Power with the People!

Hirok Rajar Deshe (Kingdom of Diamonds, Bengali, 1980)
Director: Satyajit Ray

You will be wondering how a tale set in the medieval times of stories of kings, magic and two main characters who are not exactly the best matches in the box going to impress you. Well, that is the magic of Ray. He even composed the music score and songs for this one.
This film is actually the sequel of Ray's 1969 offering 'Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne' where two village idiots were given magical powers by angry demons who could not stand their croaking!
10 years after that episode, they are comfortably living off their common father-in-law, the King of Shundi. The problem is that they are too comfortable that they are bored. Just then, the King summons them to sing at the courts of Hirok Rajar to honour him on his anniversary at the throne.
To the outsider, Hirok Rakar's kingdom is rich with diamonds. It is all a charade as the the farmers who tow the plough has no food to eat and the diamond miners are too poor to buy stuff.

Baghdad 2003

The King, a tyrant, is surrounded by yeomen,  corrupt 'yesmen' ministers and astrologer who tells him what he wants to hear. A mad scientist is ready with his brain washing machine to 'correct' wayward citizens. The King decrees that all books be burnt and schools closed indefinitely as they were breeding grounds for dissidents.

Hungary 1956

The only school in the land with the sole teacher, Udayan Pandit (Soumitra Chaterjee, again) becomes the enemy of the state and is on the run.

Down with the King!

By chance, he meets the duo (Goopy and Bagha) who were on foot to the palace. With their magical powers and the force of the people, they outwit the regime and manage to use the brain washing machine on the King himself. The movie ends the symbolic destruction of giant statue of the King. This vision is exactly what was seen after the fall of Saddam and the fall of Stalin during the 1956 Hungarian workers' uprising.

Defensive mode

We are all living in a world where everybody is just waiting for another to make a mistake whilst at the same time everybody is just so careful that their posterior is not exposed and hence vulnerable to abuses.

Whenever a misadventure is encountered, the first response is mum! Nobody talks to anybody as anything you say will be used against you in any situation just to fry your goose. Silence is golden whilst the conniving officers of the law scheme out devious plans to dissociate yourself any plausible repercussions. Truth, justice, liberty you say? What is that? When you are persecuted and crucified for an event that even be beyond your control and your rice bowl is jeopardised, to hell with doing the right thing. It is the right thing alright, for yourself and your dependants. By admitting mistakes, everything would be pinned on you conveniently. In this world of fault seeking and destiny defying population, no one will empathise with you or have sympathy for your predicament. The time for Truth (a.k.a. God) to set things straight is long gone. We killed God long ago with our advancement in technology. There was a time when we were quite green about things around us. We had once marvelled at the splendour of many breathtaking events in our lives - how the sun was eaten by darkness; how the wrath the Mother Nature belched out boiling molten rocks whenever we thought we had wronged and how God punished the fornicators by inflicting incurable diseases!
When Man found a plausible manner to explain all these God sent events, he stopped blaming God for everything. He instead held each other responsible for misadventure, negligence or gaffe, depending on which side of the fence you are! And the sharks have no intentions to bring peace on Earth as it would affect their rice bowl and drinking chalice too - a tool of their trade.

Of freedom and emancipation...

Ghare-Baire (Bengali, Home and the World; 1984)
Director: Satyajit Ray

This is a Rabindranath Tagore's 1905 story set at a time when Bengal was divided into two by Lord Curzon. This was the time of the uprising of the Indians against their colonial masters with the shouts of 'Vande Mataram'. The Mussalmans who have been living in peace all this while with the Hindus suddenly feel that their status is threatened. It is also a time of the emancipation of women, especially in the elite circles of Calcutta.

Against this background, Bimla is married off to a wealthy nobleman without even seeing his face. She and her widowed sister in law were confined to the inner courtyard, never seen outdoors. Bimala's husband (Nikhilesh, Victor Banerjee) is a modern man, may be considered as a pacifist or mild-mannered by some, encourages his wife to learn the British way of life. He had a private English tutor (Jennifer Kendal) to teach etiquette, read, write and play the piano.

Along comes a debonair politician, Sandip (Soumitra Chatterjee), a vocal participant of the Swadeshi self-rule and burn British products movement. Sandip was Nikhil's childhood friend and was offered a place to stay. For the first time in her married life, Bimla is brought out of the inner courtyard to be introduced to the visitor. Sandip is impressed with the mature, sophisticated woman in Bimla and the charm of Sandip fascinated Bimla. After all, Bimla had not seen and been with any other man. They almost fall for each other.

Meanwhile, Sandip is active in his boycott and burn British product and admonishes Nikhil for his display and usage of foreign product. Furthermore, he deals with poor Mussalmans who deal with foreign products. 

