Love is a four-letter word?

C/O Kancharapalem (2018, Telugu)

In Nature, the union of sexes exists solely for procreation. It has its check and balances to ensure continuity of progeny and survival is only of the fittest. It does try to prevent chimaera monsters by minimising extra-species exchanges of the seeds of life. Invariably, the union across species tend to be infertile and slow to respond to environmental changes, thus resulting in self-destruction. Mules, the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse, are mostly sterile. So is a zorse or a zebra-horse hybrid.

Even within species, through innately developed hierarchical dominance, Nature tries to ensure that over generations, the young will be hardy to face challenges of the environment. The strongest of the males get to mate the healthiest of the female to this purpose. The weak male has to do with the weakest or the deformed female, which would result in failed descendants. It appears like Nature is inherently nihilistic in its outlook of the future. 

Now, homo sapiens are all supposed to be of a single race and species. Barring a few subtle insignificant differences, DNA analyses reveal that we are all the same- black, yellow, brown or white. Even though humans proclaim to be all one and the same, calling each other 'brothers' and 'sisters'. The fact that they are calling each other siblings only means that there are restrictions on their choice of mating partners. They are divided by race, sub-races, locales or religions, they have devised various impositions on such unions. We have social mores and regulations to ensure that the young are taken care of. 

This low budget Telugu film is a refreshing offering with multiple international accolades under its belt. It takes its viewers on a rollercoaster ride which will all make sense in the end. Extraordinary things happen to ordinary people, but we are hoodwinked about its timeline; maybe because the backdrop of a typical Indian village had hardly changed over the years.

When young tweens explore their sexuality, it is considered a taboo. The society says, "there is a time for everything. Do not put the cart before the horse!" When young couple show interests in each other, the question of class, economic status and religion become a stumbling block. When love morphs in middle age, it is frown upon again. Apparently, it is socially unacceptable when a widow or a person in advanced of age is smitten by Cupid's arrows. The society takes upon itself to ensure that arbitrary social norms and religious dictums are held up at all costs.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Laws are made for others

Breathe ( Amazon Prime, Hindi; 2019)
Miniseries (8 episodes)

Humankind is quick to determine what is right and what is not for its kind. All rules and regulations are cast in stone for others to religiously adhere to and live by. Most of these 'prophecies' had been self-thought when Man was at an altered state of consciousness. To lay credence to these rules, the name of God was invoked. To go against this grain would incur the wrath of the Divine Forces, they would say. 

This sort of arrangement would work just alright most of the time when the general populace is ignorant and obliging. Trouble starts when people start thinking, or the ones in power believe that the laws do not apply to them.  

Many external factors make people assume that the rules should not apply to them. The selfish gene, in wanting to care for its progeny and to maintain continuity of species, tries in whatever way to protect its offspring. If the law states that it is criminal to murder someone, the parental instinct will ensure the safety of its kind. Kill to save if it has to.

In the same vein, man-made laws are flaunted so quickly when it comes to defending one's beliefs. Killing, harming, and looting becomes legitimate under the guise of protecting the sanctity his faith. In the history of Mankind, more lives were lost under the umbrella of religion and politics than all other natural calamities and diseases combined. Man does not harbour any remorse when the wrongdoing is in the name of defending one's faith. 

Writers are becoming more creative. They keep on churning out new ideas. I wonder what they would come out with next.

Danny (R Madhavan), a widower, has a young son who is chronically ill with cystic fibrosis. His condition is quite severe and needs an urgent lung donor for survival. Due to compatibility issues, the son's lung donors are hard to come by. Believe it or not, Danny gets the information, after breaking into the doctor's office, that his son is fourth on the list of recipients. With the list of potentially suitable donors for son, he deviously plans ingenious ways to hasten the death of donors as his son slips further into hopelessness. Even though initially everything goes well as expected, a grieving policeman gets hot on his trail.

The police officer is still reeling over the death of his young daughter, who accidentally shot herself with his service revolver. His wife left him because of this. His sorrows draw him to the bottle.

The story is a narration of one man willing to commit crimes to save his son. Even though in real life he is a law-abiding and caring human who is also an animal lover, his books of normality include doing everything in his capacity to give life to his offspring, at all cost. This is in contrast to another who find busting crime as a way to justify that his daughter's death was not worthless. The mishap from the gun that his daughter's life is countered by the use to save others' lives.

A gripping 8-episode miniseries with a few 'too-coincidental to be true' scenarios but attention-grabbing, nevertheless. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.