Who is a good man?

The Affair (Miniseries); 2014-19.
Season 1-5 (53 episodes)

Some men justify their polyamorous activities by saying that it is the norm. They assert that monogamy is an artificial construct that society conjures to determine ownership, responsibility and financial commitments in exchange for pleasures and the encumbrances emanating.

Society has constructed a cookbook recipe of how society should be lived - a monogamous one, sex within the confines of marriage and condemnation of fornication.

In defence, Casanovas insist their actions be in sync with the demands of Nature. The male seedlings are produced in abundance with the sole purpose of choosing the best of the offspring. Hence, they are just helping Nature sow their seed far and wide, aiding the production of the best species to flourish. There must be a reason why oestrus cycles are glaringly absent in our species. With such effective health awareness, screening, treatment and contraception at their disposal, they look at unplanned, unwanted outcomes as the risks of doing business. Anyway, societies have ways to ensure any baby is cared for, and there are many ways to sort out problems that arise.

But they all forget the psychological component associated with this seemingly transactional union. What started as a thrill to venture into tasting the forbidden fruit will turn into a compulsion and addiction and a habit hard to break. It soon becomes an indulgence that demands time, money and sacrifices. The forbidden fruit has its way of tying one down.

God forbid, by omission or commission, the union would bear fruit or the emotional entanglements that can go as far as bringing down kingdoms. It is said that there is always behind any man's success and the corresponding 'other' woman behind his fall. An affair is usually found there rearing its head!

As the miniseries went over 50 hours of storyline, it had to cover a plethora of topics, including friendship, infidelity, the challenging world of parenting and teaching, gender dysphoria, the diabolical difference in the education systems between the East and West coasts of the USA and more. The unnecessary exposure of flesh and bed scenes is slotted between scenes to pique viewers' interests.

Another novel theory suggested in the storyline is about transgenerational trauma. All the characters in the drama are miserable. They either made wrong life choices or had such low self-restraint that they repeatedly found themselves in trouble. Instead of taking the blame for all their follies, they take the path where they can blame their genes. Apparently, because of the trauma inflicted upon them by their parents or life itself, these epigenetic factors somehow altered their genetic material to make them feel miserable and indulge in destructive habits and even suicide.

Using the metaphor of the California forest fires where people were told to move to escape to safety, the story tells us we all have to move. Do we have to move in order to live, from affairs to affairs, to have a full life?

P.S. There used to be a senior colleague who was forever with the different drop-dead gorgeous women. He was brazen about his whole affairs, displaying his 'trophy collection' in full view of colleagues, friends and relatives without considering its consequences. 

Puritans would look with an air of disapproval behind him, of course, admonishing his theatrics, what's more with a pubescent kid at home. Secretly, many of them would cringe in agony thinking, if only they had the testicular fortitude to do the same without giving a minute's thought to others' thoughts of the whole exercise. But then, the meekness in them makes them all shrivel up.  

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Huzzah!

The Great (2020)
Miniseries Seasons 1 -3.

There may be better places to learn about Catherine the Great, her supposed greatness and Russian history than this miniseries. With the liberal use of the creative licence and the need to lure viewers to the miniseries, the moviemakers have taken the liberty to mix and match events haphazardly. There is plenty of exhibition of flesh in different stages of undressing.

A European history student may cringe at how historical figures are interchangeable at will here.

For the records, Catherine II was not Russian but Sophia of Prussian origin. She was not of aristocratic breed. Sophia was married off to Peter III at the age of 17. She embraced Orthodox Christianity, learned Russian, and was immersed in its culture.

Unlike what is depicted in the series, Peter III was not Peter I's son but his grandson. Peter I (Peter The Great) was the one who established the Russian Empire. After Peter the Great's unceremonious demise, his second wife, Catherine I, took the helm. The rule was chaotic, and civil unrest was the order. Catherine I's rule was short. So was her grandson's, a teenage Peter II's.

Peter III, Catherine I's other grandson, only ruled for six months before his wife, Sophia, who assumed the name Catherine II, arm-twisted him in a coup and put him under house arrest. This is far different from what is supposed in the show, where they have a love-hate lovey-dovey relationship with various expressions of carnal passion.

