Ira Madiyama is set in Sri Lanka during the mid-1990s and tells three simultaneous stories against the backdrop of the country's savage civil war. Chamari ( is searching for her husband, a Sinhalese Sri Lankan Air Force pilot shot down in flight, whom she believes has been taken prisoner by the Tamil Tigers. Desperate to know the truth, she enlists a sympathetic journalist and sets out on a journey to track him down. Meanwhile, eleven-year-old Tamil Muslim Arfath is struggling to keep his companion and friend, a dog, while the family together with the entire village is forced to evacuate by a rebel army. The third narrative follows Duminda, a young soldier who walks into a brothel to find his sister among the working girls.