The film is an elegy to a forest that stands witness to the decay, death and disappearance of a civilization in a mining town in Central India.
The film is in search of Kete, a village that is no longer on the map. People recall memories of trees, lakes and gods that they no longer find around them. The children from this missing village weave fairy tales around the forest that they remember fondly; widows embody a profound silence as they go on about their everyday tasks; men see dystopian visions of the future. Through the film, people of this village reunite to remember their ancestors. The film spans through the long stretches of wise trees, almost a civilisation old. Large Infrastructure replaces tall trees and appear as alien objects in a barren landscape. The film captures the macabre extraction of coal which lies deep beneath, by showing what remains after brutal felling of 162 hectares of forest cover. The sound of the chainsaw and hard rock blasting is interspersed with ritual sounds, lullabies, wails and songs of the inhabitants. It searches through the ruins found from another civilisation appearing as a surreal metaphor for what is at stake now. The film draws from the spirit of resistance and faith of the people who stand as a strong voice against this enforced modernity and ‘development’.