Illustration/Uday Mohite

Last week, I watched Sri Lankan filmmaker Prasanna Vithanage's brilliant film Purahanda Kaluwara (Death on a Full Moon Day) again. It is one of the great classics of contemporary world cinema. I revisited this 1997 film because of its eerie resonance with current events in India. The film is about Wannihami, a blind old man, whose son returns from Sri Lanka's civil war in a coffin, and who refuses the government compensation.