Imagine waking every morning, after you've got angry with yourself for not waking up early, keeping a straight face, and silently wallowing in what you got wrong, even when a lot of things are under your control. Now picture the life of someone just motioning through a life that depends on everyone and everything, except their will. Independent filmmaker Jigar Nagda's Whispers of the Mountains, screened at IFFI Goa 2025 and the Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) 2025, is a silent and disturbing meditation on life in mining areas around the Aravalli in Rajasthan. "There is an inherent pessimism among people living there. They live under the vicious circle of excessive mining depleting groundwater storage, marble dumped on land makes it barren, lack of a green cover fails to retain rain, forces people to sell their lands, mining activity expands, and it repeats," he begins.

Jigar explains that this trap, a familiar one, is why Harshant Sharma's Tilak could not even imagine his speech-impaired son Ragu (Rajveer Rao) pursuing studies even when provided a scholarship. "There are two things that stop him. Tilak believes that his son's life will be better if he too sells tea. Though Tilak is not doing great, this is familiar. Also, there is still a prevalent taboo in Rajasthan that a physically challenged person is a burden to the family, and Tilak is concerned that his son cannot survive alone," he says, adding that though the love, care and concern are still there, it wanes and it all boils down to the individual's needs. Elaborating on how livelihood and the natural environment can shape people and drain all their humaneness, Jigar says, "I wouldn't call them selfish. The drought and mining expansion put people in a situation where everyone is for themselves. Having lost his wife four years ago, Tilak, in order to get remarried, is also ready to let go of his son. The landbroker and mine manager characters, too, are not straightforward to Tilak. In such places, people don't trust each other."

Expanding on the psyche of people living in such arid places, he shares that the characters' expressions, too, were designed to be morose and sullen. "With the sounds of drilling and explosions in the mining area, people living there are not open to speaking heartily. I come from such a village where you speak only when there is something important. People tend to become mechanistic. "As I said, even Tilak gets ready to send his son to another mining area to start a tea shop there and earn a living," he says. The little Rajveer Rao would have put out an impressive performance as Ragu, who has a lot to say but keeps getting told to do things. Jigar shares that Rajveer is not a professional actor and with him he need not worry about the Mewadi dialect, but working on the precision in his expressions was no less challenging. "I first designed Ragu to be someone who can speak. But then, his revolt and resistance would be something usual and get reduced in intensity with words. I had to train Rajveer in a workshop for two to three days. He amazed me with his mature performance. In fact, the choice to design Ragu as speech-impaired helped me convey his love for the mountains. People look down on him, and as a person who cannot say but only deserves to be told. Ragu gives it back; he too doesn't express to them. Whenever he gets angry, he sits and stares at the mountains, as it doesn't judge him, and the two communicate."

Despite Tilak realising his folly of not sending Ragu to study further under scholarship, Jigar still has a solid reason to not have a positive ending similar to that of his earlier film Batti: A Boy Who Dreamt of Electricity. "I did not want to give the film a rosy ending as it is far from reality. Ragu also becomes Tilak. I wanted to convey that brutal truth. That is the inevitability of life there. The silver-lining is that Ragu planting a sapling at the end, something which Tilak or his father did not do, may be things will change when Ragu becomes a father," he adds, to state in a conclusion that he with his film does not intend to give easy solutions and does not believe that mining operation needs to be shut down as it is impractical. "There is an economic activity around it. The government earns from mining, so there is no question of shutting down operations. We have come a very long way. There is a middle ground, like mining at a location for a particular period only till a particular depth, after which the place needs to be filled with mud to make the land fertile again. Striking a balance is the key and not any radical move," he signs off.