Soon after his incarceration, Peter III died under mysterious circumstances. The official cause of death was something as ridiculous as 'haemorrhoid colic'. There was a running joke amongst diplomats who wanted to avoid a Russian posting. They would cite fear of death as they already had piles!

Funny. After her death, Peter III was supposed to have inherited the throne from Queen Elizabeth I, his maternal aunt. What do you know? She is seen here giving motherly advice on royal etiquette, marital advice, and even ideas on how to rule the Empire.

Catherine II and the whole of the Russian Empire are known to be promiscuous and to be indulged in much sexual debauchery. And the miniseries maximised it to tilt. Sex sells. Catherine II is known to have had multiple lovers, just like any male emperor would have, for political reasons.

Another interesting observation in this miniseries is the character named Pugachev. Here, he assumes the role of Peter III's bodydouble to confuse possible assassins. From my understanding, the closest he came to Peter III was broadcasting to the serfs that he was indeed Catherine II's estranged husband. Pugachev started a rebellion with the support of the serfs. It did not succeed, of course.

Catherine II's CV shows that she introduced smallpox vaccination to Russians, even before Edward Jenner made inoculating cowpox exudates to stimulate immunity against smallpox. She had picked this up from the Persians, who learned from the Hindus.

Despite its historical inaccuracies, the miniseries was a humorously entertaining one, though. With witty, well-written script with wordplay and innuendoes, it was a delight to watch if one does not mind the Russian aristocracy speaking polished English! Be prepared for many F-bombs and toilet humour. As per the disclaimer, the producers have forewarned us that it is an occasionally true story. Huzzah!

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Things we may have to unlearn!

Malu apa bossku? Apparently, all the things I may have learnt from childhood may be wrong after all. Sometimes, I wonder whether I thought the wrong thing or may have been hoodwinked to believe obviously wrong things. Perhaps values changed while we were napping. I always assumed that when one loses any of his properties via public auction, he is said to have lost not only his wealth but also his dignity. The mark of a true man is his ability to acquire wealth and provide for his dependents; his inability to retain his finances is a colossal failure. At a time when pride was everything, abscondment and suicide were standard outlets. My legal eagle friends remain nonchalant about their clients or opponents declaring themselves bankrupt or their properties auctioned off. To them, that is a cost of doing business. Overlooking the inconveniences of bankruptcy, it remains a legitimate 'get out of jail' sort of card. Nothing Earth-shattering, they say, and definitely no shame. I remember a time in my childhood when two policemen came knocking at one of my neighbours' doors. The next thing I saw was my neighbour being escorted out with his hands at the back, handcuffed. My neighbour's mother was wailing, and the other neighbours on the flat floor were busy concocting their own theories of what had transpired before the arrest. Forget that they all had not an iota of clue of what the accused was in for. That left an indelible impression on the young me of how a clash with authorities would affect the people around me. Then came an epiphany. Great world leaders immortalised in our history books spent a big chunk of their lives behind bars. Gandhi was practically behind bars all through the Second World War. Mandela spent 27 years in solitary confinement on Robben Island and other prisons.

In my mind, that is how I thought ex-PM Najib's supporters looked at him when all the legal minds of the country decided that he was guilty of hoodwinking the people's money for whatever reasons. His supporters viewed him as a saviour wronged in a hostile environment when he claimed what was rightfully his. It did not matter that the leader took full responsibility for the duties shouldered upon him in the line of national duty or, like the ship's captain, was the last person to leave a sinking ship. In their eyes, he is a sacrificial lamb of a system supposed to protect him. Whichever way one sees it, their statement just becomes more and more pervasive.

"No, no," reassured the ex-PM's supporters. They insist he was just a pawn in an intricate political ploy to discredit him. "There is no reason to be ashamed, my boss!" (Malu apa Boss ku?) 

I was nurtured to believe that education is a sure way to succeed. Hence, as children, we were told that nothing was more important in life than sitting down and absorbing everything in the books to regurgitate at the appropriate times. Then, it dawned upon me. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Every bit of exposure maketh a boy a complete being. As I learnt from Steve Jobs's autobiography, everything one learns is useful somewhere in one's life. There were many roads to Rome. What is the truth?

