Dust and Ashes

In the fictional nation of Varnia, freshly emerged from a brutal caste-based dictatorship, the gang-rape and murder of a low-caste woman, followed by a midnight cremation ordered by local police, ignites a national firestorm. Two small-time criminals, Raju and Vikram, find themselves on the run after witnessing an act that could expose the killers. Their desperate flight across the barren, drought-ravaged borderlands becomes a harrowing road journey where the secrets they carry—not just about the crime, but about their own betrayals—poison their fragile bond. As a relentless Special Investigator closes in, the men spiral toward a fate that mirrors the self-destructive rot of a society struggling to digest the toxins of its old order.