Independence,Freedom,Dignity,Prejudice (vs) I

                   The President of our country has already given his Independence day speech. The Prime Minister is going to address the country from Red Fort for one another time. Even Pakistani Rangers at the Wagah border had exchanged sweets with Indian Border Security Force however only to militarily violate the ceasefire agreement from another sector(Poonch in Jammu & Kashmir). Neighbourhood school students are slowly 'marching' towards their schools to attend our Independence Day customary flag-hoist-assembly session & to be rewarded with 50 paise chocolate for demonstrating their patriotism. Just like a seasonal sugarcane crop, petti-Shops & junction-corner tea shops are selling our National Flag as a 'commodity'.Few other shirt-pockets around me have such Flags badged to them. All set. We are celebrating our 70th Independence Day.
             I have seen Captain Vijaya Kanth & Action King Arjun fight terrorists, & help secure & protect the territorial integrity of our Country, albeit as a Tamil Cine viewer. Similarly , Major Mukundh Varadarajan & many others,some even in their young ages, have had their life sacrificed while securing our borders. Like a student searching for MADE-EASY notes before semester exam, very particularly during last phase of study holidays,I have a seasonal pursuit of understanding my attachment to this nation, contributions, if any, I have made in promoting this sense of Indian-ness within me &/ others . So what does this Independence day & thus Indian-ness mean to me?
               As a senior Software Engineer, this Independence Day is extra special for me for it has fallen on a Monday. It's a long weekend, you know. Atleast 3 days of unbriddled enjoyment is guaranteed thus. For those non-Tamilians working at Chennai, it seems like an extended long weekend as many of them have 'escaped' from here a few days back itself. So our IT park canteen is free of those Non-Tamilians, whom usually are seen in groups,hardly interactive, speaking non-chalantly yet noisily in their respective mother tongue. Mallu, Golti,Settu,Singhu; no body is here. Thank God. The canteen looks calm & composed without their presence which could be clearly recognized.This groupist behaviour of their's have only alienated me further from them.
               Oh God!!!!How could a Telugu speaking Goltti eat food as pungent as a raw chilly?? It really sucks. I have seen few of them eating rice & curd mixed with raw chilly powder. However it really hurts when an American makes fun of my food preference, especially spicy food preference. Moreover these Telugus are involved in deep centred software-politics promoting their group at the cost of others, another cause of my hatredness for them.
               The Mallus are not good either. They apppear cunningly white-skinned , & fair just externally. I don't find any sense of associativity with the North Indians too. In fact I couldn't differentiate between a Bihari, Voo.P,Maa.P etc. In fact whenever any acts of criminal intent are reported in media, the first thing I do is to check if the accused was a North Indian. This cynicism is further reinforced thanks to the media (activism) reporting like "kolai valakkil 'Vada India' vaalibar kaithu"( NORTH Indian arrested in a murder case). Atleast Chinese -look-alike North East Indians could be identified based on their appearances. I was really scared to know that a few of them are man-hunters, even now. This sort of 'superficial' knowledge & evaluation was very much essential to me so that I dont run the risk of falling into their trap.
                 Fortunately I am ordained not to earn my livelihood from their land, for they may have their own set of evaluation of Tamils, more relevantly Madrasis/Sambars(who take sambar with any/every food item),usually based on prejudiced & unverified info. This would have prevented me from any sense of casual interaction with them had I been to their Mumbai,Noida etc. I heard from my lawyer friend, Indian Constitution has given every Indian citizen the right to free movement, right to reside & settle in any part of India so that a sense of brotherhood, fraternity, comity & thus Indian-ness is evolved & promoted. His lectures on brotherhood, Indian-ness, unlearning the learned prejuidices about other lingual speakers etc unsettled me, only to irritate me .Mokka paiya he is.More relevantly a JOKER.Nevertheless on this Independence Day, I wish the Constitution had given Indians the right to settle in the United States of America.
          Tension paduthraan avan!!!!
            Coming back to this long weekend program, my meticulous planning & proper co-ordination have taken me to Pudhucherry now. We have planned for this trip some 3 months earlier itself. Along with a few other team members, I rode to Puducherry in my 'Royal Enfield(RE) Classic' 350cc motor-bike. The pride in me when I say I own a RE-350, the smile on my face when I type RE, that sense of gethu ownership, that ELITIST feel was really matchless. Every other motor-bikist on road, if not the luxury vehicle owners, look very lowly in my eyes when I ride it.Equality is a misnomer. Elitism is a classy feel indeed. However this endeavour to travel did not happen overnight. I had to convince my spouse who had been insisting me to take her to her native. "I have never been to Tirunelveli for the past one year. Please understand. Its a tedious task for me to balance work & domestic life. I need a break. ", she said. Somehow I had managed to convince her & thus my FREEDOM was ascertained. Perhaps she should learn to enjoy a limited version of freedom, I presume. That 'mokka lawyer' (un)friend gave a hint that its a fundamental duty for every Indian to give up practices derogatory to the dignity of women . Poyaa yoww Joker. !!!
              However the stay here at Puducherry wasn't a complete smooth event. There are two radicalised bachelors in their early 20's amongst us, who are so idealistic & impractical who forced us to watching the recently released Tamil movie,Joker. The movie indeed is a Joker movie, very outlandish & impractical. As a man in his 30's , who is settled in life with a small & cute family, a RE motor-bike, a Hyundai Car & a double bed-room apartment , I could only feel pity for those Joker guys. But I am very sure these guys will have their ideologies changed once they settle in life.You cant keep on taking risks in life & think about leading a socially beneficial life once you understand you are happily settled with a family & OWN some 60 Lakh Rupees outstanding Home-Loan, which you have to repay in your life time. With such responsibilities comes tolerance, compromises, negligence of duty etc unless you are quite exceptional. So I felt its better to stop thinking about Indian-ness, equality , fraternity, patriotism etc instead focus on my pursuit of making all-sort-of-compromises to redeem the loan.
     By the way, I have just had a 10 rupee Indian Flag badged to my shirt pocket.Mind you, its not your One rupee flag.
                  Jai Hind. 

