Director: Girish G.
Summary: Time is an illusion said Einstein, well what if we could manipulate that illusion. The story opens by contextualizing the audience with the creation of a motif that goes on to play a pivotal role in the story. This is achieved through an old lady narrating a tale to her granddaughter. The narrative of the tale being that a vendor from Satya Yuga (reference to Hindu mythology) manages to persuade Brahma (the four headed god, ascribed to the creation of the world) to create a time turner, so as to correct a wrongdoing of his past. Brahma obliges, and creates a time turner in the form of a conch shell. Having successfully corrected his past mistake, the vendor returns to Brahmaloka, to express his gratitude to Brahma in person. That is when Brahma educates him about the difference in the passage of time between earth and Brahmaloka, i.e., One day Brahmaloka is equivalent to the passage of all the four yugas (namely Satya Yuga, Tretha Yuga, Dvapara Yuga and Kali Yuga) on earth. Having realized this and remembering the horrendous mistake of leaving the conch shell (time turner) on earth, he rushes back with lightning speed in a quest to find it, but with no luck, returns empty handed. It is at this point that the old lady ends the tale. The main story then meanders into a village setting, highlighting a group of four young men- Ranga, Suri, Daya and Pandya, each unlike the other, yet glued together by their shared love for kabaddi and swimming. "All that happens, happens for the good" is one idiom that holds good for what follows next. Swimming at the dam before committing to a heavy practice session of kabaddi was something that the four lads followed ritualistically, however, this time around, their plans get tweaked, for they receive information that there happens to be a crack at the dam, making it unsafe for swimming, which thereby compels them to take a dip at the nearby well. Call it an act of deliberation or call it an act of fate because, it so happens that the conch shell (time turner) finds its way into the hands of Ranga, the grandson of the little girl who was listening that old lady's tale. No sooner does he find it, than Pandya dives from an astronomical height and drowns. Panic sets in. With a dead friend, a tournament to win and strange looking conch shell, the story revolves around the lives and deaths of these four gentlemen and the time turner. It should come as no surprise to us that as the story progresses, Ranga figures out the working of that time turner compelled by his circumstances and curiosity. However, the flip side to turning time unravels itself throughout the course of the story in interestingly morbid ways. With every usage of the time turner, the stakes of risk keep getting higher, and the death of a person becomes inevitable. After numerous trials of turning time in an attempt to keep his companions and fellow villagers alive, Ranga evokes the innate human tendencies of greed and dissatisfaction, by choosing to turn time yet again. This time around, instead of yielding the result that he had expected, it takes him to a landscape of a ginormous tree on the banks of a lake filled with lotus flowers, inhabited by a young boy with four heads holding a lotus flower in his hand. The very landscape and scenario that he had been dreaming of for all these days. If anything, it wasn't a mere act of coincidence. Afterall, as Freud would put it, dreams are pathways to our unconscious. What follows next, is up to the interpretation and amusement of the audience. Afterall, bending time comes with its repercussions, right?!
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