A love song for a serial killer?

Moodu Pani (Tamil, மூடு பனி; 1980)
Screenplay & Direction: Balu Mahendra

The only time this movie is remembered is when the superhit song from its original soundtrack is played. And, mind you, this song is played at many functions. That super-duper hit song I am referring to is 'En Iniya Pon Nillave' (என் இனிய பொன் நிலாவே). It does not take much to recognise that song. A few seconds into its opening guitar sequence, it clicks. The song was composed by Illayaraja, also known as 'The Maestro' these days, as more music connoisseurs are realising that his compositions are complex and deserving of orchestral performances.

Like many of his compositions, this song can be regarded as another masterpiece. Although it might seem, at first glance, to be a Western piece featuring prominent guitar sounds and rhythm, it actually blends elements of Carnatic and Hindustani ragas. Naturally, flutes are a universal instrument. Indian musical experts state that this particular song is performed in Natabhairavi, a Carnatic raga. Apparently, two talas were employed in this song, one after the other, to express the discordant emotions conveyed in the scene. 

In the scene, the protagonist, a mentally disturbed man who grew up witnessing his mother repeatedly being abused by his father while keeping a mistress, develops an intense aversion to women, especially sex workers. A psychiatrist suggests that he should get married. When a girl he proposes to declines his advances, he turns into a kidnapper. He confines the woman in a bungalow to coerce her into submission. Realising that resistance is futile, she tries to put up a front in front of him. She pretends to show genuine interest in him while the kidnapper pours out his heart. Reflecting these emotions, the tune is designed to oscillate between creating an uneasy feeling and an outpouring of emotions; between anxiety and love.

The song is played in the minor chord (Aeolian scale) of melancholy, often associated with sadness and break-ups. There is inherent loneliness and despair in both parties. The girl had her intentions to escape her captor, and the man had his tumultuous emotions and bottled-up rage. This is not a happy love song. There is no jubilation. It is a glimpse into the mind of a madman. The melody and lyrics are not mere fillers to complement the film score but serve to reinforce the story and reveal what is not explicitly stated in the lines.

This is Illayaraja's 100th film, in which he composed the songs. It belongs to one of the rare genres of Tamil cinema—a psychological thriller written in the vein of Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho'. Like Norman Bates, the protagonist kills women and keeps the remains of his dead mother under the sheet. 

Here's a little trivia. The initial tune he submitted for this scene was 'Iniya Nila Pozhikirathu' (இனிய நிலா பொழிகிறது). However, it was rejected by the director because it sounded too cheerful and optimistic. This song was later utilised in another film, Payanangal Mudivatharvillai, which also became a hit song. Gangai Amaran, Illayaraja's brother, composed the lyrics, and KJ Yesudas lent his melodic voice to the final version.

Reference: Youtube: Oru Naal Pothuma Ep 186

Sad love song!

Hopeful love song!

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No free fling!

Kaanekkaane (As you watch, Malayalam; 2021)
Director: Manu Ashokan

Just like how my friends put it bluntly, "there is no such thing as a free f*ck! Everything has a price tag." No one is willing to give up something so intimate to them without any attachment. Something so personal surely carries with it excessive baggage and expectations in ROIs (Return of Investments). Affairs of the heart are never rational. The thrill of tasting the forbidden fruit digs one deeper and deeper into a heap of hopelessness. 

When you are not on the wrong side of the fence, it is easy to be judgemental. Sitting in the comfort of the armchair, it may sound prophetic to pass laws on what a person should and could do in a particular situation. We must remember that rules are made for others to follow. When it affects ourselves and our dear ones, we look for loopholes or, worse, shift the goal-post.

This intense family drama is told and acted in a very sober way without much dramatisation, perhaps at the end, but precisely for the right reason.

Paul, a civil servant at the land office, visits his grandson after about a year. Paul has not gotten over the death of his daughter, Sherrin, who succumbed to injuries in a hit-and-run accident. Paul's son in law, Allen, is now re-married, and his new wife, Sneha, is pregnant due any time. Paul was about to see another lawyer to appeal his daughter's case in the higher courts.

As he tries to build a relationship with his grandson, Paul realises that Allen may have got intimate with Sneha before Sherrin's demise. Slowly, everything falls in place. Sneha may have been a demanding lover, pushing to go to another level, and Sherrin's accident could have been a convenient death. Or was it murder?