Kabali : Social Relevance

         Just like any other die-hard Rajini (Thaliiivaru) fan, I am obviously inclined to claim the commercial success of the movie KABALI, by itself, as a succes of the movie. However , it appeared to me that the movie has few other positive social elements which many of us may find worth noticing.
        Thalaivar is usually known for his roles as an obedient son(to his mother), protective father, securing brother (of his sisters), suggestive husband who rarely listens to his wife instead teaches how a women should be (I remember a few dialogues from the movies Padaiyappa & Baba suggesting 'womenly' attributes ). However, Kabali is a step in the right direction where Thaliiivaru confirms to his wife's commands, lets his young daughter the task of securing him etc. It is quite obvious to expect so from Pa.Ranjith who himself claims that his movies give equal & strong, if not dominant, screen presence to female characters. It was quite evident in the movie with a character Xxxxxx( mother of Attakathi Dinesh's character). The way the lady expresses her anguish balancing her self-respect & mental agony is indicative of the strength a woman yields within herself. Kabali's wife & daughter are obviously strong. Also unlike other usual movies, Pa.Ranjith's characterisation of female roles portray women's strength, economic contribution, and more importantly a very loud voice as an indicator of their suppressed power perhaps. Particularly in this movie , the role of Fathima & Meena as the main pillars of a rehabilitation centre cum school warrants appreciation understanding the nuances in it.
      I, myself, is a patron of promising fair-skin-products, sun-screen-filters etc because mainstream media & casual social interaction imbibes within me the belief "All that is Fair is lovely, & only Fair is Handsome." Thus I might have gone convinced when Thaliivaru is usually painted in 'White' to give a fairy make over for him. But presenting him without such extra-alagu elements & even having a scene portraying the female lead to be attracted mainly to the black skin of Kabali shall give a sense of associativity to many of us & painlessly questions the basic notion "Black skin is not that appealing." I have seen people evaluate bridal pairs as follows:
" Beautiful bride for an unmatching Karrruppppuuuu groom; Bride looks pretty & homely (latchanamaa is the exact Tamil word usage I have heard then) despite being black. "
      I have a natural affinity towards looking for unique cultural elements portrayed through movies viz the local slang, domestic cuisines etc. I did observe the repeated usage of the word PONNI(I think so) in this movie. I think it might be used to express anything in its superlative degree among Malaysian Tamils. Dialogues like PONNI taste, PONNIIII Azhagu etc were present . Similarly there were local words referring to drugs,weapons etc (Katti Maathrathu,sarakku in Malaysia (vs) Tamilnadu). CHADAIYAN was used to refer to Chinese it seems. It might very well come along with all prejudices associated with such usage , as we could see in the case of referring to South Indians as Madrasis, North Indians as Saettu etc. The common social outlook about a Madrasi is that he is black skinned, nationally non-integrative, enimical to Hindi, speaks a very very difficult language Tamil. Also as a token of respect Tamils use the suffix "R" while "N" is usually a denigrating reference. Eg: The names of all castes in Tamilnadu's official records were corrected like BrahmanaR, MukkuvaR, VannaaR, VellaalaR from the previously apparent demeaning references like "BrahmanaN, MukkuvaN, VannaaN". So ChadaiyaN may have in itself similar prejudices ,I guess. Any attempts at correcting such racial prejudices could be tried through Cinema , not just capturing it in its reality.
      Having captured the life of people from North Chennai as realistically as possible including their interests in Hip-Hop, foot ball, actual MADRAS slang etc the natural next level progress for Pa.Ranjith was to initiate some debates about the problems people belonging to socially backward & marginalised classes face. Although many social groups have had their lives captured in mainstream cinema through a variety of movies, the screen space provided for people belonging to further lower social strata was very limited & Pa.Ranjith has filled such vacuum with his movies so far. To quote a scene from the movie Kabali, if we closely observe the facial reaction of Yogi(Kabali's daugther) when she meets a person claiming to be coming from MADRAS and juxtapose it with her reaction when the same person helps securing her family, the guilt within her was expressed subtly. The power of visual media is that it does not require dialogues all the time to convey emotions. Visuals suffice. Such skin based, face focused, slang determined prejudices we have for our fellow beings are covertly dealt with in this movie.
     In an era of globalization & urban centric economic development, it becomes very mandatory for every social group to live in comity with fellow groups, tolerant to & accomodative of various cultural practices. That certainly requires basic understanding of each others cultural space & to act accordingly. Cinema could help in achieving this however without providing any space for honouring repressive social practices & without pitting different social groups against each other.