Saroj (Saba Joshi) resents her husband Bhanu (Dibyendu Bhattacharya, MONSOON WEDDING) because his dedication to his position as the sole guard of the long closed-down Royal Silica Mine has them living in poverty. Whenever his boss Lakhmichand Ahlawat (Avtar Sahani, THE BLUE UMBRELLA) visits, Bhanu must bicycle to the next village to get his lunch (he prefers MacDonalds over the new nearby Dominos Pizza) - during his absence, Ahlawat takes advantage of Saroj - and then he must beg him for the bribe money to pay off local cop Chhatar (Rupinder Walia). Bhanu tolerates Ahlawat's abuse because his "master" tells him that he is part of the family, and that he will not be forgotten when his new plans for the mine come to fruition. The fate of the mine, of course, is contingent on the arranged marriage of Ahlawat's reluctant daughter Twinkle (Geeta Bisht, DELHI-6) to the son of successful businessman Dihaya (R. K. Sharma). When Twinkle instead runs off with true love Daya (Abhishek Banerjee), humiliated Ahlawat reports it to the police as a kidnapping and hires an axe-wielding, motorcycle-riding "Stranger" (Manav Kaushik, MISSION KASHMIR) to kill Daya and retrieve Twinkle. When the young couple decide to hide out at the mine, Bhanu - not having seen Twinkle since her childhood - is at first reluctant to shelter the strangers (allowing trespassers into the mine would be a dereliction of duty) but he relents when he sees that they are indeed being pursued. His decision sets off a series of tragic events that will eventually come full circle.

Brutal and utterly nihilistic for an Indian export (well, for those of us who know Indian cinema mainly through Bollywood musicals and a handful of more restrained social realism films), SOUL OF SAND is thin on plot; however, the "forbidden lovers" and pursuing killer elements are really secondary to the film's exploration of caste and predation. Ahlawat thoroughly mistreats Bhanu as a slave and Soraj as a prostitute (he considers the cash he gives her a "gift") yet he is embarrassingly servile to his Dahiya in hopes of unloading the mine on the businessmanm, who holds him in the same disregard in which he sees Bhanu and Soraj (despite his promise to the couple, he tells his potential son-in-law's father that he can get rid of them). Ahlawat also thinks nothing of having his daughter's boyfriend murdered and forcing her to marry another man. Although Chhatar is on the take, his contempt for Bhanu lies in his willing servitude and he even tries to convince him to better himself, but even Chhatar is revealed to be beholden to corrupt social superiors. By the time two of the film's characters find their consciences and admit their weaknesses, the tragedy is already barreling down on them and the other major characters (and any catharsis through violence is short-lived).