What is more important: satisfying one thousand desires or conquering just one?

Samsara (in Tibetian and Ladhaki languages; 2002)

Directed, Written by: Pan Nalin

I remember an episode when my house cat was engaged in a staring contest with a stray cat. My cat was inside the comfort of my home behind a glass door, staring intently at the other through the clear glass. In my mind, I imagined what thoughts could have crossed their nimble feline brains. The stray would probably be envious of my cat. It would imagine a cosy life, free of the cruelty of the elements, time to pampers oneself licking its fir in place and feeding time on the clock. It would have wished to swap places.

My cat would probably be jealous of the stray. The stray would be the master of its own destiny. Everywhere it decides to lay its butt, it is its home - freedom. My cat may not realise that it may be minced meat one day in the world of catfights. The stray would not live one day in the sterile environment of a home feeding on pellets called cat food. It may want to hunt its prey and tear into its prey's sinew. 

I guess it is no different for us humans. We have so many compelling desires and want to experience them all in this lifetime. We want to have the cake and eat it too. One can live an ordinary life like an average homo sapien or leave a mark in the annals of history. An average being can be caught in the trappings of commitments and relationships. As a token, he is rewarded with pleasures that a great person may need to forgo in his pursuit to leave a mark. What is the meaning of one's pursuit of happiness?

This must be a rare movie in Tibetan and Ladhaki languages. It starts with the scene of Tashi completing three years of meditation in a cave. Tashi had grown up in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery since five. Upon return from the penance, his mates realise that Tashi still has worldly urges. His nocturnal erections and nocturnal wet dream emissions did not go unnoticed. A farmer's daughter, Pema, caught his fancy during a visit. Tashi leaves the missionary life to become a farmer instead. He marries Pema to immerse himself in the trials and tribulations of a civilian and householder.

There are issues with middlemen selling the produce, fire threats to his farm and produce and the lure of a particular vixen, a migrant worker, who was sending him piercing glances. Being a mere mortal, despite the love of a doting wife, Pema, and his son, who thinks of him as a hero, he succumbs to temptations. Reeling from guilt after his infidelity, Tashi returns to his monastery ways.

In the climax, at the tail end, Pema intercepts Tashi on his journey to exchange the most compelling message behind the movie. When one decides to entangle in family life, all his actions have consequential effects on the rest of the family. It is not all about the want of an individual. His action may have detrimental effects on the other members of the family. When Gautama Siddharta decided to leave in the cloak of darkness to seek the Truth, he left his Yashodhara to fend for his young prince Rahul. Yashodhara too, must have been in pursuit of finding the real meaning of her existence. She could have just left everything and gone her way. No, she realised that her Truth was to guide Rahul to adulthood. Thus, the absolute Truth in life must be doing the best in whatever job, responsibilities and positions you are bestowed upon. That must be your Dharma. One does not have to wander aimlessly into crannies to explore the Truth. Enlightenment can also be found via worldly experiences, tragedy, comedy, and bliss. Celebrate, no need to be celibate.

P.S. What is essential - satisfying a thousand desires or conquering just one...?

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

Beware of glitz of the limelight!

Blonde (2022)
Director: Andrew Dominic

Films are just that - Maya, all illusions. All of us are lured to the charm of Maya. Some lose time and focus on it. Others even lose their health, future and life in the celluloid make-believe world. The Mafia that controls Hollywood (or Bollywood, for that matter) has had its hands almost since its inception. The Mafia-controlled group of moviemakers and studio owners, Walt Disney included) dictated which stories the world should consume. They started controlling the narrative on what is deemed justice, what is evil and even what is morality.

The paymasters also micro-manage the lives of actors and actresses. They exert a monopoly over film production and distribution of movies by buying movie theatres. 

The private lives of movie players, as they were referred to in the early years of movies, were not confidential. In the early years, viewers were not keen to know about actors. It was the stories that mattered. They were the domain of these very same people. They decided who should remain in the minds of the gullible public and who is sellable. They send paparazzi to eateries they arranged to create a buzz when there were none. 

Many actors were married off to boost their careers, not because of love. Ironically, the whole dream of films is based on love, but they mock the entire thing. Some were even caught in sham marriages when the actors were gay.