Opponents of Swadeshi argues that merchants of foreign goods are indeed poor, and by boycotting them, they lose their source of income. Furthermore, they were cheaper than local products. They suggest that the boycotting should be left to the well-to-do!
Bimla and others soon realise that the apparently nationalistic leaders are not what they appear to be. There is talk of them murdering to achieve their agenda. The money that they seem to garner maybe for themselves!

After a small storm in their marriage, Nikhil and Bimla's marriage is reinforced. Sandip is politely told to leave.

N.B. An exciting footnote noted in the course of a conversation between Nikhil and Bimla...
Our society used to be proud of their powerful women, Draupadi in Mahabarata with her 5 husbands, Sita and many more. Somewhere along the way, they became docile. Was it because of the Moslems with their culture?

Keeping up with the Joneses?

In verbatim (not translation)
Super Hit Matinee Show

I remember an uncle, a close family relative and a retired civil servant, who spent a lot of his retirement time watching old Tamil movies. I found that quite amusing as none of his kids have an iota of outward appearance of embracing Indian culture. They did not speak any of Indian dialects, watched only English language TV/movies and even sneered at the comical sing song way of how movie stars delivered their dialogues. The uncle's reason for indulging in his pastime is for the meaning life lessons and heart rendering song lyrics that it had to offer.
I found this ironic as my parents were looking up at the way they brought up their children and we were asked to emulate them as much as possible. They were envious at their children's command of the English language and their skill in playing instruments. Not wanting for us kids to lose our mother tongue, ironically my mother would insists that we spoke Tamil at home. Outside the house, however, we were to speak our mother tongue as Tamil was not considered as a language that would 'draw intellectual discourse'! In the neighbourhood that we were living, only people from the underprivileged background would converse in Tamil. Hence, ability to converse in English would make one step above the rest, so she professed! We were from the city and it was the 70s. People were all trying to improve themselves economically. Tamil, as we saw it, was not going to lead us anywhere.

All the way to adulthood, I encountered many who hailed praises of the Tamil language, of how it is one of the oldest surviving language and how has a separate word for every situation. Even in modern scientific scenario, there is a readily available word for use. If in the English, the word 'love' is used to denote various types of affection between man, God, woman, animal, food and so on, in Tamil every particular act of love has a specific word.

Having said all that, if one were to listen to any Tamil language interview on cable TV from Tamil Nadu, 50% of the sentences are laced with English. As if, spiking English word makes the conversation more intellectual. Of late, even advertisements are using foreign word instead of readily available Tamil alternatives!

The caption above shows the title of an afternoon matinee slot on Raj TV. It reads in verbatim, not translation - சூப்பர் (super) ஹிட் (hit) மேட்னி (matinee) ஷோ (show). I am sure there must be a suitable translation for that in Tamil (தமிழ்)!

The art and science of knowing of your limit!

When you reach a certain age, everybody around you who apparently shows concern on your well being will give you unsolicited advice asking you to slow down and take things easy, that now is the time to the fruit of your labour and the sweat of your hard work. They would often quote you instances and examples of apparently healthy individuals just dropping dead like flies after a seemingly trivial chore. The way they coax (or put you in a corner), they seem to be cocksure of their facts and pretty soon plant the recurrent seed of doubt, uncertainty and fear in your brain. Admittedly, no matter how much there is of better living condition in the afterlife, we rather grow old, sick, wasted, unwanted and shoved around than die no time sooner, preferably never!
You will slow down, fearing for the worst, the unknown enemy. You become sluggish, puffed up, unfit and fat, poorly coordinated and a ticking time bomb. When your pin is unhooked, you disappear, become another statistic and everyone will move on with life, looking out to dash the hope of another health conscious middle aged man.
Man would not have reached where he has reached now if he had stayed in his comfort zone, fearing the unknown. There would not  be any of our ancestors who would have walked out of the African continent to explore newer pastures, no tomatoes in Indian cooking as tomatoes are native of Mediterranean land, no spices in cooking (the European wanted to find alternate route to lay their hand on these black gold), no preserved foods until refrigeration came around, no pleasures of smoking as the the first puffer would have been petrified to inhale, no simple pleasures in life (scared of retribution in afterlife), no new World as we know it as Columbus would have been stiff dead to topple over at the edge, no Fauja Singh running till the age of 101, no Arnie and no Arnie for post of Governor of California if he were just contented with green card, no space exploration, above us only sky, do not incur the wrath of the unknown force...
True, everybody has their potential and threshold. No pain and no gain they say. You certainly do not want to push yourself to the limits and beyond and to realise too late for goodbyes. It is an art to know your limits. Use the sciences and the signs to reap the maximal benefit out of activities.
I remember hearing a story in my childhood. A sage meditated for months to get his wish granted. He did not want to drop dead but to be given ample warnings. The Gods agreed.
The sage lived close to a century and died in his sleep. In heaven, he questioned the Gods for not keeping to their words. The Gods, in reply, denoted that They kept their side of bargain! The greying, receding hairline, the kyphosis, the joint pains, the reduced effort tolerance, the failing eye-sight, the slow thinking processes and so on.... The sage, the wise one he had been, had failed to notice!

