The story truly begins to breathe the moment Robin Chad Murmu walks in. His presence doesn’t just add to the narrative, it unlocks something. Suddenly, the film begins to echo with the memory of countless short stories and novels, familiar fragments of literature resurfacing through his presence, as if the character himself carries those worlds within him. That is the quiet power of Cha Garam, a recent Chorki release that has been drawing attention, and quite deservedly so.

At its core, Cha Garam is about lives that exist just outside the frame of mainstream storytelling: tea plantation workers. People who live without adequate healthcare, fair wages, or proper sanitation—and yet, in the film’s gaze, they are not reduced to mere suffering.

Director Shankha Dasgupta attempts something delicate here: portraying deprivation without stripping away dignity, hardship without erasing humanity. And largely, he succeeds.