is submerged below the waters of a hydroelectric dam. The last member of the Jaunsari tribe, living in the remnants of his flooded village, recalls a time when the land was pulsating with magic.

Amid Himalayan bugyals, a turbaned herder’s call guides cattle and memory. This film follows the Van Gujjars—Muslim vegetarian nomads migrating between plains and hills—through sound, ritual, and resilience. As forest laws threaten their movement, an ancient symbiosis with nature endures, speaking a quiet language of coexistence against modern boundaries and preserving identity through seasons of loss, song, fire, and migration.

Marriage begins to spool the fates of two sisters as their family begins to arrange for one. Lost in her kaleidoscopic imagination, the younger sister comes to believe that she is being married. On the other hand, the elder sister, the one being married, knows what this marriage is— a remedy for crossing the lines drawn by society and concocted by the fear of social boycott. From the hills of Uttarakhand comes this story of two sisters' destiny tied to their society, a sliver of the ensuing saga of a people torn by prejudice disguised as tradition.