They were guided by elderly shaman Sajnu (D.R.Nanayakkara) to the ominous, burned-out, desolate, cursed village of Mayapore filled with poor and starving villagers, where they were informed that at Pankot Palace ("with the power of the Dark Light"), there was a new maharaja: "It is that place kill my people." The number is ""1776,"" "The Declaration of Independence," - so easy to remember! In a final attempt to keep him just a little bit longer, she shows him the garden in the backyard: "My flowers win prizes around here! They""re the talk of the neighborhood.But inside at Fiddler""s Green was a walled-off, luxurious urban skyscraper, with open-air shopping malls and restaurants.] The action occurs on the occasion of the 65th birthday of ""Big Daddy"" Pollitt (Burl Ives reprising his stage role) - the patriarchal plantation head (who is secretly suffering from terminal cancer), when the greater Pollitt family gathers and inevitably quarrels - greedily - over he granting of the expected inheritance.