‘The Pyre’ – Vinod Kapri’s Ode to Uttarakhand’s Ghost Villages Wins Hearts; Delhi Audience Gives Standing Ovation

By Sunil Negi, Editor UKnationnews
New Delhi, November 4, 2026

Got an opportunity to watch “The Pyre” today in a theatre in Delhi. Produced and directed by renowned journalist and National Award-winning filmmaker Vinod Kapri, Pyre truly impressed me and other audiences who all enjoyed it to the hilt and watched it very patiently, also laughing in between and in tears at times.

The movie, which has acknowledged 18 international awards including 15 Best Film honours, is running in the majority of the theatres at the pan-India level. Before its theatrical release on October 30, it won the prestigious Audience Award at the 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) in Estonia, and awards at festivals in London, Stuttgart, Washington DC, Chicago, Spain and Birmingham. This is primarily a Hindi movie with a mix of the local Kumaoni dialect, with music by Oscar-winner Mychael Danna and a song penned by Gulzar.

The film’s biggest strength is its casting. Kudos to Vinod Kapri and the entire team of The Pyre and salutes to the actors, who are actually those leading a hard cumbersome lifestyle in villages. The lead pair – Mr. Kapri’s uncle Padam Singh Kapri, 80, a retired Indian Army soldier, and Heera Devi, a village woman – both non-actors who had never faced a camera before, have travelled to several European countries for festival screenings and are now back to Delhi.

The basic concept around which the film revolves is the most complex, hard and thorny life of an aged couple of a village in Berinag whose only son leaves them for a job in the plains and never returns thereafter. He died in an accident and the deceased son’s boss through a letter informs the father about the tragedy. But the traumatised father instead of giving the tragic news about the only son having been dead to his wife gives few self-written letters to someone or a postman urging him to deliver them to him informing about his son’s welfare etc in order to keep his wife posted about his son’s wellbeing despite his not coming back home.

The mother of the deceased however finds the letter in the house and pretends as if she is not aware of her son’s death. She did so because she didn’t want to give the impression of her trauma to her husband as she loved him tremendously and so her husband to her. Both the husband and wife despite knowing about their son’s death never disclosed to each other and pretended that they are waiting for him since the last twenty eight years.

Leading a life in abject poverty both husband and wife at the age of 84 and 75 respectively looked after a cow and several goats surviving on the milk and meagre source. Whenever the lady was ill and taken to the doctor on a palanquin up to the connecting road and then by transport with the help of two persons of the village, the old man gave goats to both of them as barter.

One by one the villagers leave the village and finally they are left alone in the village leading an extremely hard secluded life. Finally completely tired, mentally, psychologically and physically the old man Padam Singh arranges wood logs and prepares a huge pyre in front of his tattered house’s compound not disclosing what it is to her wife despite her several queries. One day badly tired and in complete mental torture finding him alone and worried about the depleting health of his wife thinking who will take her to doctor in future, the old man dies of cardiac arrest while sleeping on the pyre.

The woman on seeing this tries to awake him and when he doesn’t respond she tries to call the villagers but by that time the village had become a ghost village. She herself gives light to the pyre and gives final adieu to her husband whom she loved the most. She finally gazes towards her house which was in shambles and broken completely due to rains and thunderstorms and leaves for the jungle with the goats etc. Then ends the film with applause from the audience.

The movie is the tale of the old ones left behind in their villages, their highly complex lifestyle, living in acute poverty with no health facility, medicines, health centres and even roads.

The villages became ghost villages and the young generations leaving the villages for plains never to return back with parents and old aged left behind. According to the Uttarakhand Migration Commission, over 1,700 villages have already become ghost villages and more than 5 lakh people have migrated, which the film captures poignantly.

A must-watch in theatres.

Coming soon