FILMS OF THE SPIRIT

Curator: Rajiv Mehrotra

 

Trishagni (The Sand Storm/Hindi)

(102 min; 1988; dvd; English subtitles)

Director: Nabendu Ghosh

 

With Nana Patekar, Pallavi Joshi, Alok Nath, Nitish Bhardwaj

 

Recipient of the Best First Film of a Director, National Film Awards 1988

 

Based on a historical short story, Moru o Sangho written by Saradundu Bandopadhyay, and inspired by Buddha’s Fire Sermon. The film is set in the Buddhist town of Sariput in the deserts of Central Asia, around 200 B.C., when the town is struck by a devastating sandstorm that leaves behind only four survivors: two monks, and two children taking refuge in the monastery. Twenty years later, the monks have aged, while the boy and the girl have grown and fall in love. The jealous monk deceitfully persuades the boy to become a monk, but the girl wins him back. As a result both are expelled from the monastery, and that is when the sandstorm strikes once again

 

(Collaboration: Foundation for Universal Responsibility of H.H. the Dalai Lama; and National Film Archive of India, Pune)