By Madhurjya Dey
In the year 1989, an individual sent a letter to his brother, who was banished to a remote section of Northeast India. The exchange of letters resulted from an incident that occurred in a fabric store two years back. No-one in the family or in related circles talked about it. In the same year, the State Legislative Assembly passed the Nagaland Alcohol Prohibition Act. For this reason, all the licensed liquor manufacturing distilleries collapsed. All the workers were not natives, there were outsiders too.
The protagonist of the narrative was a store-house manager at one distillery there. He was an outsider. His newly found shelter was in jeopardy again, like his last one.
The locals of his native land banished him for a lifetime where he lived for thirty-years. He struggled with his mental health and the grief of staying away from his family. Letters bridged the distance. This excerpt holds onto one such letter conditioned by the aforementioned incident.
The Shepard Tone is an interactive, fictional narrative, where the viewer can navigate through the plot on their own. It is a html game that is comprised of digital images and sound that is based on the letter received by the protagonist.
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