When it comes to religion...

Ganashatru (Enemy of The People; 1989)

Director: Satyajit Ray

When it comes to obligations to God and religion, somehow man forgets all the common courtesy towards fellow mankind and has no qualms in creating anarchy, the exact opposite thing that religion is trying to propagate - Peace on Earth!

No amount of rhetoric will change what had allegedly been carved on stone by divine forces. When one argues using scientific arguments to save mankind, he is accused of mocking religion and is being a non-believer. People forget that believing in God is different from believing in a religion!

Dr Ashoke Gupta noticed that many of his hospital and private patients have been down with infectious hepatitis. He suspects that this could be due to a leakage in the sewage pipe. He fears that many devotees to the nearby may also be infected as they are usually given to drink holy water which is from the same source.

Dr Gupta (Soumitra Chatterjee) puts forward this proposal to his brother, Nishit, an industrialist and a trustee in the local temple. Nishit is an influential figure in the small town that they live in. He was also instrumental in securing Dr Gupta's job. Nishit opposes the good doctor's intention to get his proof published in the local newspaper to alert the general public. He even had laboratory results to prove his claim.

As the town economy thrived on pilgrims to the temple, the panic was terrible for business! 

The temple chief reassures that the tulsi leave and other additives, together with divine intervention, had reassured the safety of devotees for time immemorial in the Hindu culture.

After much deliberation, Dr Gupta brings his article to the local press for publication. Here, it is met with a lot of resistance. Due to pressures from the temple and local municipality, the Editor declines. He cites fear of poor public ratings of his newspaper as his reason for his refusal even when Dr argues that the papers had a moral duty to alert a potential catastrophe.

After meeting a cul-de-sac, Dr Gupta arranges for a public forum. Getting a hall was no easy task; the industrialists were too powerful to intercept. Finally, when a meeting was set, it was sabotaged by Nishit,  the temple trustee and the Editor. They managed to convince the general public that the doctor was an atheist and was a danger to the practice of their sacred religion. A mob ensued.

The loving doctor who, all this while, had been a saviour to many in his 26 years of service becomes public enemy No. 1!

His daughter, a teacher in the local school, is dismissed after pressure from students'  parents. The doctor is dismissed from the hospital, and even the landlord wants to evict him.

In the midst of all that, Dr Gupta gets a new lease of life when his daughter's boyfriend, a person in the art circle, reiterates that his friends in the theatre scene were fully behind him. The Editor's assistant, who had resigned after the debacle, promised to get his interview and article published in a more prominent newspaper in Calcutta. Dr Gupta is relieved knowing that he is not alone. An entertaining drama.

Lackadaisical attitude, that is all

I wrote sometime ago about errors in signboards, atrocious state of English Language in the country and the lackadaisical attitude of people on power to ensure perfection or near perfection in whatever they do. Well, it looks like the country is only filled pompous over fed individuals who just delegate their duties to their subordinates, sleep on their job and just live off the hard work of foreign hands. Lately, it was brought to my attention of two notices that brought quite an embarrassment to the people who were given the responsibility to carry it on. (see this too!)

In the first instance, a congratulatory greeting ended up emitting the wrong vibes. A simple misplacement of letters gave an embarrassment that stinked to high heavens. (from TAHNIAH to TAHINAH, as tahi denotes faeces, nah is a derogatory and half hearted way of offering something). As the message was supposed to be a congratulatory note to a very powerful man, many heads are set to roll.
Trickling down to ground level, even in the supermarkets, labelling of goods are left to the imagination of immigrant workers to coin out new words in the Malaysian language. Mosquito traps are hot selling items these days due to public panic of dengue fever. In one supermarket, dengue (or denggi in Malay language). The supervisors must have left it to the menial workers to design the labels and this is what they got... A label displaying a RM29.99 device to eradicate jealousy and ill thoughts. You see, DENGKI is just that!
Unlike our forefathers who were generally hardworking people who only believed in the mantra of hard work as the only to success, we are slowly evolving to become a nation of laggards but still want to live in pomp and splendour. Because things have been relatively easy thus far, everyone thinks that it is their birth right to expect some kind of special treatment. The new form of slavery is dependance on foreign labour. Little do we realise that what happened in the 'Planets of the Apes' may indeed may become a reality. The apes who were initially recruited to help around the home eventually became too smart. One spark started a mutiny and pretty soon the world was ruled by generations and generations of apes of worsening brutality!