Shakuni's temple in Kerala. Homage to his

determination to seek revenge against the

greatest empire of the land. Allegedly attained

moksha here.

Now, the world tells us that we were taken for a ride. All the so-called history taught to us was fraud by the voice of the victors who wanted to paint a favourable view of themselves. The truth was multifaceted. Only until the lion tells his side of the story will every tale glorify the hunter.

To put the cherry on the icing on my cake of confusion, lately, a scholar completely shattered the image of Shakuni, a character in Mahabharata. My understanding is that Shakuni was the villain of the whole tale. He allegedly had a special dice that helped him to cheat the Pandavas of their kingdom and humiliate their wife, Kunti. He walked with a limp that inspired a distasteful proverb in Tamil, which suggested that all handicapped people have evil in their hearts.

Now, they say that it is the Pandavas who instigated the situation. By nature, Shakuni was a skilled gamer. He had an abnormal gait but an able body with no handicap of any kind. Shakuni did not have a limp or had no trouble walking, running or even scaling high mountains. What he had was unbridled loyalty to his sister, Gandhari, and far-sightedness. Gandhari's father, with his kingdom in Afghanistan, had learned from his soothsayers that his daughter had a curse. Her astrological chart suggested her husband would die soon after marriage. So, the family got her married to a goat, which was quickly slaughtered to break the curse. Gandhari was then married off to the blind king of Hastinapura, Dhritrashtra. After discovering that Gandhari was technically a widow, Dhriashtra's father and brother sieged Gandhari's father's kingdom. They imprisoned the male members, who subsequently succumbed to their torture. The family was parsimonious with their food supply to ensure the youngest, Shakuni, thrived through the ordeal to avenge the Pandavas on a later date.

Shakuni later comes to live with his sister to protect her. The rest of what happened afterwards is left to our interpretation.

P.S. The aunties I was exposed to in my childhood did not filter much of what they thought of others. My mother was no different. They called a spade a spade and had no qualms about speaking their mind. Being politically correct was an alien concept. I have often heard my mother cursing people behind their backs for wronging her. She even cursed a handicapped lady who congenitally had an underdeveloped right leg as being as evil as Shakuni. That is when I heard her often mentioned in Tamil, implying that a limping person has a dirty heart!

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Sticking to the same narrative?

American Fiction (2023)

Screenplay & Direction: Cord Jefferson

It seems that we have not changed much since our days as cavemen. Imagine living exposed in a world so hostile we would have tried to understand the unusual things around us. We continued compartmentalising the living and non-living things amongst us even when we became hunter-gatherers, farmers or city dwellers. By compartmentalising everyone in boxes, we thought we had our defences up to remind us which one of them was friends and which were potentially harmful. Gone are club-carrying or sabre-rattling days, but these classifications helped somewhat.

The Chinese viewed anyone non-Huns as barbaric. So did the Greeks, Persians and Arabs. During the mercantile era, the dark-skinned were labelled as God-sanctioned slaves. 

In the USA, post-Civil War America assumed that the emancipated slaves were ill-prepared to fit into modern society. They expected them to remain the subservient ones. They were prevented from getting into mainstream business, education and even usage of common public amnesties. In their own stride, the Blacks did prosper. Records showed the presence of significant numbers of black entrepreneurs and millionaires all through the late 19th century. There were pockets of prosperous descendants of slaves. Such a vicinity was Tulsa in Oklahoma. Like the Osage Nation, there were abundant automobile-owning, well-suited professionals there. Tulsa was fondly called ‘The Black Wall Street’ because of the burgeoning business activity there. 

Resentment was building up there. They could not fathom a subjugated community doing well. So when a white shop assistant cried foul when a black man allegedly pulled her hand. There were many versions of what transpired there, from a lover’s quarrel to miscommunication. Before the due legal process could take its course, the mob decided that he should be lynched and the black residents needed to be torched. It resulted in much property damage and about 600 lives lost. 

