Daijiworld Media Network – Mumbai

Mumbai, Sep 14: Raam Reddy’s Jugnuma – The Fable is less a film than a living parable. Opening with a king-and-castle fable and unfolding through shimmering magical realism, it casts Manoj Bajpayee as Dev, heir to a sprawling 5,000-acre orchard that was once seized from villagers and gifted to his ancestors by the British.

Dev first appears with wings strapped to his back, surveying his estate like a distant falcon. He greets labourers politely, yet the gap between lord and land is unmistakable. When mysterious fires rip through the orchards, injuring the workers who fight the flames, police arrest the very people who save the trees. But Reddy’s story isn’t a whodunit—it’s a why-dunit, a meditation on dispossession and the quiet revenge of nature itself.

Bajpayee’s restrained performance anchors the film’s lyrical visuals, while the fireflies—jugnu—glow as both signal and metaphor, hinting at the land’s own resistance. Neither straightforward villain nor saviour, Dev becomes a wanderer searching for belonging as much as the villagers seek justice.

With its layered symbolism and hypnotic imagery, Jugnuma challenges audiences to question ownership, history and the illusions of power. This is not a comforting fable, but a luminous, unsettling one—rich in meaning long after the final ember fades.