So it is unsurprising that Hollywood absorbed a mentally unstable person like Marilyn Monroe to build a dreamgirl persona around her. At least, this is what this new film about Monroe seems to propagate.

With the liberty of licence of creativity, the filmmakers have made Marilyn not only a dumb blonde but a highly mentally unstable prima donna with a drug problem at that. In most scenes, a dazed Marilyn sails through life under the influence of booze or barbiturates. 

Brought up by a single schizophrenic mother, Norma Jean Mortenson is seen to be exposed to many life-threatening situations. Her mother tried to drown her once. During a raging forest fire, her mother is seen driving towards the fire in search of a non-existent Marilyn's father.

The 7-Year Itch

Marilyn was cared for by her mother's friend but later went into foster care when child sexual molestation was discovered. At 16, she got into a marriage which ended disastrously fast. Throughout her childhood, Marilyn was fed with the idea that her father was a wealthy movie star whose identity could not be revealed for some reason. Her fixation with wanting to connect with her father continues to adulthood. She marries much older men and calls them daddy in search of a father figure she never had.

As an adult, Marilyn knows she is the product of an unwanted pregnancy from an affair. The thought that she may have been aborted even before birth haunts her. During her own multiple induced abortion and an inevitable miscarriage, she hallucinates being in communication with her fetuses. We are made aware that her agents arranged her many terminations of pregnancy. 

To drive home the idea that this whole movie is mainly a figment of the author's imagination is the account of a pervasive sexual threesome between Marilyn and the sons of Charlie Chaplin and Edward G Robinson. In real life, they may just have been passing acquaintances. For the record, there were no such exposê in the tabloids. Neither sons of these dozens were reported to be homosexuals. 

We all know about Marilyn's rendition of the 'Happy Birthday, Mr President' song to JFK. They were rumoured to be engaged in a raunchy prolonged love affair, which resulted in an unwanted pregnancy. Here, it is depicted like a doe-eyed call girl - tyrannical master dynamics. Critics of this movie were quick to point this out amongst the bent truths in this movie.

In all accounts, this NC-17 certificate offering is nothing more than eye candy bordering on pornography. There are way too many scenes involving full nudity than the storyline demands. An emotional outpour will drive home the sadness irrespective of whether the player is fully attired or is the full monty. 

Being a Netflix film, I wonder how consumers will enforce the NC-17 rule. Perhaps, the wokes who determine what is suitable for human entertainment consumption assume That watching porn is wholesome family entertainment. Thumbs down 👎

The movie probably painted Marilyn Monroe in a terrible light. She is portrayed as an immature girl with severe developmental issues going through life on a leash, looking for love and compassion in all the wrong places, muttering 'daddy, daddy...!' Her achievements are unfortunately lost in translation.

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

A historical fiction

Ponniyin Selvan Part 1(பொன்னியின் செல்வன், Tamil; 2022)
Director: Mani Ratnam

Kalki first published these fictionalised historical stories back in the 1950s in a weekly magazine. The stories were penned by Kalki Subramaniam and printed in Kalki magazine in Chennai. These stories were hugely popular and had developed a cult following. People were fascinated with the vivid narration and witty dialogue. The publication's readership at one time was 71,366 - a formidable number in newly independent India. Kalki Subramaniam had been a freedom fighter.

As early as the late 50s, attempts have been made to make a movie of Kalki's 'Ponniyin Selvan'. MG Ramachandran bought the rights to the story but failed due to financial constraints. Mani Ratnam attempted it in the 1980s and 2010s but failed again. After the delays posed by the pandemic, it finally hit the silver screens in 2022. 

Now, this film is said to be the fourth highest-grossing Tamil movie of all time, and people are singing praises of the movie. A blog reader watched it and said she did not quite understand the story. As I expected, the characters were too many, and the names were too mind-bending for an average occasional Tamil speaker and non-speaker to register. The dialogue can be considered too courteous for general consumption, as most Tamil movie dialogues are crude and rude. There were clearly no comedic actors to crack mindless slapstick and jokes. Again, this is another essential ingredient for a wholesome Indian picture where the audience will find money's worth. In PS-1, the dialogue is witty, and the comedic component is packaged in wordplay. I wonder if any Malaysian audiences who watched the movie with me in the cinema read the innuendos between the lines.

