Of One Rural Beauty, the People's President

I dislike crying. It leaves me with a headache and immense regret at wallowing in self-pity-- two more things that I dislike. But to cry for another's pain, another's loss, another's struggle is something else. It lends empathy the ammunition of courage and strength not just to climb personal mountains, but to move them.

Joker made me cry, in the theatre, unabashedly, and I was but a thin shell of shame away from cracking up and bawling out loud. It is about the story of Mannar Mannan (literally meaning Ruler of Rulers) and his comrades (Ponoonjal and Isai) being small-town activists tackling pan-Indian problems head on. Through a variety of protest techniques (and immensely clever word play) they try to catch the eye of the government, its officials and civilians alike to take up a range of issues. But who's watching? An amused audience on Facebook and media-persons for their fillers mostly.

In a single moment, it was easy to trace all the stories that flood our papers and how a compromise fails us in protecting our citizenry again and again. A rare few have the audacity to take on the government like Isai, President and Ponoonjal. That audacity must translate more than clicking "likes".

Nonetheless it takes guts and immense courage to walk into the police station, get hauled into prisons and time and again meet with failures at courts, dust your backs and get back to protesting against corruption, sexual abuse, alcoholism, illegal mining and you-name-what. I know that because I've marched up to police stations and magistrates and collectorates in the past. I've never seen the insides of a jail, a courtroom or a detention room; never been at the receiving end of riot control or mild/intense police brutalities. Yet, it was intimidating to walk unarmed when one can predict the possibility of legalised violence against themselves. And I am sure most of us have not experienced this kind of physical brutality. But we are all victims of the brutalities and inefficiencies of the system in many other ways.

Our roads cave in, our buses catch fire on their own, our women are not safe on the roads, our students do not get affordable, quality education and our systems leak. Like the bucket of water a character in the movie carries with him to use a dirty, stinking public toilet. The water is needed to wash. But the bucket has multiple holes and is leaking already. How will the toilet ever be clean?

Some of us remain silent about the things that affect us, that sap the living spirit in us, that corner us and abuse us and others around us. Not everybody though. Some scream until they are hoarse, fight until their bones give up and then some more. It should pinch the first set of us when we think about the second set and the causes that they represent. It should pinch us when we violate traffic rules, that somebody else is dying because of the same somewhere else. It should pinch us when we waste fresh, clean water from our taps, that others get flouride and arsenic from their taps and others don't even have taps. It should pinch us that we let food rot when leakages in the PDS ensure that children die hungry and malnourised even in 2016. Black money, tax evasion, corruption in contracts, settling for poor quality in our health and education systems, pending reforms of the police, legislatures and judiciary... every single thing should pinch us.

Until we are personally affected, it never pinches us. Does it? With Time providing an inescapable illusion of healing, we forget even those personal losses and victimisation. How then can I fight for somebody else? Who grants us the power to change and effect change in the world around ourselves? Mannan becomes the catalyst himself. Taking after the narrations of an influencer in his life (who affectionately motivated him as the Rural Beauty), he annoints himself as the President. To execute orders, to implement reforms, to campaign and work for the people. He will now be known as Janathipathi or the President.

It is evocative because of the personal transformation in Mannan. In a particularly well-built-up scene, Mannan finds himself trapped, by different tiers of the Executive, in his own house, fighting to save parts of himself and his life, even as the *real* Head of the Union heralds a new beginning for the village folk. It is gut wrenching in its irony. Mannan's fight then is powerless and he is helpless in his desperation-- a struggle all too real. You want him to do something radical and break free because by then you realise that it is no longer about Mannan, his house, his fight...

That realisation and the simmering feeling to set things right, as they should be, have a name-- idealism. We have many kinds of idealists around us. In a world wrecked with chaos and pessimism, they are the ones who carry a glowering hope of better days. If you see the spark in yourself or in somebody around you, your only duty is to kindle that fire. The possibility of the fire annihilating problems ablaze with power to restore things rightfully in their place might be bleak. But support those voices, we must.

Those voices stem from a place deep, deep within that is either thankfully ignorant of or tragically immune to hurt, failure, loss or shame. As the President declares, it is a voice that accompanies the protest of the body, through the Music of the Body. When the sound of poverty and the beat of birthright are rumbling in your stomach and throbbing in your veins, just let the music play. Do not stifle it. In yet another moving imagery from Joker, I appeal to you to water the rose bud, even when you see that Rose is dying. Then you watch it bloom even on the darkest of days.

The admirable and heroic thing about President, his counsel Ponoonjal and his secretary/spokesperson is that they don't know when to stop. They are persevering, forbearing, gritty, witty and indomitable as a collective. However, they started as individuals and then became a collective. It gives you and me the hope to be a better person even marginally. And if the fire's been raging for a while, I urge you to do it NOW. Want to teach under-privileged kids? Want to become a fitter, more disciplined person? Want to work on a farm? Want to clean up your society? Want to haul up your Councillor/MLA/MP? Do it now. You will find the resources. You will find your collective. You will find redemption. Whatever it is, put in the most marginal effort to become a better person everyday. If it is a cause, give it at least 2 hours of your 168 hours in a week. Do it.

