Neelathamara, a Malayalam movie…

Today I almost had a day off. Picked up a pint and came back home to my village, after having a couple, I decided that I will make a visit to the local cinema. Taking a big detour reached the movie hall, the movie running was Neelathamara meaning Blue Lotus. It was touted to be a masterpiece of work by the best minds in the Malayalam cinema, but except for the music I could not appreciate anything in the movie. And of course, the lead actress was very seductive in a very rural way.

The movie revolves around a very small family, which itself is a rarity for that period; a village pond; a temple adjacent to the pond; a servant girl; a seemingly mad seer; a paralyzed classical singer whose voice is heard throughout the movie, but the person is never shown in the movie; a unmarried beautiful maid, due to a skewed horoscope; and an aspiring lawyer.

A girl comes as a replacement to the household maid, the house itself is a huge one and the only inhabitant is an ageless old lady, who never seems to age till the end of movie that means a period of at least 25 years. After the initiation to the household and a period of lull the aspiring lawyer comes home for a vacation and immediately he takes a fancy for this maid, like a rabid dog. He goes around trying to seduce her in a pretentiously sophisticated way, the girl had done some background check on this guy while cleaning the room and she has high regards towards to this guy. The usual sickening Indian way of seduction goes on for some time that is when the village deity or guarding spirit comes in. It is a belief that if someone in prays to the deity with all their heart and gives a bribe, a blue lotus would pop up in the pond.

The girl is in a confused state and prays to deity to or not to fall to this creep’s seduction and the lotus pops up the next day. And they both end up in the bed later in the evening.

Again the deity is bribed and the aspiring lawyer passes his exams with distinction and goes off to the town to work as a lawyer in some firm. In the meanwhile some godfather who had provided the board and tuition for this creep comes over to the village and offers his sophisticated daughter in marriage to this creep. And it is decided they would get married at the earliest and the marriage happens with the maid in absolute distress, but goes about with composure and maintaining her poise and status.

The sickening first night concept is shown and the life goes on in a languid pace. That is when the new bride decides to give the maid some of her discarded clothes and does not find her in her usual places. She goes to the room and finds all the signs of an affair in the belongings of this poor maid girl and confronts her husband and in the usual Indian way the wife gets beaten up and then it is decided that the maid has to leave the household.

The next day a body floats in the pond and it is thought the maid has committed suicide, but it was that girl with the skewed horoscope who had committed suicide because she could not take it any longer being a maiden so long. The girl leaves the household in a sort of disgraced way and with her long coveting relative (another sickening Indian way of relations).

By the way this is all a flashback as we call it here in our films. The movie starts with a video journalist making a documentary on the village and the way of life here who happens to be the daughter of the creep and the wife is now remarried after the death of the creep due to brain tumor and the maid comes to visit the household as the ageless old lady is supposed to be in her last stage.

I could conclude two things from this entire crap, that if two women have shared a man and they know that fact, they develop a special sort of bond and creeps exist in every place and take advantage of innocent girls (or maids) and later dump them.

I am sure M.T. Vasudevan Nair who has seen a lot in his lifetime and knew about the prevailing caste system has really taken advantage of these happenings and has taken advantage of these facts and with the gift of his whatever education has come up with these short stories. He can never hold a candle to Somerset Maugham, Oscar Wilde, Anton Chekov, Balzac or many other original writers who have ridiculed the humankind, but still made an effort to uplift the humankind with human feelings with simple and practical thoughts, not with some supernatural deities and superstitions.

There was something amiss, the incandescent bulbs in the movie seemed to burn very brightly, where at that time in period we could only see the filament.

Shivarathri Celebrations in our village…

Shivarathri Celebrations in our village…

This was the first time that I have witnessed the Shivarathri celebration in our village. It was a truly a beautiful experience. It surely had to do with the low scale and the simplicity of the function.

A procession of the Nataraja idol on a kid elephant was taken out and going all around the main roads of the village. The procession reached the temple at around 6:30 p.m. and after the usual circumambulation of the temple with the Panchavadaym, the idol was taken inside and all the lamps around the temple were lit by the kids and the women folk and the Deeparadana was shown. A retired Air Force Master Warrant Officer and I witnessed the entire proceedings. I later on took the rt. Officer back to his house and came home to have dinner and a couple of drinks.

The last of the celebrations was the Thayambaka (Keralite Percussion). I had to almost run about a kilometre to witness this assemble, as the show had started, and it was worth the run. The lead artist is my neighbour Mr. Chandran. The setting was just perfect to the last word. The temple is in the midst of rubber trees, banyan trees and open fields. The entire orchestra consisted of about six people and they rocked, and I was exhilarated.

I think it was a perfect way to end the day, by watching a live performance. I will never forget that evening and hope to witness more and more of such exuberant and simple festivities in the future. There were about 25 to 30 people in the audience and someone commented about the better audience this time around and he seemed to be happy about it. I think it is a sign of better times to come.