Are you ready for the challenge?

Paava Kadhaigal (பாவ கதைகள், Sinful Tales, Tamil, 2020)

Netflix Miniseries S1, E1-4.

From a movie-making, storytelling or cinematographic point of view, this anthology of four stories hit the nail and gets an all-star rating. It also deserves an A+ for the attention-grabbing edge of the seat type of suspense in my books. It is all hunky-dory for entertainment value, but somehow, I could not help it but compare it to the novel 'Mother India' which came out in 1927 when the heat of self-rule was very much in everybody lips. It can be described as a polemic book that attacked the practices, religion and every fibre of Indian society. Katherine Mayo, the author, a historian by training, thought that India was not fit for self-rule and independence looking at India's treatment of India's women, animals and the untouchables.

What do you know? Despite all the leaps and bounds that the society had bounced, the storytellers decided that the old formula of societal discrimination against LGBT, women, castes and victim-blaming would sell. Are they covertly telling that Indians are not ready to meet the new world's challenges as they are still stuck in the colonial era's quagmire?

The first story (Thangam, Beloved) deals with a love triangle where falls in love with a Muslim girl against both families' wishes. This is complicated by the girl's gay brother, who is supposed to be the bridge for their union, who also falls for the sister's beau. He, however, sacrifices his affection for the sake of his dear friend and beloved sister. But both families are having none of those and have no qualms into resorting to honour killing for normalcy. 

For the record, India had legally accepted transgender people as the third sex since 2014. It replaced the 153-year-old colonial law set by the Colonial Powers which viewed the same-sex relationship as an offence. Since antiquity, hijras (the third gender) have been recorded in Indian history, including Kama Sutra, to straighten the record.

The second offering (Love Penna Uttranum, Let us Love) tells the nefarious act of Janus-faced local politicians who seemingly promote inter-caste marriages, but in reality, vehemently opposes it. He does not hesitate to stage an accident of his daughter who fell in love with the politician's lowly driver. Things become intricate when his second daughter turns up with her friends and confess to being a lesbian. 

The funny thing is that the murderous father eventually realised his wayward ways, turned over a new leaf, had to leave his wild country to become a regular person to learn rap music in a civilised country like France!

The third story (Vaanmagal, Daughter of the Sky) takes a swipe at the perceived Indian society's propensity to victim-blaming. A pre-pubescent girl is raped (after a mix-up), and the family is more interested in hiding the 'shame' and taking the blame for such a malady to have taken place. Seeking legal redress and punishing the perpetrator are not options as they viewed as a humiliation to the victim. At one time, the mother even thinks of killing off her 12-year-old kid for bringing shame to the family! This episode is a subtle attack on the Tamilian practice of public announcement when a girl attains menarche. It is construed as a roll call to deviant to pounce on an unassuming young girl. 

The final episode (Oor Iravu, One Night) is the heart-wrenching one which is probably based on a real event. After she had eloped with her boyfriend from her village two years previously, a father visits her gravid daughter. She is now settled in the city with a stable job and a lovely apartment. Their union was opposed by her family because of the boy's caste, hence the clandestine arrangement. It appears had mended his ways and invites the couple to his home for a baby shower celebration. The suspense is what happens in the father's house—an intense performance by Prakash Raj, who always excels in character roles. 

Good entertainment value. 

(P.S. The Bollywood 1957 national award-winning blockbuster 'Mother India' was a rebuke to the novel of the same name portraying a stoic self-sacrificing single mother who, despite the adversities in her life, manages to bring up her two sons.)

Doggone Man!

Chief, Doggy extraordinaire
Credit: IMDB

I watched an episode of the documentary 'Forensic Files' where a dog, when it failed to protects its masters, still managed to bring justice to the masters via its DNA to expose the identity of their murderers. 

A group of gangsters had entered a couple's home mistakenly thinking that the stash cocaine that they were looking for was there. Chief, a pit bull-Labrador mix pet of the household, pounced at the intruders only to be subdued by a gunshot on its shoulder. The gangsters continued their harassment by shooting the wife dead and giving non-fatal shots at the husband. Despite his near-fatal wound, Chief pounced back on the shooter as he was aiming at his master's chest. The shooter turned and shot Chief right between the eyes. The couple and their pet succumbed to the injuries eventually. Despite all the extensive police investigations, the perpetrators could not be pinpointed. Finally, Chief's DNA and furs were instrumental in bringing a guilty verdict to the gangsters. Poetically, even after its death, a dog did his duty to bring justice to his Masters by bringing to light their killers. I am pretty sure that is what his owner would have wanted. 