I have to confess that when a 13-year-old me watched 'Star Wars' when everyone else was singing praises of it, I too agreed with them. In reality, I could not understand the whole storyline, but not to appear dumb, I followed the herd. 

Maybe, because this movie is promoting nationalism at a time when the whole world becoming less tolerant of each other, it plucks the heartstrings of many. That was precisely the intention of Kalki Subramaniam, an Indian freedom fighter when he penned the series of stories. Kalki would have been very proud of his work as it is portrayed on the silver screen.

The cinematography and the special effects are of high quality, way above what is generally seen in most Indian movies. The artwork involving adventures (or rather misadventures) on the high seas was almost reminiscent of the 'Pirates of the Caribbean series. 

Ponniyin Selvan 1 is a historical fiction of the life of times of young Arunmozhi Varman in the 10th century CE before he became the great Chola Emperor Raja Raja Cholan. He was referred to as 'Ponniyin Selvan' - the son of Ponni. Ponni is the other name for the River Kaveri. Legend has it that the spirit of the River had saved Arunmozhi from drowning, hence the nickname. 

As in politics then and now, frequent backstabbing and doublecrossing were going on to usurp power. In that climate, brothers Aditha Karkalan and Arunmozhi Varman have to stand tall, fight the schemers and protect the throne in a series of swashbuckling adventures and death-defying moments.

Sure, the history of Man was never peaceful. At no time were Man cordial with his neighbours. They found ingenious ways to differentiate one from another. I could not help but notice that the scriptwriters purposely tried to suggest animosity between Shaivites (Shiva worshippers) and Vaishvanites (Vishnu worshippers). But I always thought that in ancient India (and now), heterogenicity was embraced. It remains the only land that was not hostile towards Jews and accepted Zoroastrian refugees when Islamic invaders chased them away from Persia. There are even Chinatowns in India.

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

The things you do...

Powerman Malaysia 2022

SK does not know whether to laugh or cry. If he laughs, it hurts. It is painful when he moves, and he is even afraid to sneeze. Ever since he cracked up a rib in a freak accident, he senses that his naysayers, who have been telling him to slow down with all those extreme sports at this age, are having a field day. They are secretly happy that he is grounded. Short of saying, 'I told you so', he can see the sheer delight in their eyes. Some are even emblazoned to ask, "why this Kolaveri?**"

Yeah, sometimes SK too asks himself, "WHY?" In the same breath, he also replies to himself, "why not?"

Homosapiens, by design, have been made to be agile and mobile. Through many prototypes which failed and multiple disastrous trials runs, Nature has remodelled and re-fashioned Man to be ambulant with such ingenuity. Only over the past 30 years, through the same thinking caps that make Man leap to greater heights, have we become couch potatoes. These prodigal products of Nature, with the boon of cognition, have rewritten the laws of Nature. The glutes, which played an essential role in moving around, somehow lost their purpose. Man now finds more pleasure in accumulating adipose tissue there. It even develops into a fetish by filling it with prostheses that enhance its gargantuan silhouette.  

Yeah, why do people do the things they do? Why do people want to climb a mountain? Why swim across a shark-infested channel to the other side? Why were the Wright brothers fixated on lifting a contraption up in the skies? Why do people write songs or even compose a blog? It is a challenge to push the human body to its limits. This endeavour gives a sense of achievement and immerses the victor in an avalanche of happy hormones. The trade-offs that come from this, the compliments, the honour and the desire to reach even greater heights, are pretty addictive.

There is also a desire to explore the roads rarely walked upon. As humankind learns about himself and the environment around him, he soon realises that so much more that remains unknown. In our short time of sojourn on Earth, a small fraction of eccentric individuals embark upon a journey of self-discovery. Not all will appreciate this.

**the slang lyrics of a popular Tamil song meaning 'why this murderous rage?'' from the movie '3'. It is meant to depict the anguish of a person whose love has been rejected by the girl he is trying to woo. It went on to include an onerous desire to achieve something.

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

..thou art that..

Slava Kavadi @ Penang Thaipusam

The actor-director who made the much-talked-about Kannada film 'Kantara', is said to have performed some of the stunts himself. One of the scenes that he had to carry out was a particular dance for a diety. In an interview, he admitted that he followed the prerequisites before delving into that pious act. The rest, as we know it, is history.

