Netflix
Well, the colonised can go on ranting about how the invaders destroyed their rich tapestry way of life and life sciences that were light-years ahead of their barbaric invaders. They can complain of how the British and their ingenious strategies of 'divide and rule' derailed the natives' societies even now, long after leaving their shores. But for how long? Shouldn't the post-colonial countries wise up already? Like Japan, which was beaten to a pulp and bombed to smithereens after the Second World War. Rather than being sore with their aggressors, did they not embrace the victors' technological advancement to rise from their ashes to showcase the greatest Olympic Games in less than 20 years after the end of World War Two?
All men are created equal in the eyes of God or the Law, they say. All beings are One; they also preached that we are all part of The Supreme Being, the Paramathma. We somehow attach caveats to all these teachings. We classify and subclassify according to colour, gender, class, caste, race, disabilities, etc. This division is Universal. By no means it is confined to India or Hinduism, but repeatedly we see India in a bad light when it comes to discrimination. Don't the British royalty and their henchmen get special privilege by virtue of their birth into the Windsor clan? Aren't the immigrants treated as second class citizens subjected to discrimination and stereotyping? Don't the Arabs consider themselves superior to darker-skinned brethren in the same religion of peace?
Direct antagonism by the affected parties against the grain of things are bound to be combative. The people who tend to gain from the pre-existing arrangement will be hellbent on maintaining the status quo. Affirmative action to help the downtrodden will not alleviate them but, on the contrary, just create sluggards and encourage brain drain. The government-sanctioned quota system introduced in India to balance the unequal distribution of opportunities to various societal layers only pushed the less qualified to occupy important posts and the more qualified seeking greener pastures elsewhere. The people in 'higher castes' are discriminated against. The country is left in the hands of not the best but the second-best because of their surnames.
In the first story, the son of a loyal driver to a ruthless landowner is cheated blind. The son, an accountant, comes to bid farewell to his father's employer before leaving to start work as an accountant in the UK. The landowner cajoles the son to work for him instead by dangling a fat paycheque. The landowner had earlier broken his father's leg after crashing the landowner's car. So the son siphons off some money and, to top it off, seduces the landowner's unloved wife.
In the second story, a resourceful housemaid sees how the poor like her are made to do all the dirty work whilst the rich create an artificial cocoon to be just amongst themselves. The rich do not want the poor to be near, so they live in guarded communities. Still, the poor must be at the beck and call when they want.
The third act shows how a less qualified person gets into a job due to her surname. A more competent and capable person is overlooked because of her caste. The woman scorned uses her God-given shrewdness to devise a win-win situation for her to usurp the post without any evident antagonism.
The final offering shows that it is not only the marginalised who use victimhood to fulfil their desires. A sexually frustrated mother with a teenage daughter who is progressively losing her hearing is embroiled in a loveless marriage. She finds love in a hearing-impaired photographer. However, she drops him like a hot potato when she realises that she has to stay faithful to her marriage vows.
An entertaining one, especially if you are expecting unconventional endings with a twist.