It is a cognitive dissonance. The majority wants to continually stereotypically paint the marginalised as the downtrodden, irreparable group of people forever trapped in the loop of melancholy, tragedy and hopelessness. They assume the marginalised groups will be stuck in the muck forever without recourse for improvement. Well, there is news for them. Collectively, many have leapfrogged from their Sisyphus-like struggles and bootstrapped themselves to prosperity. 

But the world is stuck in its own ways. By adhering to their old narratives, the non-marginalised ones give a pat to themselves, thinking that they are serving the marginalised by bringing their plight to the fore. The truth is that that is a fiction, The American Fiction. The liberals believe that representation among minorities is only valid if the narrative follows a preset traditional stereotype. Any deviation from this would nullify the voice of the majority. The reality is that the world has changed, but not the thinking of some. 

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In defence of Shakuni...

Shakuni, Master of the Game (2019)
Author: Ashutosh Nadkar

That is the essence behind the Mahābhārata. It is not supposed to give a 2-dimensional view of things. It should make us realise that good and evil are a spectrum. One man's good deed can be to another's detriment. One man's version of the truth is another's untruth. I suppose, in the same way, Shakuni, the archetypical villain of the epic saga, could have his version of what actually transpired in his lifetime. He would have his version of what happened between the two noble families, the Pandavas and the Kauravas.

This book goes on to tell exactly that; Shakuni's actions, reactions and justifications of all the things that he allegedly connived in eventually leading up to one of the bloodiest wars in history amongst brothers, cousins and uncles.

Shakuni gives the lowdowns and dirty secrets of the family his beloved sister was married to. He claimed he was not handicapped as per common misconception. He was an able body who could easily run, walk and scale mountains. It was just that he walked with a slightly abnormal but functional gait. There was no need for military training in the peaceful country of Gandahar, so thought his father, the King. Hence, he need not be trained militarily. The army was not even equipped as well as its neighbours. Due to the extreme weather found in this region, people here spend more time indoors. Hence, Shakuni became a whiz in board games and handling the dice.

So when Bhishma, the feared patriarch from Hastinapur, came his mighty army to its border, the King of Gandahar got scared. Bhisma's soldiers outnumbered even the country's total population. Bhisma came with a marriage proposal for the blind King of Hastinapur, Dhritarashtra, to Gandhari, the beautiful princess of Gandahar. Left with Hobson's choice between causing suffering to his people and simply marrying off quietly, the King and the Princess chose the latter. Prince Shakuni was livid but felt helpless. He told himself that he would live to fight another day with his own devices.

Shakuni left his family in Gandahar to live in Hastinapur to choose the opportune time for revenge which did not involve military prowess.

Shakuni's stay in Hastinapur saw the Pandavas and the Kauravas scrambling to produce their first male heir, hoping to usurp the throne. King Pandu of the Pandavas probably had erectile dysfunction and faced fertility issues. King Dhritarasthra of the Kauravas impregnated his wife, but unfortunately, even after two years of gestation, she just delivered a lump of flesh.

Meanwhile, Pandu and his wife Kunti took a retreat to the jungles. Miraculously, Kunti conceived and delivered successively to Yudhistra, Bhima, Arjuna and twins Nakula and Sahadeva. Rumours went around the kingdom that Pandu did not complete the job. Pandu's uncle, his mother's sage son from another husband, Vyasa, the author of Mahābhārata, inseminated with his seeds. Perhaps the Prime Minister also had a hand in conceiving the offspring, the eldest of the Pandava sons, Yudhistra and the Lord of the Wind in Bhima. This practice was totally legitimate under the niyoga system to treat childlessness. 

The blob of flesh from Gandhari was treated ayurvedically by scientist-philosopher-poet Vyasa to 101 live babies. Believe it or not, this is what some fundamentalists refer to as the first in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). The first-born of the Kauravas was Duryodhana and a clear favourite of Shakuni. Shakuni had placed a lot of hope to outrun Bhishma and his clan.

On the Pandavas' side, Kuru's Prime Minister, Vidura, gravitated towards aggrandising the brothers. It became apparent after the military training with Dronacharya. That became the tinder box that eventually led to the Kurukshetra War. 