These types of dos and don'ts are rife in many Indic practices. All have them have a said ancient scientific to them.

Growing up, I had seen many who religiously performed annual penance for Lord Muruga on Thaipusam. I heard they had to undergo a gruelling 30-day or 14-day regime before going anywhere near the tent to initiate the ritual involving body piercings and feats that would befuddle them later. 

It involved consuming two simple vegetarian meals a day. Abstinence from the luxuries of life is a must. That would mean no personal grooming, no manicure and pedicure, no footwear, no hot showers, avoidance of self-indulging activities, no entertainment, no TV and in the present day, it would mean no YouTube! The devotee can only sleep on a floor mat with no mattresses or pillows. All these were intended to prepare one mentally for the monumental task at hand. I heard of another person who would undergo similar self-torturing rituals to partake in the temple's annual fire walking ceremony to fete Goddess Kaaliamman.

The fantastic thing is that they would complete the task, return to everyday life the following day, and carry on as if nothing had happened.

Recently I heard a clip that gave a somewhat scientific explanation of why a Swami Ayyappan devotee fasts for 48 days. It seems that it took that much time for all the cells in the body to be replaced. That means that after 48 days, one is essentially walking with an entirely new set of cells in his body, hopefully as a rejuvenated, unique individual. 

The breaking of a coconut is the best symbol of what we aspire to. The rough, uneven exterior is broken to reveal a pristine white interior that can generate something new -a life. As the ancient sages used to quote, 'tat tvam asi', meaning 'you are that'. You are what you want to be. In other words, you are the architect of your life. Sometimes we do not know who it is 'that' we want to be. The Greeks also appreciated that.

At the entrance to Apollo temple at Delphi, is inscribed 'know thyself'. Sometimes, that can be a problem. We really do not know what we are capable of until we are pushed to the limit. The maxims that followed 'know thyself' were 'nothing to excess' and 'surety brings ruin'.

P.S. Masons who carved out murtis (religious sculptures) in ancient India are said to also go through vigorous fasting routines to attain a trance-like state to chisel out an error-free product. They never have a second chance attempt at their task; invariably, these figurines last many generations and are still awed today.

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

The many roads that converge...

Kanthara (Kannada; 2022)
Director, Writer, and Actor: Rishab Shetty

Through this movie, I learnt about the 1.8 million people from the districts of  Udupi and Dakshina of Karnataka and the Kasaragod region of Kerala who call themselves the Tulu people. These cultural occupants of Tulu Nadu believe that their land was salvaged from the sea by Vishnu's 6th avatar, Parasuraman, the sage warrior. He is said to have yielded his axe to reclaim the land from the sea. To neutralise the land of salt and change it into a lush, fertile land, he employed the venom of Vasuki, the Snake King. The Tuluvas, as a gesture of appreciation to the guardians of the land, the boars, snakes and tigers, have celebrations called Bhuta Kola, an annual ritual performance. This type of their merriment was what Hollywood thought was exotic when it decided to depict eye-ball gobbling Thugee believers in their second instalment of the Indiana Jones franchise. 

I also learned that there is a movement towards the demand for acceptance of the Tulu language as another accepted language of India and a Tulu land.

Since its release, this film has garnered the attention of many moviegoers and even academics. In the current rage of cinema buffs wanting to know many of the long-forgotten cultural beliefs of Indians, this presentation is trying to erase the colonial mindsets that the cultural practices are animistic and pantheistic. A rational explanation is that people are trying to live in a symbiotic relationship with Nature, one of self-respect. Whichever way people show their reverence to the Almighty, it all refers to one distinct entity in different names or avatars, as is known in India. 

Cultural flag of Tulunadu (Wiki)

During the era of the British Raj, in their rapaciousness to reap the wealth from the lands and jungles, they passed a law to make forests restricted areas. The tribal people, who live off the ground, protested. The British vilified a particular group of Thurgeeswari-worshipping freedom fighters as bogeymen. They painted them as members of a secret cult that robs and kills people. They created such fear among the speakers of the English Language that the word 'thug' had been appropriated into the language and is synonymous with violent crimes.

This storyline follows the same vein as what the British did back in the day if one were to analyse it critically. 

