Life in the fringe!

Wind River (2017)

Director: Taylor Sheridan

We are all seekers. We want to understand things. Our brains have been wired to try to understand things around us. As children, we feel insecure with unfamiliar faces and environments. We wonder about the darkness that we see outside. We try to find out when exactly the light goes off when we shut a fridge door. We eavesdrop to find out where babies come from. We want to know what actually happens when we die. Looking at the stars, we wonder if they are any intelligent life forms there. Did Santa Claus put those presents under the Christmas tree? Did God help himself to Prasadham that we offer?

As we grow older, everything will fall into its place. We learn biology, geography, theology, astronomy, and so on. 

Biology gives glorious explanations to all the burning questions we want to know but are too shy to ask. Geography demarcated the lines drawn between humans. Theology told us to limit our inquiries to things that our simple minds can comprehend. Astronomy reinforced the notion that we do not matter. Yet we think we know everything and try to put a closure to everything. 

Rituals are mocked as their meanings are lost!

Was there police brutality when Kugan and many Malaysian Indian petty thieves died in custody? Was the fireman,  Muhammad Adib, assaulted or was his accident a misadventure? Was MH370 remotely controlled and disposed of by China without a trace? Is Jho Low really off everyone's radar? Is Mohd Ridzuan, Indraganthi's husband, who converted his underaged daughter, really untraceable?

We like to think that some questions have no answers. That is what the victors believe when they write history. Some things can never be verified. The system is controlled by people of interest who will want to carry items in specific ways.

Nothing has changed much from the time of slavery. In the heydays of sugar plantations in the Caribbean, it is unbelievable that it was thought it was economically viable to work slaves to death and replace them every seven years than to care for them with their medical and sanitary needs. They were mere commodities in the marketplace. The world has no qualms about subjugating God's creations to such humiliation, just based on their skin colour, appearances, culture and poverty of military might. Nothing has much, all through the Industrial Age, space age and now in the 21st century. 

We are familiar with 'Black Life Matters'. The often-forgotten part of society is the Native American community. Before Columbus and the band of looters arrived in the New World, thinking they had found an alternative route to India, the Native Americans had a rich culture and complex civilisation. Now, they remain lost, forgetting their ancient and symbiotic living with Nature. 

They remain in a sad state. Their social indices all remain depressing. Many unexplained deaths in custody, deaths with unexplainable etiologies and the plethora of cold cases remain frustratingly common in the community. 

This story revolves around the rape and death of a young Native American woman. For the layperson, it appears like a cut-and-dry case. Unfortunately, the bureaucracy does not make it so simple. The police investigation drags its feet. The autopsy cannot make it simple for the prosecution to persecute. Most end up as cold cases. 

It looks like the long arm of the law and the machinery that works for it has no interest in dispensing justice. It is more interested in pleasing its masters and playing fetch for them. 

That may be why fringe societies have no confidence in authority and instead take care of their own affairs by compulsion. The law only carries clout as long as people think their interests are protected. 

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

Beware of the circle of deceit!

Ardh Satya (Half-truth, Hindi; 1983)

Director: Govind Nihalani

This Indian movie is said to be a benchmark upon which other police dramas are compared. Acted beautifully by doyens of the silver screen of Bollywood then, Om Puri, Amrish Puri, Smita Patel, Naseeruddin Shah and Sadashiva Amrapurkar, it paints a multidimensional view of the job of a policeman. 

Our social system is flawed. The very system that had been devised to be law and order is anything but orderly. Things that go under the guise of upholding the law are anything but by the book. There is an unholy alliance between law enforcers and law breakers. The political dogs who made the gangsters their running dogs have made a lapdog of the police. The police, it seems, under the pointers of the politicians and the umbrage of the baddies. In a world where money can right a wrong, the brunt of law enforcement is only felt by the poor. The rich can literally get away with murder. They can quash evidence or buy the best legal representation that money can afford.

With increasing pressure to fill up the coffers within a lifetime, everybody is becoming increasingly creative in creating revenue for their own pockets. The whole shebang, from the low-ranking staff to the administrative panel, has their hands dug deep into the cookie jar. It is a mess out there.

Law enforcement is a messy affair. Too much in the hands of enforcers is bad, for sometimes the innocent get caught in the crossfire. Giving in too much to human liberty and human rights makes policing more difficult. In this type of Catch-22 situation, our man in blue tries to make this country safe.

This movie is said to be one of the most balanced Indian police dramas made in India. Unlike most Bollywood movies which usually showcase lone honest cops fighting singlehandedly a putrefying system and putting the fear of God into the villains, this one explores the challenges a cop has to face to do what is right. Following the footsteps of his father and grandfather against his own wish, Anant joins the police force. After getting into the police force, Anant tries to do what he perceives as right.

He finds that all in his station are working under the thumb of a local politician/thug. Anant tries to keep himself away from the clutches of the gangster, but it becomes increasingly more difficult. He hits a wall when a convict he interrogates dies in custody, and Anant has to get the help of the thug to bury the wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, Anant meets a literature lecturer who is his love interest and motivates him to do the right thing. Then there is a disillusioned drunk cop who was suspended because he fought the system. On his home front, Anant has to deal with an assertive father who wants to micromanage his son.

What is doing the right thing when exposed to the circle of deceit? Do we, like David, fight the Goliath of the system? Do we leave everything and start anew as if the grass elsewhere is any greener.

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