Thursday 22 March 2012

Randamoozham - The Second Turn


After completing the master piece novel 'Randamoozham' (means second turn) by M.T. Vasudevan Nair, my  thoughts were more in the lines as of  Dostoyevsky’s Raskolnikov. M.T, the historian-detective, scourges unseen and overlooked silences from the antediluvian pages of history and absorbs it with the magnifying lens of his sheer imaginative genius.

'Randamoozham' with its portrayal of the divine and superhuman casts as mere mortals and human is such a noteworthy and appreciated work that it is considered by many as the abridged version of the original.  After the epics of  ‘Vaishali’, ‘Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha’, ‘Perumthachan’, 'Parinayam' and ‘Pazhassi Raja’, every malayali is eagerly waiting for the release of the movie version of his magnum opus ‘Randamoozham’. The fact that Lalettan is back with the elite combination of M.T- Hariharan duo after a long gap of 25 years makes the wait worthwhile. Hopefully it will be better than 'Pazhassi Raja'. The portrayal of the title character in that movie, to me was pathetic. The lion of Kerala seemed to be pathetic and loosing courage and smelled of cowardice at some point. The solo heroic fights against an entire British troops were avoidable too. He would still be every bit of lion he was, by commanding tribal troops from the front.

It was not very long before that I had an argument with my friends during tea-time about the Bollywood movie ‘Ashoka’. It is neither an interpretation nor a work on the hidden / forgotten / corroded facts of history. It is creating history. A fantasy. A fantasy on real historic persons and incidents does not even qualify to fall in to the category 'fantasy'. Do we need to change our history? We are proud and blessed to have the best in the universe. I would have had no problem at all if the movie was not based on the great emperor Ashoka and had used other names.

But in whom should we vest the powers of rewriting history? To take the 'second-turn' to history? Not everyone! Though the right to free thinking is still for everyone. It has to be some one who can convincingly and modestly enhance upon the unforetold stories while the canvas is tightly pinned on the four sides with the available rigid framework. It has to be such a person can find his way to vantage point up the vertiginous climb. His work can be considered creative and earns tolerance on the merits of its artistic genuineness. Such a work that is passionately researched will be enlightening, it has to be  and has to come from an entrusted brain of high literary caliber.

Even if its my ingrained prejudice, as my friends ascribed to, that made me reason it like this or is it something else, I find myself in Raskolnikov's shoes right now. I am curious to know under which classification will I find Amish Tripathi's Shiva trilogy when I take it up this weekend.

(P.S., Raskolnikov’s theory goes as follows. All men are divided into two categories. 'Ordinary' and 'extraordinary'. While the 'extraordinary' man has the right to commit any crime and to transgress the law in any way, the 'ordinary' man has to live in submission and has no right to transgress the law)

Tuesday 20 March 2012

For Whom the Bell Tolls


If you ask me if it is the essay 'A Hanging' or the malayalam movie 'Sadayam' that gave me the nightmare, I will draw a blank. I chanced upon the Orwell essay while the imprints made by 'Sadayam' were still fresh. I am set to ring up the curtain on the nightmare. 

Protagonist        : Myself 
Location            : Death cell, Central Jail (It has to be the Poojappura Central jail. The watch tower and the cells there are so familiar to the Malayalees) 
Scene                   : The night before hanging 
Genre                  : Tragedy (Terrible) 
Running time    : One full wretched night 
Intervals            : 4 (the worst part) 

The camera zooms out to of my dilated, fear-filled and hopeless eyes, through the prison bars to incorporate my complete profile with both hands clenched to the iron rods. Slowly. Gradually. Now, don't ask me trivial questions like what crime did I commit to end up in that hell? Or was there thunder, lightening and torrential rains outside? What moon was it? I did not care to notice anything in the background. It was all immaterial.Just the big picture (Was doing it in an Ed Wood-ian style). I was to be hanged the next morning. All I could hear was the grandpa clock ticking and the footstep of the jailor who never came in front of the virtual camera. The fear, the helplessness, the loneliness, the shivers. How I wished I had not forgotten to offer the bed time prayers to Anjaneeyar Swamy! I don't know whether it was Maruthi's tail or the ever nearing foot steps of the jailor that woke me up, but I was happy to be awake. 

I felt it normal to feel the urge to micturate, partly from the dreadful nightmare and partly because it was well into the night. Things did not change even after that. I was unusually tired that day. The night mare extended itself as it was the continuation of the reel being played before the interval. Woke up again with a gaped mouth, confused if I sobbed or was it just in the dream. I decided to take a leak, partly due to fear, and partly to cut myself loose. This taking a whizz business continued even when I was left with no more penny to spend on. Now, back to the dream. In the condemned cell I was praying sincerely and with full submission, how sorry I was to squander this grandiloquent life; how I would have made the things right if... only if... I had a chance to make it simple and plain again; how much I missed my family; helpless of letting them know how much I loved them... All of a sudden I seemed to realize what I needed out of this life. I felt I understood myself well. I could feel the tears drying up in my cheeks at that instant. 

I slept well after that, though it was early morning. If you expected me to follow a sincere and pious life from all the 'awakening' I had, I am sorry to disappoint you. It was just the excitation I had from realizing and feeling what Sathyanathan of 'Sadayam' would have - on a first person account. Even that excitation attenuated after dialing a good friend of mine, who felt so much for that character and even inspired me to watch it over again. "Buddy! I feel I understand that character better than you now". It is time to ring the curtain down with this egoistic, nescient and incongruous close.