That episode left a sour aftertaste after learning what a domestic animal could do for his master; serve even after his death. I could help but compare to the news that had been hitting the headlines recently. 

The Human Resources Minister recently made a spot check into some foreign workers' living conditions in a particular small glove-making factory and was shocked to discover that their hostels were comparable to cowsheds.

It is besides the point whether his officers were ignorant to all these and that the minister was living under a rock, this is how human beings treat their kind. The bosses depend on their workers' loyalty and toiling under extreme conditions to fatten the company coffers, and this is what they get in return - living conditions fit for cattle. 

Then there was a woman whom I met in the course of my daytime work who just enough to sneak herself into the country to work clandestinely in a small factory but not intelligent enough to care for her biological organs. When the employer, the biological seed contributor, after discovering her parturient state, hurried off and claimed ignorance. That is how much loyalty is reserved for a fellow human being. 

For a piece of discarded bone, a pat on its head and a walk with his leash, I guess a dog would serve its master with its life. That is much more what a thinking Homosapien would do for another.

P.S. The word 'Doggone' is a euphemism for 'Goddamn it."

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Match made in heaven!

As part of the ritual after marriage, newlywed Brahmin couples are told to search for Arundathi-Vasishta pair of stars (Alcor-Mizar). These double stars make part of the Great Bear constellation and named after a great sage, Vasishta, and his philosopher wife, Arundathi. They were an exemplary couple that complemented each other, without one dominating over the other. 

Unlike most double stars where one star would be revolving around the other, the Arundathi-Vaisishta pair orbits around each other. The Hindu traditions believe that that is how a husband-wife pair should be - the couple should work together; not one exerting dominance over the other!

Varaha

It is beyond comprehension how ancient Indians knew so much about astronomy. These traditions have a long history that predates Corpenicus and Gallilee. At a time when the world was arguing about flat Earth and imprisonment of scientists whose discoveries clashed with the Church, the Indians knew that Earth was a sphere. Varaha, Vishnu's boar avatar, tried to save a spherical Earth from the major floods on his snout. (Not a disc)

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The sweet smell of freedom

Swathanthryam Ardharathriyil (Malayalam, Freedom at Night; 2018)

In terms of world cinema, this movie not score high on the scale of creativity. As far as Indian cinema is concerned, at least one given to minute details to the storyline, this would be number one.

Like Papillon and Shawshank Redemption, this film centres around the planning and the execution of a jailbreak.  The first quarter of the movie shows the circumstances upon which the hero gets imprisoned. In prison, he plots his prison break after recruiting his accomplices. There is not a dull moment as the storyteller managed to fill up the story with characters with compelling backstories. The props look real, and the actors are made scruffy and muscular enough to fit the bill of hardcore criminals. The fights look authentic and short enough to get the message. The music suits the situation, and the escape plan appears believable enough. There are a few failures and sudden changes of plan to hold the suspense. 

The inmates' plan is to dig their way out of their bunks to get to the outside of the prison complex and subsequently escape by boarding the midnight train, hence the title 'Freedom at midnight'. The only thing that kind of defies logic is how they managed to wash that amount of sand and dirt down their tiny toilet. Indeed it would have clogged up in no time.

Besides that tiny faux pas, it was a good attempt at procedural drama. 3.5/5.

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Yada yada, blah blah!

 Joker (ஜோகார், Tamil; 2016)

Before Joaquin Phoenix came out in the 2019 DC comic film as the legendary Joker, there was already an award-winning Tamil movie with the same name. Unlike the DC version, this one is a low-budget production. And like the former, both are political and social satires of the system that we are living. More often than not, in our societies, we give people the liberty to speak a little bit too much. Some talk just because they want to be heard. Others vocalise just because God gave them a mouth. We tolerate many because we pity them; we know it is unkind to be cruel against the mentally challenged. We let them just blabber, but the problem is that mental illness can be contagious sometimes. 

With the advent of social media, there is no limit to how much stupidity can spread like wildfire and profound wisdom.

Unfortunately, life is not so straight forward. Muddled somewhere inside the pile of insanity is what is supposed to be the truth. Because of all the murmur of uncertainty and the noise of distortion, real facts remain buried in the rubble.

