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Synopsis As post-colonial Mayyazhi (Mahe)—where ‘history and time flowed with the water under the rusted iron bridge’—tries to come to terms with its new-found independence, young men leave to seek their fortunes abroad. And many of the older generation, orphaned by the departure of the French, struggle to eke out a living even as they remember their days of plenty under their foreign masters... Caught up in their suffering, Kumaran Vaidyar does everything he can to keep the people of his beloved Mayyazhi from starving, but entrusts his own children to the care of his beloved wife, who is no more. Meanwhile, Father Alphonse waves his magic wand and changes pebbles into candy and waits for his good-for-nothing son to return. Through all this, untroubled by the woes of the elders, Shivan, Shashi and Elsie spend an idyllic childhood in sunny, sleepy Mayyazhi. Until the day of reckoning catches up with them and they pay the price of growing up.