Winged Fantasy

What would it feel like to fly? To just spread my wings and take off? Soar high above and beyond the misty clouds. Breeze turning into wind, wind turning into lungful gushes of air. Closer to the stars and farther away from insanity. How would it be to literally have a bird’s eye view of things? Look at the bigger picture and realise how small I am in this magnanimous cosmos, how insignificant my constant bickering is in the larger scheme of things. Wish in one look I could absorb the image of the entire universe and be mesmerized for life! That would make me value what I have. Life is beautiful, magical in every single way. I want to awaken my senses and become aware of this power. I want to glide – far and away – taking in every scenic image, every wonder of nature through every pore of my anatomy. To float in air as we sometimes float in water – ah bliss! And then I find my winged companions all flying by, greeting with a nod at the mutual knowledge of the bliss and liberation in flying ! Sigh, how I wish, how I wish I could fly!!!

Har Har Mahadev!!

One movie that has, in the recent past, definitely impacted me is Naan Kadavul (I am God). Being a Punjabi, it was quite a challenge following the language completely but thanks to my best friend – cum – tamil translator I managed to grasp what the director, Bala, was trying to convey.
Arya plays the role of an Aghori. Coincidentally I read about Aghoris recently in a book – Keep off the grass by Karan Bajaj (good book by the way, grab a copy if you can). There is a small mention of them wherein the protagonist bumps into one on the ghats of Benares. He strikes up a conversation with an Aghori, out of curiosity, after seeing him walk up from behind a funeral pyre. He runs for his life when the Aghori tells him that he and his clan eat human flesh, only dead bodies though. It is their way of thanking and celebrating God’s greatest creation!
So, keeping this context in mind, I was watching the movie intently. It links Arya and a group of beggars who have been mercilessly pushed into this ghastly trade by a devious money-minter who is a sanctimonious humbug. The movie depicts a very dark, gory but possibly very true state of the beggars in India who are mostly handicapped. Now, some are born as such and some are turned into one by beasts who earn through their misery.
In my opinion, this is more impactful than the slumdog version. Anyway, so coming back. The movie traverses through the trials and tribulations of these street urchins / beggars who are a closely knit group and despite the pathetic conditions dare to bear a smile and have a cutting sense of wit & humor.
But their lives only get from bad to worse and the movie reaches the climax when the female lead (Pooja, definitely at par with Arya’s excellence!) is about to get sucked into the viscious vortex of prostitution, despite being blind. The bad guys chasing the damsel in distress find themselves pitted against Arya, the aghori, who has the power to sense the evil aura in humans and as a true aghori believes that he has the right to wipe off their existence from the face of earth. He eats one guy up after beating him into a pulp and brutally murders the other by banging his head on a huge rock.
You would think that this would be the end and the beggars lived happily ever after. But no. This is what makes the movie so weirdly interesting. Pooja has been tortured and her spirit broken beyond repair. She heart-wrenchingly pleads Arya to relieve her of all this pain and suffering. Killing the villains won’t solve her problems as soon there’ll be new faces but the story would remain the same. One more power the Aghoris are believed to possess is that they can bring eternal salvation to any human being. A person that dies through them would be relieved of the cycle of life and death. And hence, Arya steps up and slits Pooja’s throat, granting her liberation. And the movie ends there..with Arya walking on sand, with the same eerie madness in his eyes, detached from the world. Strange and yet so likeable.