At so many points in the movie I laughed until I was embarrassed; embarrassed that we had settled comfortably insensitive to the atrocities, inefficiencies and the brutalities. I wished so hard that the wells of pathos wouldn't breach and expose me to the cruel mistreatment of the system. Voices like Ponoonjal's do that to us.
'A nation of sheep begets a government of wolves.'

On a final closing note, getting to the subject-matter of Joker. We need those eccentrics, misfits, rebels and activists to question the government, the Powers-That-Be. Irrespective of whether they seek answers within the system, outside of it or discard the system altogether, we need them for a democracy to survive. As one friend so long ago put it, "we need to stay awake and keep the government awake so that we may sleep peacefully." If V for Vendetta slapped you on your face, Visaarnai left you with goosebumps, Peepli Live made you laugh and Well Done Abba forced you to think-- Joker has all those elements and more. Watch it.

The President shouldn't die. Long live the President!

(PS- I have a throbbing headache now, but my heart is lighter and aglow with hope. The pain will pass. The vulnerability, however, will find a cure only in empowerment.)

Keeravani, Fallen from the Skies

The silence of the Himalayas heavily perched on our backs, we wistfully set out into the plains again.

The crystal clear skies above the mountain tops were already becoming a distant memory.

The priceless companionship of crickets were increasingly replaced with sounds of traffic and marketplaces.

Yet the silence of the mountains, the stillness of the air and a weight upon our hearts barricaded the ripples of the outside world.

Slowly and gently we were slipping into reverie, just like the sun threatening to dip beyond the dusty fields.

Some quick glasses of lassi and one papery dosa later, we marched up to the taxi stand that would take us to the transit town in Bengal.

Throwing a glance behind us, we spotted those conifers which bristled as though they knew what lay ahead of us.

Dusty roads, cracked highways, jammed town squares and listless Bollywood songs that would put us in and out of misery at the music player's will.

The green of the tea gardens crouched beneath a layer of ridiculous brown. Dust. A brown that threatened to stay until the skies showered.

Men and women picked their way amongst these shrubs for a living. They must know the green. Or the black, dried leaves.

Leaves that would waft the aroma of the mountains, in a cup. The mountains were still and untouched by the chaos of the lower mortals.

Mortals who could pen lyrics about women being the balm to the wounded hearts of men. Listless songs for a wandering humankind.

The sun dipped. And so did our hearts, through those pothole-ridden highways, despite the fake cheer of the driver.

Stop with the Bollywood songs. The aux chord is mine now. The air (within the car) shall reverberate with some thing of greater deference to our mood.

The evening stars refuse to come out. The air is still coated in dust. The mountains are no longer in our sight.

Something needs to change. A reluctantly cheerful Coke Studio song slips along. We hum nonchalantly. Our eyes still search for something exciting in the horizon.

Time slips by, with our destination nowhere in sight. The songs line our journey one indie, one classical, one hip-hop and hardly any Bollywood.

Now the silence rests in our eyes only. The wistful smile that breaks once or twice on recognising a song on the playlist, immediately drips of a dryness that is customary after a sumptuous feast.

We had feasted on the mountains. Our stomachs were nourished with the banter of the mountainfolk. Our eyes and hearts were brimming of mountain stories.

The Himalayas would weigh upon us. Like anything.

Suddenly, a twang of the violin.

The night was completely upon us. Google maps, coded in its own bars and colours showed us that the destination was hardly an hour away.

The tea gardens had given away to a gorgeous winding valley. No colours to be noted by the eye in the dead black of the night.

No stars still, but a huge glowing moon shone behind sparse clouds that drifted by.

The violin now flirtatiously courted the bass guitar. Keys gently chaperoning their clandestine meet.

The music was lilting. The windows were down now. No dust in the air.

The car gently swerved along the curves and we moaned at the sight of river that was suddenly rushing by our road now.

The moonlight glistened on the river like silver threads on a black sheet that rippled gently. Slowly the drums picked up and a keeravani as heavenly as the night caroused the air.

Silence was everywhere. Rock'n'Roll infused with Carnatic like the glorious moon playing hide and seek behind those wispy clouds.

We were smiling. The driver was amused at the change of weather. The trees alongside the river rustled in approval.

The voice of the violin, adorned by the notes of keeravani, tangoed magically to the shy percussion. James Bond would have been proud of the sly.

Our heads were firmly sticking out of the window now. Sniffing the air of the valley. Smiling with the contentment of peaking in the plains just as well.

Crickets were back keeping pace with the jazz and Carnatic and rock and roll.

This, my friends, is how I will recount what Skyfall Keeravani means to me.

The silence of the hills, the seduction of a river by the valley and the thoroughly beaming benevolence of the moon in the company of my friends, wind grazing our faces with a candour that only wanderers have experienced. Skyfall Keeravani is that sweet piece of music to me.