Vanvaas (Exile, Hindi; 2024)
Director, Screenplay, Producer: Anil Sharma
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| Zee5 global |
I was watching this Hindi film with my wife. It was a melodramatic production in true Bollywood style, driven by filial piety or at least making children feel extremely guilty for not housing or caring for their parents. Sending elderly parents to specialised institutions to cater to their specific needs has never been part of any Indian dictionary.
The aged father, a widower who still lives in the memory of his deceased wife, suffers from worsening amnesia. Despite his physical limitations, he remains a proud man with his own ways of doing things, often caustic with his words. He has done well for himself, having built a beautiful house and acquired other properties. He lives with his three adult children, their respective wives, and children.
The father remains resolute in his role as the head of the extended family and makes vital family decisions. Likely due to their upbringing, the sons keep silent regarding the father's tantrums and peculiarities. The wives consistently voice their complaints about the father's antics, yet no one is willing to budge.
So, when the family made a pilgrimage to Varanasi, the six adults decided to lose their father in the crowd. Without his amnesia medication, they thought he would be unable to communicate with passers-by and would not find his way back, ultimately fading away.
Just so you know, there are options for end-of-life care in Varanasi. Facilities exist for individuals diagnosed with terminal illnesses to spend their remaining days in that town, be cremated, and have their ashes immersed in the Ganga River afterwards. After all, the Kashi-Visvanath temple there is believed to be the abode of Lord Shiva. Spending one's remaining time in His presence would make perfect sense.
In true poetic justice, the father is eventually returned to his family home by the compassionate vagabonds of Varanasi. The children had already sold their family home and were in the process of liquidating another property.
My wife, still convinced that goodness is very much alive and flourishing on Earth, refuses to believe that any child would possess the gumption to essentially ‘kill off a parent'. In a group of six children, none would ever agree to stoop so low as to bite the hand that brought them into the world. She maintains that the plot is one-dimensional and strays significantly from reality.
We are aware of the numerous social experiments and observations that clearly demonstrate human behaviour to be highly erratic. Hannah Arendt's insights during the Nuremberg Trials have highlighted the banality of evil in civil service, which extended into warfare. Closer to home, a Malaysian conglomerate concealed child abuse and money laundering beneath the facade of a flourishing global Islamic business model.
The Stanford experiments have demonstrated how readily humans fit comfortably into their assigned duties and soon become oblivious to their nefarious actions in the name of executing their responsibilities. Even regarding our own flesh and blood, evidence of fratricide is plentiful. Siblings once killed each other for the coveted throne; now, they murder one another for the familial loom.
Human history has made anything possible. However, civilisational progress and the imposition of values through religion and legislation mean little when people are desperate.
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