Kanthara (Kannada; 2022)
Director, Writer, and Actor: Rishab Shetty
Director, Writer, and Actor: Rishab Shetty
Through this movie, I learnt about the 1.8 million people from the districts of Udupi and Dakshina of Karnataka and the Kasaragod region of Kerala who call themselves the Tulu people. These cultural occupants of Tulu Nadu believe that their land was salvaged from the sea by Vishnu's 6th avatar, Parasuraman, the sage warrior. He is said to have yielded his axe to reclaim the land from the sea. To neutralise the land of salt and change it into a lush, fertile land, he employed the venom of Vasuki, the Snake King. The Tuluvas, as a gesture of appreciation to the guardians of the land, the boars, snakes and tigers, have celebrations called Bhuta Kola, an annual ritual performance. This type of their merriment was what Hollywood thought was exotic when it decided to depict eye-ball gobbling Thugee believers in their second instalment of the Indiana Jones franchise.
I also learned that there is a movement towards the demand for acceptance of the Tulu language as another accepted language of India and a Tulu land.
Since its release, this film has garnered the attention of many moviegoers and even academics. In the current rage of cinema buffs wanting to know many of the long-forgotten cultural beliefs of Indians, this presentation is trying to erase the colonial mindsets that the cultural practices are animistic and pantheistic. A rational explanation is that people are trying to live in a symbiotic relationship with Nature, one of self-respect. Whichever way people show their reverence to the Almighty, it all refers to one distinct entity in different names or avatars, as is known in India.
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| Cultural flag of Tulunadu (Wiki) |
During the era of the British Raj, in their rapaciousness to reap the wealth from the lands and jungles, they passed a law to make forests restricted areas. The tribal people, who live off the ground, protested. The British vilified a particular group of Thurgeeswari-worshipping freedom fighters as bogeymen. They painted them as members of a secret cult that robs and kills people. They created such fear among the speakers of the English Language that the word 'thug' had been appropriated into the language and is synonymous with violent crimes.
This storyline follows the same vein as what the British did back in the day if one were to analyse it critically.
In 1847, an unhappy King was looking for the meaning of life. After searching near and far, he realised that happiness was in his backyard. He found solace in a deity worshipped by the tribesmen. He took home the deity to honour and verbally agreed to let the nomads roam freely in the forest owned by him. Such was the arrangement till the new generations of the King, now landowners, no more royalty, wanted to reclaim the forest.
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| Guliga Daiva, the Protector. |
So says Ravi Varmman...
ReplyDelete“Bro, Greeja and watched it last night. It was indeed spectacular to see the Bhotha Kola ritual in the big screen. I have read about it and, wanted to participate in one, but it just never happen todate. These are classified as occult practices by the British and later by leftist leaning scholars. In actual sense these rituals have deep 'sustainable' value in itself. But long forgotten and many are practicing these rituals as tradition rather than a cycle of life. Many tribal practices run parallel with ancient hindu tradition, and intersperses as well. Hence the tribals have rich traditions and customaries that have been branded as paganism or occult pushed aside by mainstream sociopolitical agenda. But good to know that there is a revivalist enthusiasm amongst young people in India, wanting to seek the source and from the source rather then being dependent on available literature that tend to have its own bias.
Good watch, felt really exellerated especially the Botha Kala trance like dance performance.“