A mistake is a mistake.

Netrikann (Third Eye, Tamil; 2021)

By placing thilak/pottu/kumkum on one's forehead, one is constantly reminded that they should look beyond the mirage of Maya and seek to look inwardly beyond physicality. The sensory eyes are outward-oriented, whilst the third eye sees the nature of oneself and his existence. It helps to distinguish what is right and what is wrong. As the legend goes, the sensory eyes are influenced by lust, ego, and the twirl of our past births (kama and karma).

Logical precision can easily be distorted whilst perfect clarity arises only when the inner vision, called the third eye, opens up. 

Some say that the third eye corresponds to the pineal gland, which histologically looks like embryonic lateral eyes. As early as the ancient Egyptian era, the pineal gland gained its unique status as the bridge between the physical and ethereal worlds. The sketch of the Eye of Horus corresponds to the anatomical placement of the pineal gland in the brain.

The pineal gland is a photo-neuro-endocrine gland. It secretes melatonin which controls sleep and sexual maturity, serotonin which controls mental wellbeing and minute amounts of DMT (N, N, dimethyltryptamine), a psychotropic substance that evokes psychic phenomena. Many cultures in South America include DMT infused tea as a ritual of worship. There was a Supreme Court case in New Mexico in 2005 which had to decide whether a small congregation should be allowed to worship with the said hallucinogenic tea. 

The pineal gland also helps to set diurnal and circadian rhythms in the body. As mentioned by Swami Vivekanda in 1899 in Chicago about neuroplasticity, specific Shiva worshipping techniques are said to increase blood flow and neural connexions around this gland. This would subsequently alter all its functionalities as desired. It is an eye of wisdom that provides us with the faculty to distinguish what is right and wrong.

It is said that there was a debate in the royal courts of King Pandiya one day. The Royal Poet Nakeeran admonished a poem that claimed a lady's mane is naturally fragrant. Nakeeran insists that it is hair tonic and care that does the trick. An unkempt hair of a slave would not. Unknownbest to Nakeera that the phrase was penned by Lord Shiva himself. When challenged by Siva on this, the fearless Nakkeran is said to have said, "A mistake is a mistake even if you are God (One with the Third Eye). [Netrikkan thirappinum kuttram kuttrame] It has somehow become the rebel yell of the oppressed against the powers-that-be.

The title 'Netrikann' has its origin from this phrase; that a wrong is a wrong, no amount of rhetorics can justify otherwise. Back in 1981, there was a Rajnikanth-starred movie with a similar name. In that movie, a son confronts his father for his skirt-chasing habit. A wrong is a wrong even if your father does it. 

Netrikann (2021) tells about an impotent gynaecologist who finds sexual prowess through violence and ends up kidnapping his young unmarried patients who turn up at his clinic for termination of pregnancy. Somehow, the protagonist of the film, a blind Nayanthara, resembles the gynaecologist's wife, and he has a score to settle with her. The gist of the movie is how a blind police officer defeats a serial killer. A blind police lady also has her own issues to handle with. She is blaming herself for getting her brother killed in a jeep she was driving.

This 2021 film is based on a Korean movie made in 2011 named 'Blind'. The story is the same, but the Tamil version is more thorough, with ample space for dramatisation. Enjoyable, though 3.5/5.

P.S. With so much stupidity exuded by our politicians these days via their statements, we should behave like Nakeeran. We should develop the fortitude to chide idiocy every time it shows up. A mistake is a mistake, even it is done by the One with The Third Eye.

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

The power of imagination...

Dedicated to PC who wanted to know my barber's philosophy...

During our many hair-cutting sessions, I used to engage in deeply engaging banters about philosophy and religion, specifically religions of the Indian sub-continent. The barber shop is a simple establishment, in keeping with his simple philosophies of life, has seen much changes since the 80s when it was first set up. Starting life with a strict religious upbringing in his childhood and early adulthood, certain life changing events indeed changed his outlook on life, belief in God and attitude towards the self-professed upholders of the organised religion. In other words, there is the Maker (Nature, Cosmos, whatever) and there is him. That is all. A dash across two dates. The darkness before your existence and after, no previous lives and no after-life. Above us only sky and no cycles of re-birth and no book of Judgement too.

During one of our colloquy, he brought up the notion of the origin of Lord Muruga, the deity well known amongst the South Indian Hindus, specifically in Tamil Nadu. He asked me why the particular God is not seen as a member of the Shiva clan in the North but is prominently featured in the Southern part of the sub-continent. I put it to him about the legend that has it that an evil was terrorising that area and about the product of Shiva, the Destroyer, the six babies in six lotuses in Saravana Poigai, and about Sakthi, the nurturing mother, who provided him with the spear of destruction to douse the spitfire of evil!

He rubbished my understanding of the whole concept of Arumugam, the six-headed Peter Pan-like ever young, robust stalwart of truth and justice who could span the entire universe in a single swift in his majestic peacock.

In his books, legend has it that South India was faced some kind of epidemic. Many fell prey to this highly contagious communicable disease. The elders roped in many high notched medical practitioners of the day to find an immediate solution. The consensus was to build a big contraption with six medicinal elements into the city lake, the drinking source for its inhabitants. Sure enough, the disease got controlled, and the city dwellers were eternally grateful.

Over time, the genesis of the cure got romanticised. The ray of thoughts from the physicians became grandiosed as ray of fire arising from Lord Shiva's Netrikann (Third Eye); the train of thought wavelengths became Lord Agni who carried the ray; the six Karthigei pengal as the executors of the task; Goddess Sakthi as the alchemist who fused the ingredients and gave it potency. The invincible enemy, the disease, is, of course, the villain, the Asuras.

Guess we will never know the real story. Even though, the Tamilians claim exclusivity on the rights of Murugan or Saravana or Subramanya or Karthikeya, references to the deity had been traced back in Sanskrit literature in 1st millennium BCE. Even coins resembling Skanda with a silhouette of a peacock in the background were found in ruins of tribes of Punjab and Gupta kingdom!

Yaudheya coinage of Punjab (300-340 AD): 

Karthikeya standing facing, holding sceptre; peacock on right.