The land is stricken by drought and ethnic conflict. The lake on the edge of the jungle is almost dry and few miles away the sons of the rural poor are dying on the front of a bitter civil war.

As he collects water from what is left in the lake. Wannihami, the blind old man, knows the rain will come soon.

A few days later, on the Buddhist holiday of the full moon. His soldier son's body is returned by the Army in a sealed coffin. The day the rains fall is the day Bandara is buried. Wannihami refuses to sign the papers which will entitle the family to the Government's compensation payment for his son's death in action.

Sunanda, the younger daughter, silently accepts her father's decision and finds a job in a garment factory. But her boyfriend Somay, her elder, married sister Yamuna and the local Government officer pressure Wannihami to sign the papers. The customary alm-giving period of three months, After bandara's death is fast approaching and money has to be found to pay for the food. Somay earns a pittance as a brick maker. He too feels, like Bandara once did. That the only way to earn a decent living is to joined Army. The local Buddhist monk wants to construct a memorial in the name of the valiant son of the soil who gave his life for his country.

Faced with this pressure from people blinded by desperate poverty, day to day hardships and empty glories of being nothing more than canon fodder, Wannihami retains the clarity of vision, which gives him the wisdom that reaches far beyond what the eye can see. He pick up the mammoty to dig up and open his son's sealed coffin by doing this he knows he will invalidate the compensation claim, but his greater purpose is to believe that the war cannot kill his son.