There was a time when only the learned would be allowed to speak, and the rest would listen. One needed a certain amount of intelligence to put forward their opinion. With the democratisation of speech and empowerment to express thoughts, everyone gets the opportunity to get their 2-cents worth of view across. Do we call this giving the oppressed a voice to speak? Is the converse the rule of elitist? Is the former pushing for chaos and the latter a precursor to leftist's wet dream of creating unthinking automatons?

This bizarre movie starts with a man who is living in a debilitated hut. Starting his day answering calls on his cheap mobile phone answering to the name of President of India, rubber-stamping his letter with the Republic's emblem and pushing his weight around his neighbourhood. Slowly we realise that he is delusional. He has a comatose wife at home who became so after a freak accident caused by the government machinery's corruption. He tries to obtain a court order to allow euthanasia on his wife but repeatedly fails. The whole film just shows the vulture of politicians and his sycophant businessmen and hyena henchmen who hawk on Government projects to maximise profit and pay back the minimum to the gullible public.

Without a cerebral matter, imagine even ants can organise such complicated colonies, complete with armed forces, reserves for a rainy day, and even sick bays to care for the infirm. Why do we need politicians to guide us through? Seriously, mankind should have stopped at the oldest profession of all time, not start the second oldest, which is close to the first! 

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Mission accomplished!

Mr Dalip Singh Kokra
(1922-2020)

Yet another story of an immigrant who started with nothing and went on to create a legacy of sorts for himself and his offsprings. I had the pleasure of knowing Uncle Dalip Singh when I entered my wife's family more than thirty years ago and had taken part in many happy and sad events as they came and went.

Over the years, I made a composite picture of his life and times starting as a night school guard and gradually rising to be the President of the local temple.

As a young man, with scant of education, he arrived in Malaya with hope in his chest, strength in his limbs and resolve on his mind. As a night guard, he had built quite a reputation as a goto man for petty cash. Towards the latter part of the month, it was a common sight to see peons, clerks and even teachers forming a beeline outside his quarters requesting friendly loans (at 'reasonable' interest, of course). He was a leading a thrifty life, appreciating the simpler things of life to raise his five children. Not happy with just wasting his day time idly, he decided to become a travelling salesman. With his faithful wife as an aide, he drove to small rubber estates and oil palm plantations to sell sarees and Indian clothes on credit. With the little remunerations that he obtained from these, he uplifted the standard of living of his family. After he retired from Government employment, he moved into a large landed property in the more affluent side of town. With his tenacity, he educated his children and became a respected figure in society. 

He is a living proof to the adage 'hard work never kills anyone'. Until about six years ago, at a ripe age of 92 years, he was still seen driving around the housing estate. After spending quality time during his 98th birthday with his loved ones, he decided to call it quits. He became progressively weak, bade his farewell and passed the baton to the generation next to bring it to the finish line.

Some would simply throw in the towel at first sight of an obstacle. They would blame everyone else except themselves for their predicament. Others would approach these hurdles somewhat differently. When the barricade is too high, they will go under it.  If it is thick, they will go around it. Wailing and garnering sympathy is not going to take us anywhere. That, maybe the life lesson I learnt from Sadarji.

Parnam, till we meet on the Otherside if we do!

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It is the message

Silence (Nishabdham, Tamil; 2020)

This film was initially meant to be a silent movie, one without dialogues. It would have probably done better. The dialogue was a killjoy and laughable. A significant proportion of conversation of the film was in English, and that is the one that looks so fake, especially the lines written for Hollywood actor Michael Madson. 

It starts off as a paranormal tale but later goes on to give a serial killer angle to the final story. It is predictable with many glaring loopholes in the narration. The cast comprises an ensemble of a few Indian actors (R Madhavan, Anushka Shetty and a few young actresses) and many amateurs. 

Forget the story. What fascinated me about this film is how Indians in this story blended into American society. Filmed amidst the lush landscape around the outskirts of Seattle, Washington, we see how the characters mingled seamlessly partaking in what is considered the culture of the local populace. They indulge in classical music (the main character is a cellist), art, (the other character is a mute painter) and appreciate all the things people in their newfound land hold in high esteems. 

This does hold true to many economic immigrants of the late 20th and 21st century who screwed their own form of governance set up in their respective countries. Their way of life failed them, but they still proclaim to know better. They run down their host, denigrate their behaviour, criticise their way of life but still want to reap maximum benefit from the social safety net that the new country had to offer. They bite the hands that feed them and behead the people who think differently from them.

It appears that these people are doomed for failure wherever they go.

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