The good can be perpetrators of evil too!

Vanavaas (Exile, Hindi; 2025)

Director: Anil Sharma

I was watching this Hindi movie with my wife. It was a melodramatic film in true Bollywood style, invoking filial piety or at least making children feel guilty for not caring for their elderly parents in their twilight years. Sending elderly parents to specialised institutions to cater to their specific needs was never in any Indian dictionary.

The aged father, a widower who still resides in the home of his deceased wife, is suffering from worsening dementia. Despite his physical incapacity, he is a proud man with his own ways of doing things and is caustic with his words. He had built a beautiful house and amassed other properties. He lives with his three adult children, their respective wives, and their children.

The father is still determined to be the head of the extended family and makes crucial family decisions. Probably due to their upbringing, the sons remain silent about the father's tantrums and idiosyncrasies. The wives constantly complain about the father's antics, but 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 dementia medications, they thought he would not be able to communicate with passers-by and would not return, eventually withering away in oblivion.

For the record, Varanasi offers avenues for end-of-life care. Facilities are available for individuals diagnosed with terminal illnesses to spend their remaining days in the town, where they can be cremated and have their ashes immersed in the Ganga River afterwards. After all, the Kashi-Visvanath temple is believed to be the abode of Lord Shiva. Varanasi is supposed to be Siva's summer residence. The idea of spending one's final days in His presence makes perfect sense.

In true poetic fashion, sympathetic vagabonds from Varanasi eventually bring the father back to his family home. The children had already sold their family home and were liquidating another property.

My wife, still believing that goodness is very much alive and thriving on Earth, refuses to accept that any child would have the gumption to essentially 'kill off a parent'. In a group of six children, none would agree to stoop so low as to bite the hand that brought them into the world. She insists that the plot is one-dimensional and has deviated significantly from reality. In her mind, no way any human worth his salt would do anything like this.

Scrolling through actual crime cases over the years, I understand that the human mind has no boundaries. It is capable of performing the most profound things and, at the same time, being manipulated or brainwashed into believing the impossible. It is a common occurrence to see how one dominant character can wrap the weaker around his finger to work like an automaton. Case files from the Nuremberg trials, which document the banality of evil, are testimonies to this. In more sedate times, the Stanford Prison Experiment showed that good people can be transformed into perpetrators of evil.

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Anything and everything is possible!

Vanvaas (Exile, Hindi; 2024)

Director, Screenplay, Producer: Anil Sharma

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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When are we happy?

Three of Us (2022)
Director: Avinash Arun Dhaware

Memory changes with time, but time is independent of memory. Time, a construct of man, moves on as our Universe expands toward entropy, with or without our existence. The memory we hold so dear to our hearts has become our badge of honour as we traverse through life. Our memories of life are our crowning glory. In our minds, as far as our life is concerned, time fits into the concept of Sasa and Zamani as described by JS Mbiti as an African concept of time. 

Sasa covers a time already experienced and an extremely brief future. Our Sasa, the memory of the past, becomes more significant as we spend more time on Earth. It goes on as long as we, as an individual or a community, can remember an event or someone. After that, Sasa goes into Zamani, the graveyard of time where everything ends. The memory of loved ones and ancestors lives on in Sasa as they are reminded of them through regular rituals and anniversaries.

Hence, in African philosophy, there is no concept of the future. We live in the past as far as memory takes and the immediate near-future in front of us. The idea of a distant future, of an afterlife, is alien.

The past is nothing but the human mind as it remembers, the present is nothing but the human mind as it considers, and the future is the human mind in expectation.

At the end of time, we take a bow with the memories of everything we have experienced, endeavoured, and achieved in our lifetimes. This must be our parting gift as we wither away into the horizon, soon out of sight and eventually out of our memory. 

Losing our memory before our time is out can be devastating. By right, the physical body would wither away long before the thinking faculty fizzles out. Occasionally, our insight goes kaput. That is a problem, not for us, but for people around us as we misbehave in situations around us. But to count the days knowing very well that all that we understand and all the memories we have built in our memory cloud will be erased incrementally in the imminent future can be nerve-wracking. This film is the story of one such lady who is diagnosed with early-onset dementia. 

