Ilisa Amagi Mahao (2008)

The Taste of a Hilsa - English

The film is based on N. Kunjamohan’s Sahitya Akademi award-winning short story by the same name. The story is based and the film shot against the backdrop of the life of Meiteis settled near the bank of the Barak in Cachar district. The storyline — a family’s struggle to earn two square meals a day — is simple. It is a treatise on the conflict between the struggle for survival and the mental mirage marginalised people live in to survive. Chaoba struggles to feed his ailing wife and three children by fishing in the Barak. After many days, Chaoba and his son Mani (played by little Ningthouja Lanjen Lancha) catch a hilsa. In their joy, they stop fishing and rush home to cook hilsa curry. The father decides that the family should celebrate the occasion by inviting his married daughter, who is in an advanced stage of pregnancy (a tradition in Meitei society), to their home. The family, however, does not get to taste the hilsa as Chaoba must sell the prize catch to but rice.