Memories of Gloomy Monsoons

Fazlu brings his new bride, Putul, home, but she struggles with loneliness. To combat this, he brings in a cow as a companion for her. However, the family's happiness is short-lived as the region's drought caused by the Teesta River's damming affects their livelihood as farmers. The river's unpredictable behavior leaves them at the mercy of floods and misery, making it impossible for the family to find contentment.

The film Saatao (Memories of Gloomy Monsoons) attempts to portray the lives of marginalized people. I have spent hours of my childhood on the bank of the Teesta River, where I was born. My life circled around that river from my early years to my youth. During my adolescence, the river was the companion of my thoughts, worries, and concerns. Naturally, I have witnessed the river and the lives surrounding it very closely. I have also noticed an influence of music in all their activities. They express and process concepts such as life, death, feelings, emotions, and experiences through music and spend their leisure walking in their garden of melodies. Often their songs are about advice, commands, love, heartbreak, or reminiscing past events. Presently, most of the rivers of Bangladesh have dried up, and mankind is to be blamed more than nature. The river close to my childhood has not been spared either. The farmers only get water when they need it during summer. While there is an abundance of water in the rain, the barricades are released. The irregularity of the water in the rivers affects their navigability. During rain, rapid currents hit the river banks when the water is removed. The mighty waves devour the lands and riverine and leave them stranded. The water then turns into a flood. When the water moves away, the broken land is all gone. This is how, gradually, the rivers lose their navigability and gain breadth. It affects all the lives on the shores of both people and animals. The villages of my childhood are turning into barren deserts. The farmers are quitting farming and running toward the cities. They are engaged in risky factory jobs to earn their livelihood and often lose their lives in unfortunate accidents. Most of the happy, prosperous village has gone underwater, and the rest taken by graves. ‘Saatao’ (Memories of Gloomy Monsoons) is not just a film to me. It is my heartfelt precipitation that I wish everyone could feel the way I do.