Cherry picking what you want!

Un-freedom (2015)

Probably the ban on this film skyrocketed its popularity. An indie film made by a debutante filmmaker director using relatively unknown actors (minus Victor Banerjee), using unconventional cinematography technique and storytelling suddenly stirred everybody's fancy.

The censors probably thought that there were too many scenes with the unnecessary meaningless show of flesh and gory violence was too much for the general public to stomach.

Two unrelated stories are told in parallel in two different corners of the world, in Delhi and New York. The shots are abrupt and tend to move at a fast pace intertwining scene to scene. Halfway through the movie, you are still wondering where the film is heading, and both events are related. Anyway, they are not, but the symbolism is there, much about it later.

In Delhi, a bride runs away from her wedding to be her lesbian lover, a Caucasian free-spirited hippie painter who is a promoter of the LGBT movement. The trouble is her lover no longer in her but was currently in a relationship with a guy!

In New York, a fundamentalist Pakistani Muslim is out to assassinate a moderate cleric who condemns terrorism.

Both stories get complicated. People are tortured and murdered, and crimson hue is the order of the day.

The most disturbing part of the movie is the scene where the runaway bride is captured by her father, a police officer who approves revenge rape when she refuses to change her sexuality!

The common denominator in both the story is that people are using religion for their own agenda. The religious fundamentalists are using quotes from the holy text for their convenience. Sexual deviants also tend to justify their actions by giving it a quasi-religious tinge to it.

Land of contradiction!

Today, two articles from the mainstream newspapers fascinated my simple mind. In the earlier pages of the Star, flashed in his saffron coloured robe and trade mark Afro hair was Sai Baba, the God-reincarnate and the story of his demise at the age of 86 (there is confusion,some say 84). And on his weekly column, a guest writer was writing about the octopus-like tentacles of corruption permeating into every strata of society of India and its prevalence of mammoth proportions there. I think that this two stories coming from the same land is a contradiction of sorts. 

On one hand, we have the land with the most number of holy sages in the world and on the other end we have corruption, the main reason of collapse of most Empires and civilizations!

At one time (1950 to 1980), all UFO sightings were exclusively in USA. Just like all, most holy men come from India; it is also seem to be a fertile ground for proliferation of religions - Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Jainism, Bahai, Judaism (yeah, that to), Buddhism, Zoroastrian, Sikhsm among others.

No, I am not going to ridicule this charismatic Holy man revered by sportmen (Tendulkar) and movie stars (Goldie Hawn) and have touched the hearts of millions, young and old, rich and destitute irrespective of their respective religious faiths. 

A Synagogue in Cochin, India.

One should not belittle things that one does not know. Just like a doctor who treats 'mysterious' diseases in an aboriginal community. Of all you know, it could be a communicable disease like malaria which is easily treated with oral medications. To the under-developed society, he is a demi-God or God-sent and will be put on a pedestal and be worshiped. Like our ancestors, the cavemen, who thought that natural phenomena  like thunder, lighting and typhoon were the wrath of the Gods, we are awed by individuals who have mastered certain knowledge beyond our comprehension. In the same way, we are flabbergasted by the antics of David Copperfield and Houdini. We easily associate them with association with the Dark Forces. (selling their soul to the Satan).

People in the limelight are never free from brickbats. Hence, in spite of the many good teachings advocating love and prayers in dealing with daily calamities as well as the many free health facilities and colleges , the cyberspace is rife with accusation of anything from tax evasion to paedophilia against this Guru. We will have to wait till 2023 for another God incarnate to manifest as Sai Baba had a premature expiry before his shelf life of 96 years! (As his followers say). In order to continue his legacy (and generate more income?), his physical remains are not to be cremated but buried instead. At least there will be a physical representation of him on earth. We do not want a case of 'out of sight, out of mind', do we?

In this religious land too, every now and then, especially of late, corruption has been in the limelight everywhere. I remember there was an undercover TV reporter who exposed a big time scandal involving politicians and brothels with hidden cameras recently. An excellent article written by Commi Kapoor can be read here. 

And life goes on! Religion is an important foreign exchange earner for India. Many industries directly or indirectly depend on it - airlines, tourism, temples, cabmen and related to these!
The land of contradiction is not exclusively the domain of India alone. Even Malaysia, a country which claims to be an progressive Islamic nation where droves of devotees throng the mosque on Friday noons after their lunch with so much piety and dedication have no qualms publishing and describing their foes' pervertious sexual activities in a full Monty on national TV and papers. This, happening in a self proclaimed conservative country where their sneak police snooping around to sniff out diners in the fasting month and couples involved adulterous extramarital bedroom antics is difficult  to fathom!

Contradiction of man

3.2.2010

Man, an animal, created by God, is full of contradictions. He will claim to be a vegetarian because he cannot stomach the cruelty of killing animals for meat but has no qualms about abusing the small men, maids, pets or other animals. He will go to great lengths to fulfil his religious obligations but bear the sight or see eye to eye with his siblings or offspring. He will insist that his food must be ‘pure’ (free of any animal contaminants of any kind – be it of trace elements or seasoning) but has no problem throwing food, over-indulging, hurting and traumatising the feelings of the servant who, through his ignorance or feeble-mindedness may have added oyster sauce or shrimp paste to his master’s stirred fried vegetables to earn extra points! He does not realise that his original reason for being vegetarian is to control his innate inner animal desire to be carnivorous. Still, he craves vegetarian chicken, vegetarian mutton or vegetarian prawns. Anyway, all of the above were vegetarian before their demise!

It is like Anwar Ibrahim, who in the 1980s used to be so vocal about Islamization and its implementation but now faces multiple court cases for sodomy. It is like a famous soothsayer in the Klang Valley who is regularly featured on TV predicting the fortune for the country on the birth of a new year and advising people on their horoscope but unfortunately has a miserable family life – married twice, with the second wife being slightly hypochondriac with a histrionic personality. Ironically, he could not predict his own life!

It is like restricting the cholesterol-laden sweet food for an 80-year-old diabetic just to serve these same foods in the prayer of his death anniversary. It is like Moslems proclaiming the greatness of Allah but in the same breath expressing fears of being charmed by djinn, talisman and black magic. It is like in George Orwell’s 1984, where all men are born equal, but some are more equal than others! It is like Malaysia trying to bring back its brains from abroad but has no brains to keep its applications user-friendly. Contradictions…contradictions…