Paul does his own investigation and determines that Allen had decided not to help Sherrin when he saw her sprawled by the roadside after the accident as momentarily he thought her death would ease matters with his demanding lover. It was just a temporary lapse of judgement but was long enough to take Sherrin to the point of no return.

Paul started blackmailing Allen with this theory and a recorded confession; Paul finds himself in a quandary. When he is about to tell Sneha about Allen's confession, he finds her unconscious in her home with an obstetric emergency. The idea of abandoning Sneha crossed his mind as that would mean he may gain possession of his grandson, and Allen was already going insane with guilt. Sanity prevailed in the end.

Sneha is sent to hospital; she survives and delivers a healthy baby. Paul realises that the same evil thoughts that almost made him leave Sneha to die must have been the sinister idea that took the better of Allen, causing Sherrin to die.

Paul returns to his hometown, deciding to put a rest to pursuing Shireen's accident any further. Man is not infallible. Sometimes we make the wrong decisions when clouded by emotion. We fail to make rational decisions we would otherwise make and live to regret them every living day. To forgive is divine, they say, but the long arm of the law will still get you.

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Number 9, Number 9.

Nava Rasa (Tamil, 9 Expressions)
Miniseries, Netflix

Quite early in my life, I have come to realise that there is nothing sacrosanct in numbers. They are just there to aid calculations and the day-to-day running of our lives. What started as a way to measure the land area for the landowners to tax their subjects has come to rule every aspect of our life.

We find ways to glorify numbers as and how we deem fit. One for one God, Two for two opposing forces of Nature, Three for the three arms of divinity (either trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost or Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva combo as you wish), Four corners of space, Five fingers or the Five Elements of Nature being air, water, fire, land and sky (Pancha Bhootam) and so on. Each number is feted for its uniqueness.

The number 8 signifies good fortune amongst the Chinese diaspora. Probably because of its symmetry, both along the X and Y axes, it denotes balance which is quintessential of the ying-and-yang order of things.

The Number 9, on the other hand, holds a special place in the Hindu traditions - Navarathri denoting the nine forms of Devi, 9 openings into the human body, 9 universal elements earth, sky, water, air, fire, space, time, soul and mind, 9 celestial bodies in the solar system that control over emotion and life path, 9 navagraha (gemstones) which correspond to the 9 celestial bodies that pave our life and the 9 rasas (emotions) that affects body, mind and soul. 

These are compassion (karuna), laughter (haasya), wonder (adbhuta), disgust (bibhatsa), peace (shaantha), anger (raudra), fear (bhayaanaka), valour (veera) and love (shringaara). These emotions are best seen expressed during Bharatnatyam performances when they are depicted with facial, eye expressions and hands gesticulations.

Mathematically, the number 9 is exciting. We remember our multiplication tables where all multiples of 9 add up to 9 when individual digits are added. 

This anthology of short stories is based on the nine emotions mentioned above. Each of them is told in various settings, from a battlefield in Tamil Eelam to the household of a Brahmin and the exclusive set of the abode of a rocket scientist from ISRO. All of them are short, intense viewing, which leaves a kind of lingering after taste.

My favourite episode (disgust)

When the regret-stricken murderer seeks the grieving widow for forgiveness in the compassion episode, she asks the former her place to forgive. In a situation where so many parties could have avoided the final outcome when they were capable of doing so but did not, everybody is at fault! Who is she to forgive?

The episode on laughter shows the story of a boy who was a write-off in school but returns to his alma mater as a feted comedian to share his experiences playing pranks in school and getting into trouble repeatedly. 

A thought-provoking episode relates how we try to our humanitarian spirit by saving animals but have no qualms at killing each other. In another, we are reminded that some secrets of the universe are better kept under wraps. We, humans, cannot be trusted to handle such enigmas. We end up just outsmarting and destroying each other. 

We yearn to unshackle ourselves from poverty at any cost but is it better done morally? Is success at any expense justifiable? Will our evil past haunt us? Should we just accept bad things that befall us and carry on with life with no complaints? Life just feels unfair when we do all the right things but only to be returned with misfortunes. Life is not fair.

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People kill people, not guns?

If anything happens I love you! (2020)
Animated Short Film

This 11-minutes short film won itself an Academy Award in the Best Short Animated film category. In a concise graphic representation, the storytellers managed to capture the essence of emotions surrounding the loss of a young child. This emotional turmoil can make or break a family unit. The gamut of blaming, what-ifs, guilt and fault finding missions would eventually lead to a brick wall among the living but definitely not bring back the dead.

