"I don't want to know. But I can't help it," says this gnawing film's protagonist Kaju after the scorching skeletons of her past come tumbling into her present to create an upheaval that she could do without.

Really, it's far more convenient and comfortable to sweep history out of reach. Let sleeping dogs lie...Because the truth is too painful.

In her remarkable debut film, journalist-activist Shonali Bose shows us the pitfalls of forgetting the lessons of our past. The domino effect dominates the psyche of "Amu". You can't get away from looking at the truth straight in the eye as Kaju, freshly returned from Los Angeles armed with her trademark mineral bottle, sets off to discover the "real" India.

Through the character of Kaju's cynical friend (played by newcomer Ankur Khanna), Bose takes perky pot shots at dispossessed people who return to their roots with stars in their eyes and video cameras in their hands.

That entire episode about Kaju's touristy tryst with an awestruck low-income family in a Delhi tenement is funny at one level but also exasperating at another.

You want Bose to get to the point. The build-up takes a bit of doing. Bose takes us into Kaju's warm adopted Bengali joint family.

Enter the gloriously beautiful Brinda Karat as Kaju's mother. Then begins Kaju's confrontation with her adoptive past... "Amu" isn't the first mother-daughter film to take its protagonist through a journey into her troubled past. Tanuja Chandra's "Yeh Zindagi Ka Safar" and Khalid Mohamed's "Fiza" adopted the same fascinating format where the female protagonist journeyed into her past.

What sets "Amu" apart is its historical astuteness and its creator's unblinking regard for the past, no matter how brutal. Providentially, writer-director Bose uses fresh faces - Brinda Karat, of course bringing into this trenchantly conscientious film her real-life commitments as a social activist.

The fluency of the troubled narrative can easily be mistaken for understatement. What Bose does it to create a lightweight framework of foreboding within an environment of 'normalcy' that's ruptured when the past creeps up on the protagonist to splinter her self-worth.

You wish Bose had avoided the cliché of a male companion for Kaju. The little romantic diversion adds nothing to the plot, especially since the young actor Ankur Khanna playing the part is gawky way beyond the requirement of the script.

Those hesitant moments in the script that add substance to the reverberant sorrow of historicity are amply extended into the narrative. The debutante director uses her naturalistic cast to accentuate the breaches and fissures that underline everyday life.

Once Kaju discovers the truth about her troubled past, the screen lights up with sparing images of carnage and barbarism.

Some of it, for example, the sequence on the train in the flashback where Sikh lives are protected from irate mobsters by co-passengers do not have a direct bearing on the plot. What they do is to supplant the essential plot with a credible and persuasive backdrop.

We never really know why individuals become casualties of historical processes. "Amu" reaches a hand in the dark unfathomable void of history to nod awake those fearful whispers that we sweep away to preserve a socio-political equilibrium.

The 1984 riots against the Sikhs left many disturbing questions unanswered. Bose makes a profound attempt to scratch the surface.

There're floating bits of dialogues, which tell us that politicians and cops were directly involved in the carnage against the Sikhs.

At the end we see Kaju and her companion move away from a TV screen announcing riots in Gujarat.

We can afford to move away from the past at the cost of our future. "Amu" serves up that lesson in a language that's gentle and yet rebuking. Bose gets authentic performances from her cast.

Karat and Konkona as mother and daughter share a lacerated warmth. Yashpal Sharma leaves a lasting impact in his one major sequence where he breaks down recalling the riots.

Recollections run across this small-big film like little feet scampering over a riot-torn area. "Amu" finally reaches a point of safe deliverance.

It's interesting to note that this is the fourth important film on communal savagery from a woman director after Pamela Rooks' "A Train To Pakistan", Deepa Mehta's "1947-Earth" and Aparna Sen's "Mr & Mrs Iyer". In fact there's a rather amusing reference to Sen's film when a couple on a train announces itself as "Mr & Mrs Iyer" to rioters.

Sometimes a smile is the best healing touch one can provide. "Amu" provides moments of joy even as it relives the nightmarish sorrow of one of our most shameful and brutal chapters in history.