The Coalbearer’s Home

What happens when Mani, an innocent 12-year-old lad, is uprooted from a sheltered life through an unfortunate row of accidents? He is sucked into a tornado of uncertainties that render him homeless and absurd intersections surface to web his life. He finds that the key to his life is uncontrollably grabbed by strangers: a grotesque Ram Sahay Jaiswal, his employer; KP, who claims him as his son but becomes the bane of Mani’s life; and Guru Aama, who gives him shelter but breaks him as much as she makes him. Mani’s journey is about his deep longing for a home. It is about seeking a sense of belonging that mirrors the contemporary collective sentiment of the hill people at that point in time, set in the background of the Gorkhaland agitation in the Darjeeling hills in the 1980s when it turned extremely violent. Mani’s life is a story of living through loss and yet being able to carve a meaning out of it. Whether it leads Mani to redemption, to his home - is the most emphatic question that shapes the story.