The death of a member of a family who has not lived his full potential, however, may invoke a myriad of responses. They say an addition to the family, especially the first-born, unites families. The sight of a newborn will make everyone all jello but strong enough to cement whatever minor frictions that may have been present in day-to-day dealings. It may make or break the bonds between the close relatives, especially parents, in the case of a young child.

This short film with no dialogue but a single song, 1950 by King Princess, tells the pain that a couple of parents endure when their pre-teen is killed in a random school shooting. The couple gradually grows apart with overpowering grief. All the while, their genuine emotions, feeling for each other and worries about each other are depicted by their shadows. When the door of their daughter's room, which they refuse to open all this while, suddenly opens, both parents enter the room to the sound of their daughter's favourite song. They reminisce about all the joyful times that they had together through a series of flashbacks. Finally, they shed their tears and reached a resolution.

The film highlights the problem of random shootings in the American public space, especially schools. Over the years, the interval between these types of shooting is getting shorter, and the types of weapons used are getting complex. It is no more pistols or hunting rifles. Instead, we are talking about assault rifles and semi-automatics. Pretty soon, the general public may be walking around with bazookas as it is their right to bear arms to protect themselves as permitted by the second amendment of the American Constitution. 

So many Presidents have come and gone promising to put a stop to all this gun violence. Even though many countries, the UK and Australia included, are testimony that this is indeed possible with very tight regulation of weapons ownership, such a situation will never happen in the US. The gun lobbying groups hold the purse string to the political parties. Being the central capital of weapon provider for the whole world to fight each other to maintain American interest and sustain despotic regimes worldwide, it will bad for business to put an all right ban on guns. 

Anti guns will continue doing their thing.  Aggrieved parties will pour their heartfelt disappointments, and the world will light an occasional candle at shooting sights, but the stock owners of Smith & Wesson and Colt's Defence will continue run laughing all the way to the bank. And they justify their rights by saying, "People kill people, not guns!" But, what they do not understand is that people just get a bruised face, dented ego or at most a broken rib with physical might. A gun has only one mission, to cause severe damage to the victim with minimal effort of its user.

All the loving feelings wither over the years. A child may make or break, not only by what turns out of them but in wanting to give the best for them. Differing parenting approaches and domineering-type of parenting accentuates drift. You ask yourself, "Is this the same woman that I married? "You coax yourself telling, "No, these are just battle wounds traversing the journey of life!"

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Sit, Booboo, sit. Good dog!

The word 'consent' is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, there are 'implied consent' and 'silence is consent', then on the other spectrum, are the murky waters of 'informed consent', as if consents are sometimes uninformed or imposed. We have also heard of 'consent under duress' which is by no means consent. In surgical practice, failure to divulge certain rare but real complications of an operation denotes carelessness and possibly negligence of the attending surgeon. As if the patient was not informed that surgery was a risky business.

Recently I heard a podcast of consent of a different kind. In fact, this edition came around way before cry babies started screaming #MeToo! The latest version of approval is 'I agreed to this but not to that..." 

A few years previously, in fact, a good full decade after a young lady (A) went separate ways with her best male friend (B), she decided to revisit the event that made them part ways. She resolved to delve head-on with her assailant (B) to try to determine when and how she put herself in a situation until she was sexually violated.

A and B had, when they were in their early twenties, a platonic relationship. They used to hang out together in each other's room together, talking about intimate things and sharing private thoughts. There was an agreed unwritten rule that lustful love and romance was not in the equation. Towards the end of their university studies, under the influence of intoxicants, they crossed their line. She was alright with the initial petting and cuddling but...

Looking back, A feels that she was wronged. She did not mind the initial part of their intimacy, but she felt assaulted after crossing certain self-made boundaries. B, being the male component of the liaison, thought, at that juncture, he needed to be the aggressor; to do what was expected of him. Perhaps, nature dictates such an arrangement. The innumerable male gametes attempting desperately to fertilise a single ovum is the testimony to this.

There is no issue at all there. Putting spark and cotton side by side and not to expect the cotton to be ignited is pure foolhardy. Of course, opposites attract. In the spring of youth and the raging of hormones fuelled by the inhibitory effects of intoxicants, the animalistic reptile brain is bound to supercede rational thinking. Rules and regulations go out of the window. Even on the female side who inherently tend to be the reluctant party, it is difficult to be brakes on emotions when the flickering ember of passion is fanned.

