The land is
stricken by drought and ethnic conflict. The lake on the edge
of the jungle is almost dry and few miles away the sons of
the rural poor are dying on the front of a bitter civil
war.
As he collects water from what is left in the
lake. Wannihami, the blind old man, knows the rain will come
soon.
A few days later, on the Buddhist holiday of
the full moon. His soldier son's body is returned by the
Army in a sealed coffin. The day the rains fall is the day
Bandara is buried. Wannihami refuses to sign the papers which
will entitle the family to the Government's compensation
payment for his son's death in action.
Sunanda,
the younger daughter, silently accepts her father's decision
and finds a job in a garment factory. But her boyfriend
Somay, her elder, married sister Yamuna and the local
Government officer pressure Wannihami to sign the papers. The
customary alm-giving period of three months, After bandara's
death is fast approaching and money has to be found to pay
for the food. Somay earns a pittance as a brick maker. He too
feels, like Bandara once did. That the only way to earn a
decent living is to joined Army. The local Buddhist monk
wants to construct a memorial in the name of the valiant son
of the soil who gave his life for his country.
Faced with this pressure from people blinded by
desperate poverty, day to day hardships and empty glories of
being nothing more than canon fodder, Wannihami retains the
clarity of vision, which gives him the wisdom that reaches
far beyond what the eye can see. He pick up the mammoty to
dig up and open his son's sealed coffin by doing this he
knows he will invalidate the compensation claim, but his
greater purpose is to believe that the war cannot kill his
son. |