In 1847, an unhappy King was looking for the meaning of life. After searching near and far, he realised that happiness was in his backyard. He found solace in a deity worshipped by the tribesmen. He took home the deity to honour and verbally agreed to let the nomads roam freely in the forest owned by him. Such was the arrangement till the new generations of the King, now landowners, no more royalty, wanted to reclaim the forest.

Guliga Daiva, the Protector.

This time, the descendants used the guise of the Government wanting to reclaim the forest to usurp back the land. The Government is painted as bad and the tribes as troublemakers. The movie shows this showdown in many graphic portrayals accompanied by spectacular cinematography and mesmerising music. The shenanigan is exposed with the help of the Protectorates of the jungle, and the symbiotic mutual-respecting way of existence between the tribals, the beasts of the wilderness, and the authority continues. Everyone agrees that God is One, albeit our different pathways to reaching Him.

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

Hey Ram!

Nine Hours to Rama (1963)

Director: Mark Robson

This movie is based on a novel of the same name written by Stanley Wolpert. Both the book and the film were banned in India when they came out. Nehru and his government at that time thought that the story created a human out of Godse, justified his crime and did not give enough dignity to Gandhi. This was even discussed at the Rajya Saba level.

Throughout our childhood, my sisters and I could not help but see an imposing statue of Gandhi in our living room. My mother had bought it from a Thaipusam fair to remind her kids to be a person who brings glory to family and nation. At that tender impressionable age, we took in all my mother's Gandhi stories of his tenacity and eloquence. We were reminded of his vow to his mother to stay vegetarian upon boarding the steamship to England, the land of beef eaters and gin. And staying true to his word, he allegedly stayed vegan, this Mahatma (great soul).

Alas, when we grew, one by one, the onion peeled skin by skin to reveal that perhaps the story is more layered than it was thought to be. Probably the one thing that Gandhi managed to do in this land with hundreds of languages, scripts and personalities is to be a unifying icon. Under the excellent strategy of 'divide and rule' by the tyrannical British, he led the nation under one banner for the first time. This process, however, was marred by many incidences that seemed to favour one particular set of social and selected leaders.

Gandhi seems to go all out to appease the Muslim minority in the eye of the majority. He helped to start the Khalifat movement in India in solidarity with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. He fasted whenever riots broke out without ever condemning the actions of rabble-rousers, especially when they involved Muslims. In retrospect, his non-violence stance of opposing is said to have delayed independence by decades. In the end, it was the stern rebuttal by the Indian National Army (INA) and the mutiny of the Royal Indian Navy that did the trick. By all accounts, Gandhi did not want India to be an independent nation. He wanted India to be a British Dominion, much like Australia and Canada, with the British monarch as the Head. The British, of course, were not keen to treat the brown-skinned subjects as equals.

Gandhi's actions (or inactions) are solely blamed for the Partition of the country and all its miseries and heartbreaks. Gandhi's extra-political activities also raised eyebrows. His experimentations with celibacy would be considered criminal in this age and time.

Still, my Amma thinks she had done the correct thing in that Thaipusam fair when she purchased that Gandhi statue. She still thinks it must have inspired us. By the by, she also bought a Nehru figurine to complement Gandhi. Of course, she does not know of Nehru's tryst, not with destiny, but also with Lady Edwina Mountbatten. Let her have her peace.

This 1963 Hollywood production narrates the nine hours that passed between Godse reaching Delhi railway station and Gandhi collapsing after a gunshot in the compounds of Birla House, sighing 'Hey Ram'. It used a predominantly brown-faced white cast with a smattering of local crew.

It took the liberty to fictionalise Godse. He turned against Gandhi after being rejected by the British Army for being a Brahmin. He blamed Gandhi for his father's and wife's death. They both died in racial riots. In real life, Godse never married. Here he was married off to a child bride, fell in love with a married socialite and engaged with prostitutes.


P.S. There is a 2022 Telegu film with the name Godse. It has nothing to do with Nathuram Godse and Gandhi's assassination. Here, a prosperous Indian American industrialist decides to pay back to the country he grew up. He decides to invest in India. He soon realises that the memorandums signed to start industries do not actually go towards the betterment of India but are circulated amongst the inner circles of politicians. Like Godse, who went against a system that carved up his Bharat Mata, in this film, Visvanath, goes on a crusade to expose the corrupt political system.

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