I think that is the problem with us. We believe we have controls on everything. Like ordering our lunch at the drive-in, we think we can dictate what want. The last person that we can trust is our own dear self! Do not put yourself in a vulnerable position. You do not need someone else to disappoint you. The person who would do that could be you.

Life is becoming more difficult with cultural conditioning, need to assert gender roles, individual responsibility for his actions, empathy, mindfulness and individual right. Nobody can do anything of his volition anymore. He is expected to act and react in certain ways only. 

https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

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Memory, Conscience and Consciousness, bad for psyche?

Lion (2016)

In the process of evolutionary neural development, lifeforms initially developed a primitive neural structure. As the transmission of neural impulses increased by leaps and bounds, the nervous system slowly evolved to develop a brain, protecting information collecting interfaces from the central processing unit. When the impulses were overwhelming in terms of quantity, some of them were suppressed. This highly complicated mechanism eventually developed 'attention schema' and eventually consciousness. Memory, which is an important component of our brain function also helps to build consciousness and conscience!

This interplay has helped mankind to survive the many calamities of Nature, outlive many of their contemporaries and rule over many of the deathly beasts that roam the Earth. Unfortunately, it also acts as a double-edged sword. Memory which helps to avert danger, to repeat the same mistakes twice and to progress as a race, also gives traits like guilt, nostalgia (if it indeed a bad thing) and morbid longing for something which is not there! Memory can be a curse sometimes.

This is an emotionally charged Oscar nominee film is based on a true story of a 5-year-old 'dirt poor' (sic) Indian boy from the economically deprived part of interior India who, whilst scavenging for food and coin on trains, get separated from his brother. The 5-year-old, Saroo, lands in Calcutta confused, unable to converse in Bengali, not knowing his place of origin, keeping himself busy escaping clutches of hoodlums and even the arms of the law, at least initially. He eventually lands in an orphanage to be picked up for adoption by an Australian couple in Tasmania.
Everything was dandy till the time he was 25. His adoptive parents adopted another Indian boy and life went on. His adopted brother, however, had behavioural issues which plagued the whole family throughout.

At university, Saroo developed a sort of Indian consciousness after mixing with other students from the Indian sub-continent. His old thoughts, all so nicely tugged hidden in his subconscious mind slowly resurfaced. His obsession to reconnect with his Indian biological mother and brother reached fever pitch. He spent three good years with the aid of the then new kit of the block, Google Earth, to try to trace back his journey to Calcutta. This madness of his affected his relationships with his family and girlfriend. It finally led to an heart-wrenching meeting of a son with his mother after years of absence and the subsequent meetings of the real mothers, Australian and Indian and Saroo Brierly. After so many years, only then did Saroo knew that his given name is Sheru, affectionate for Sher, which meant 'Lion'!

Allz well

We can see that it is not a question of whether having a memory and a consciousness is good or bad. Having unerasable memory helped Saroo link up with his biological mother to give a closure to his unanswered queries and to the people in India too. Conscience, compassion and love allowed Saroo's Australian mother to adopt foreign children and even support Saroo's desire to reconnect with his roots. All these masalas of the thinking mind not able to forget as well as to fail to remember creates all the drama, mayhem and happy endings in this life of ours.

N.B. Interesting to note that the theme of family separating because of unavoidable circumstances, natural catastrophe or amnesia has been a regular feature of a well-tried formula in Indian movies. The happen endings usually come via a special family song recognised only by the family members (e.g. Yaadon Ki Baaraat, Naalai Namathe). Here, in keeping the times, it is Google Earth and the reemergence of repressed childhood memories!.

Plainly French

The Intouchables (French; 2011)


This film was highly recommended to me for its humanistic elements. It showcases the bond developed by two men of entirely different background and how they each give each other a purpose to live in their trapped life.

It is a tale based on the real life story of a filthy rich quadriplegic man, Phillipe, and his hired hand. Phillipe is wheelchair bound after a paragliding mishap and had earlier lost his wife to cancer. In essence, he is a broken man who is mainly frustrated with life. All the money in the world but entirely dependent on others to move around and even for personal care.

His newfound helper is from the poorer side of town. He is an adopted child from Senegal with many siblings from his adoptive and different fathers. He did not volunteer for the job but was just there to show that he had attended an interview and claim his dole. By twists of fate, his attitude, of the arrogant kind, is the very attribute that fascinates Phillipe. Together, they have some memorable times and help spur each other with their respective backgrounds and find real meaning in their tumultuous lives.