After learning about her medical condition and probably taking early retirement from her job at a divorce court, she decides to return to the town she grew up. She had been putting off her plans to return for a long time. After getting embroiled in family life and work and bringing up her son, who is now 19, in engineering school.

Maybe because her doctors are unable to tell her how fast her memory would go blank, she has a compelling need to revisit the home where she grew up. Her family had left the house in a sudden after a family tragedy. She never really had a proper farewell from her friends and had lost contact. 

Shailaja's intentions of returning to her roost are to reinforce her good memories of her school days, to reconnect with her schoolmates, and to revisit her family home. Her husband follows her on her week-long trip. She wanted to reinforce these memories before they faded for good.

Like an onion, layer by layer, her backstory comes to the fore; of her sister who had an accidental drowning at the family well, her secondary school romantic crush and the little memories here and there which did not mean much then, but looks like a gem now, lost forever. 

The whole presentation is laid out in a well-composed, slow-moving, mature pace without much masala or melodrama. The men (husband and childhood friend) are civil, and so are the childhood friend's wife and the rest of the occupants of her village.

We all look at our past and go under the false impression that our earlier life had been so fine. We lament the good old days forever and wish to turn back the clock. Boy, do I have news? Only when we go back and relive the life we once had do we realise that life was never a walk in the park at any time. We had our struggles and our lows. It is just that our mind prunes off all those unpleasant experiences. We are never happy!

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We are losing our leaves

The Father (2020)

The good die young, they say. So we look sentimentally at the 'Club 27' and bemoan their premature departure from the world of music; we lament the loss of many of their yet composed pieces. We remember them forever as the spirited and creative maestros they were. But, on the other hand, we abhor the many who had obviously overstayed their welcome; a particular nonagenarian two-time ex-Prime Minister comes to mind. It seems the longer we seem to stay alive, the further we get away from the public likeability scale. 

Perhaps we tolerate the old because of fear of what would become of us. In the hope of hope, we think all the good deeds will somehow be recorded and duly reciprocated by the Universe! Maybe, we are struggling to stay afloat in this Ocean of Life that we are looking for support in what we are doing. With the wisdom of having traversed similar paths, we secretly wish that they would give a nod of approval to our actions. 

Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse and Kurt Cobain 

27 club (has at least 10 members)

We have fond recollections of young relatives, of children who succumbed to ailments way before their time. We remember the charming smile, their pranks and good times spent together. But, unfortunately, it is not the same of a sick relative who demanded de has to endure terminal care of a protracted. Despite all the good times they had offered in their happier, somehow, the memory that lingers in our minds is the latter days of pain and suffering. That, unfortunately, seems to be the first image of them that comes to mind. 

We are familiar with movies highlighting the trials and tribulations of the caregiver or the mess that the person with a mental disorder goes through. Unlike the rest, this movie tells the narrative from the point of the sufferer. As confusing as the orientation to time, space and person can be to a person afflicted with dementia, we, the audience, also get unsettled by the linearity of the story. It keeps flip-flopping, the scenes appear repeated, the background keeps changing, and we cannot really pin down who the bad person. Actually, there are none. Everybody is merely playing their part.

We soon realise that the main character just wants to cling to what he sees as reality, convincing himself that he is not off his rockers, that his judgement is right, and he has everything under control. Despite all the abuses hurled upon her, his daughter feels that caring for her father and sacrificing all her personal desires and ambition is the most filial thing to do. 

Some like to believe that these lost opportunities and the serving are just unsettled business transactions from another lifetime that needed to be completed. Ageing is just like the shedding of leaves of a passing season. Just like a tree that sheds its blades in autumn to go into hibernation before springing out new shoots, old age and passing are inevitable. We 'pass away' into the annals of time. In Tamil, a dead person 'becomes time' - 'காலம் ஆனார்'. 

[P.S. The octogenarian Anthony Hopkin won an Oscar for Best Actor for his role in this movie].

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