Madness

In the parched veins of the Doon Valley, some things are too heavy to flow, and some fires are too quiet to extinguish.

For centuries, the Rispana River was a perennial promise. For the aging photographer who lives upon its banks, it was the world's only honest mirror. But as a seasonal wildfire-the fever-descends from the Himalayan ridges, the valley enters a state of terminal stasis. The river stalls beneath a shroud of ash, and the air grows thick with the scent of a disappearing era.

Inside the house, a parallel erasure is unfolding. His wife, the anchor of his stitched time, is retreating into a dark well of psychological silence where no lens can follow. Caught between an ecological apocalypse and a domestic tragedy, the photographer is forced to quantify the unquantifiable.

Madness explores the terrifying beauty of the witness. It is a story of three erasures: a river that has forgotten its path, a woman who has forgotten her name, and a man standing in the absolute canter of everything he could not save.

A haunting, humanised exploration of the Anthropocene, Madness is a requiem for the landscapes we lose and the shadows we keep.