Kurukshetra War

Shakuni also noticed Drona's dark side. He refused to pupil in Karna because of his caste. When a tribal person, Akhilavya, learned the art of archery through an effigy of him, Drona actually demanded his right thumb as tuition fees, thus rendering him useless as an archer. 

The legendary backgammon game that spurred the Pandavas was played fairly and squarely. There were no special gaff dice made from Shakuni's father's bones. In fact, in the first game, through his marvellous skills, Shakuni made Duryodhana lose badly just to catch the Pandavas unawares later on. The fear of losing in the second game got Yudhistra carried away, betting his brothers, throne, and wife. The 12-year exile and a year of living incognito were agreed upon as fair and square. 

Things got out of hand when Shakuni managed to identify the Pandavas during the final year of their punishment. Their cover was blown. Shakuni never meant for the Kurus and Pandavas to go for each other's jugular and turn into maniacal hunters, breaking all rules of a Kshatriya. He felt a tinge of regret.

Shakuni, as a good uncle to the Kauravas, donned military fatigues finally and partook in the Kurukshetra war, only to be slain on the final day. He 

[P.S. Duryodhana was named Suyodhana, meaning good warrior, at birth. Because of his unusual birth, he was cast as bad, evil, or bad omen, hence, the prefix 'dur', meaning evil -Evil Warrior.]

[P.P.S. I remember my history teacher, Mrs Lai, commenting during history class when she was covering the Mahabharata War. In the same as Shakuni commented, she said, "How would you expect a fair war when God take sides?" What she said made much sense then, but I am wiser. There is more to what the eyes see. That, precisely, is the essence of life. Things are neither black nor white. They come in shades of grey.]

[P.P.P.S. In Shakuni's eyes, Bhishma cannot be as noble as he is revered to be if he is to be judged by his actions. Besides arm-twisting a helpless princess from a docile kingdom like Gangadhar to marry his blind nephew, he is reputed to have kidnapped princesses Amba, Ambilika and Ambalika from their swayambara for his weakling half-brother, Vichitravirya, against Kshatriya dharma.]

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Death by shared psychosis?

The Great Indian Suicide (Tamil, Telegu; 2023)
Director: Viplove Koneti

In the junior years of my training, I had the chance to manage patients who were brought in after suicide attempts. The drug of choice in that demographic was paraquat, a deathly organophosphate herbicide which worked well at keeping weed at bay. Unfortunately, it also proved to be lethal to humans. A tablespoon of the deathly liquid proved lethal. Even if stomach washout and chelation were instituted early, once urinary paraquat was positive, death is inevitable. Within 14 to 21 days, slow death would ensue with organ failure, specifically lung fibrosis. More amount of remorse, regret or prayers could change back time. 

The population that thronged that hospital were plantation workers and had easy access to paraquat. Many of the victims were Indians, and the title of this movie brought the memory of that time of my career. Many of the parasuicides were for feeble reasons, to gain sympathy, to attract attention, to display undying love, for being jilted, scoring bad marks or even after being disciplined by parents. Unfortunately, their choice of drug proved wrong. They mostly, unfortunately, succumbed to the poison. At that time, I thought the Indian movies were to blame as many movies of the 80s included suicide as a selling point. They must have got their inspiration from the saga of Romeo and Juliet, the exemplar of pure, genuine, innocent love!

This movie turned out to be nothing like that. It seems to have been inspired by cases of mass suicide like Branch Davidian and the Waco incident, as well as the Jonestown massacre in Guyana, but with a twist. The components of a femme fatale and sibling killers (spoiler alert) are present.

A coffee shop owner is visited by a young lady offering her biscuit cookies to be sold in the shop. The owner, a young man who grew up in an orphanage, slowly falls for the girl. One thing led to another, and the girl dropped a bombshell. Her family plans to have mass suicide, as prescribed by their family holy man, to reunite with her dead uncle. Our hero marries the girl, goes to her family house, and tries to get to the root of the seemingly bizarre logic that her family seems to hold steadfast to. 

P.S. The movie is based on the Burari deaths in Delhi in 2018. Ten family members, including an 80-year-old grandmother, died in a ritualistic mass suicide. The deaths were determined to be motivated by shared psychosis. Read all about it here.

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