The story did not, however, excite me. The story and the punch lines are highly predictable and give a sense of déjàvu. Perhaps because I was tutored in School of Hard Knock, I had turned stone cold and emotionally numb to situations that evoke a tear or two in most sane individuals.

30 Most Powerful Images Ever!

http://www.boredpanda.com/must-see-powerful-photos/

Thanks KR for contribution.

1. Starving boy and missionary

2. Inside an Auschwitz gas chamber

Image credits: kligon5

3. Heart surgeon after 23-hour-long (successful) heart transplant. His assistant is sleeping in the corner.

Image credits: James Stanfield

4. Father and son (1949 vs 2009)

Image credits: Vojage-Vojage

5. Diego Frazão Torquato, 12 year old Brazilian playing the violin at his teacher’s funeral. The teacher had helped him escape poverty and violence through music

Image credits: salvemasnossascriancas.blogspot.com

6. A Russian soldier playing an abandoned piano in Chechnya in 1994

Image credits: drugoi.livejournal.com

7. Young man just found out his brother was killed

Image credits: Nhat V. Meyer

8. Christians protect Muslims during prayer in the midst of the 2011 uprisings in Cairo, Egypt

Image credits: Nevine Zaki

9. A firefighter gives water to a koala during the devastating Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, Australia, in 2009

Image credits: abc.net.au

10. Terri Gurrola is reunited with her daughter after serving in Iraq for 7 months

Image credits: Louie Favorite

11. Indian homeless men wait to receive free food distributed outside a mosque ahead of Eid al-Fitr in New Delhi, India

Image credits: Tsering Topgyal / AP

12. Zanjeer the dog saved thousands of lives during Mumbai serial blasts in March 1993 by detecting more than 3,329 kgs of the explosive RDX, 600 detonators, 249 hand grenades and 6406 rounds of live ammunition. He was buried with full honors in 2000

Image credits: STR News / Reuters

13. Man Falling from the World Trade Center on 9/11. “The Falling Man.”

Image credits:  Richard Drew /AP

14. Alcoholic father with his son

Image credits: imgur.com

15. Embracing couple in the rubble of a collapsed factory

Image credits: Taslima Akhter

16. Sunset on Mars

Image credits: nasa.gov

17. Five-year-old gypsy boy on New Year’s Eve 2006 in the gypsy community of St. Jacques, Perpignan, Southern France. It is quite common in St. Jacques for little boys to smoke

Image credits: Jesco Denzel

18. Hhaing The Yu, 29, holds his face in his hand as rain falls on the decimated remains of his home near Myanmar’s capital of Yangon (Rangoon). In May 2008, cyclone Nargis struck southern Myanmar, leaving millions homeless and claiming more than 100,000 lives

Image credits: Brian Sokol

19. A dog named “Leao” sits for a second consecutive day at the grave of her owner, who died in the disastrous landslides near Rio de Janiero in 2011

Image credits: Vanderlei Almeida / Getty Images

20. “Wait For Me Daddy,” by Claude P. Dettloff in New Westminster, Canada, October 1, 1940

Image credits: Claud Detloff

21. An old WW2 Russian tank veteran finally found the old tank in which he passed through the entire war – standing in a small Russian town as a monument

Image credits: englishrussia.com

22. Flower power

Image credits: Bernie Boston

23. A woman sits amidst the wreckage caused by a massive earthquake and ensuing tsunami, in Natori, northern Japan, in March 2011

Image credits: Asahi Shimbun, Toshiyuki Tsunenari /AP

24. The Graves of a Catholic woman and her Protestant husband, Holland, 1888

Image credits: retronaut.com

25. Greg Cook hugs his dog Coco after finding her inside his destroyed home in Alabama following the Tornado in March, 2012

Image credits: Gary Cosby Jr. / AP

26. Demonstration of condom usage at a public market in Jayapura, capital of Papua, 2009

Image credits: Adri Tambunan

27. Russian soldiers preparing for the Battle of Kursk, July 1943

Image credits: Shirak Karapetyan-Milshtein

Update: Our reader Leif-Erik pointed out that this photograph was actually created in 2006-2007 for a photo competition. It is based on archive photos from the war in Russia in 1941-1945.

28. During massive floods in Cuttack City, India, in 2011, a heroic villager saved numerous stray cats by carrying them with a basket balanced on his head

Image credits: Biswaranjan Rout / AP

29. An Afghan man offers tea to soldiers

Image credits: Rafiq Maqbool / AP

30. Some parents, likely now in their 70′s, still looking for their missing child.

Image credits: