Dasavatharam or an overdose of Kamal

The most irritating thing about Dasavatharam was seeing Kamal Hassan in every frame. It being his magnum opus film in no way justifies the fact that the whole film is Kamal, Kamal and nothing but Kamal.

The irritating things about the movie:

Kamal‘s ego. The scene in which social activist Vincent Poovaraghan replies, “Yes. I am a world-class actor” to the villain’s “Who do you think you are? Are you a world actor?” is too irritating for words. K S Ravikumar films have the trademark of K S Ravikumar appearing in at least one shot. But K S Ravikumar crooning about Kamal in the last song Ulaga Nayagane….”You have to be a UN member…You have to get an Oscar award…You have acted in thousands of roles….You are a world actor, world actor, ” Shucks! And K S Ravikumar trying to dance with scantily-clad girls! Too ignominious!
Missing links. Where did Kamal get his cellphone? How did the villains get the number and call Kamal in that scene when Kamal is standing in front of the police station? And containing a bio-weapon with plain NaCl or common salt is plain stupid for a movie that’s trying to be scientific (but fails nevertheless)? And how does a scientist (Govind), who spent most of his adult years creating a bio-weapon for the US so that it can kill millions of Innocent civilians, suddenly develop a conscience and want to save people in India (which he left for a well-paying job in the US)? And many people feel the US itself is a terrorist nation, so why protest the sale of the bio-weapon to a terrorist nation? As if the US is spending billions of dollars on bio-weapons for peaceful purposes.
Pathetic make-up. Kamal is a great actor and without any make-up in Michael Madana KamaRajan we were able to differentiate between the four Kamals. Here the make-up artist didn’t too a good job (Try watching Nutty Professor, you can’t recognise Eddie Murphy in any of the five characters). The faces looked artificial and kind of mummified.
Manmohan Singh, George Bush & Karunanidhi on the same stage? I don’t think so! Donning the role of George Bush and trying to outdo Sivaji Ganesan’s Navarathiri was such an immature attempt at the Oscars. I think Kamal would be better off, if he followed Aamir Khan’s non-special effects style.
Ten roles & a haywire script. Kamal had decided he’d do 10 roles. He decided he’d play a Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Sikh, Muslim & atheist. He also decided he’d be a tall guy and a short, old lady. So the script is just plain confusion, with the director and script writer trying to fit in all of Kamal egomanical demands.
Too many issues. Kamal Hassan tried to talk about bio-warfare, globalisation, imperialism, terrorism, Shivites vs Vaishnavites, religion, the butterfly effect, chaos theory, discrimination against Dalits, caste feelings, lethargic functioning of the bureaucracy, sycophant government officials, corruption in the govt ranks, the tsunami, ….its just too much packed in three hours.
The Indian anthem being played when Govind lands in India with the bio-weapon. Why the national anthem? When nothing in the film has anything remotely to do with patriotism.
Hiroshima, Nagasaki vs Pearl Harbour. Its so stupid when Christian Fletcher tells Shingen Narahashi “Remember Hiroshima, Nagasaki?” and he retorts with “Remember Pearl Harbour?”. Its so stupid and doesn’t make sense.

What I did like about the movie despite all this, was the subtle criticism he dared make about the present system:

• He says that both God and science betrayed human beings during the tsunami. In his own words in the last scene, “I didn’t say I don’t believe in God. I only said it will be nice if there was one” (Meaning that God is not there. Why quibble about it?). And that the stone (Vishnu statue) is just powerless. As it didn’t save Vishnu followers (including, the skeletal Ranagaraja Nambi) and got cast up on the beach due to the tsunami not its own powers.
• He says that people have always killed and got killed in the name of the God in India. Even before Christianity or Islam made its entry to India, people were killing each over communal riots.in this case Shivites vs Vaishnavites.
• When he’s protesting the sale of “bio-weapons to venture capitalists,” his boss tells him not act like a unionist. I liked how he showed that industrialists try to buy off people with unionist tendencies; when his boss tells Govind he will be paid hundred thousand dollars to go with the tide; and when Vincent’s men are bought off by the sand-mining industrialists here.
• When he hugs the sanitary workers (most probably Dalits) and the sanitary workers are surprised that he’s touching them.
• When the old, mad woman hugs the dead Vincent and they tell her not to touch him because he’s from another caste. But the old woman rejects what he says, leaving us with the question who is really mad? The old woman who embraces a stranger as her son or the Hindu fundamentalist, who thinks touching someone from another caste is sinful?
• when he shows the rampant sand mining taking place on the Palar river bed. He has imitated real-life activists in portraying the anti-sand mining group
• when he shows the blind faith and prejudices people have due to religion
• when he makes a hit at Vaiko and Vijaykanth. In the interrogation scene, Balram Naidu questions Govind’s loyalty towards promoting the Tamil language, to which Kamal replies “Telegu people (Vaiko/Vijaykanath) like you will promote the language for their own benefit.”
• when he criticises Jayendra Saraswathi. When Balram Naidu wants to interrogate people in the Hindu religious mutt, he asks “Are there not criminals in mutt?” (A hit at the recent murder case in which the acharya was arrested and many brahmins protested the move)
• when Kalif’s dad tells the govt officers not to think “every Muslim is a terrorist”. Kamal of course phrases it in his roundabout way as “don’t think everyone who prays to Mecca is a terrorist.” I feel there’s too much of branding going on. Just because the US govt, UK and other European countries didn’t like Communists; Communists were bad and terrorists. Now the new villains are Muslims. Because the US would love to occupy the oil-rich lands of the Middle-East, the natives or Muslims become evil and terrorists. Even the BJP and RSS get votes using the same platform that “Hindu Rajaya must be born, after killing all the Muslim terrorists in India.” In Gujarat, I guess the Modi govt was partially successful, but it was interesting to note the subtle criticism the film makes of the Gujarat riots and the more than 2,000 Muslims killed in the riots.

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Sangh Parivar spews hate on feminists, atheists

Since, I’m both of the above, I was curious to click on this link on google, while checking out Vasanthi Sankaranarayan’s translation of Retelling of the Ramayana.

Apparently, someone had written something on Sita and the Sangh Parivar had to retaliate.

The Jaina and Buddhist hypocrisy is picked up by the selective scholars, researchers, bloggers etc.,
under the guise of feminism, women lib etc., throwing venom on “Sita”. Really, it is not known why she has been targeted for more than 2500 years, or 3500 years according to different estimates.

I thought feminists were influenced by Virginia Woolf, Mary Wollstonecraft and the likes, but apparently we are influenced by Jains and Buddhists. The same site also states quite definitely that the Ramayana belongs to Treta Yuga and is dated as far back as 880,000 years in the past. Now how did Rama’s wife Sita get herself suddenly transported to 500 or 1,500 BC?

That such importance given to her, however shows her established status of chastity, ideal womanhood and model wife. It is unfortunate that only “Sita” is targeted – Why? Nowadays, certain women are coming out as “feminists”, but exhibiting perplexing characteristics, dispositions and expressions.

Well, patriarchy loves the three words – chastity, ideal womanhood and model wife and feminism has a lot of problem with the suppression, control and suspicion that ensures that women remain chaste, ideal and model wives. And I wonder what strange perplexing characteristics did the feminists he knew exhibit? Did they grow four heads and eight hands and attain feminine divinity?

They have also accused historian Romilla Thapar of falling for this Ramayana-bashing syndrome.

Recently, Paula Richman(editor)’s “Many Ramayanas” has been discussed in some forums, just to tarnish the image of Ramayana. Whenever Ramayana becomes popular, anti-Ramaya campaign would be triggered to counter it. It has to be pointed out that a woman-historian of stature – Romila Thapar has not been exception to this syndrome. This time, it was Karunamnidhi who initiated such activation through his famous questions of “Who is Rama? In which Engineering college he studied? And so on! Romila came out this time also, but only support Karunanidhi ideologically burying all her historical knowledge and expertise

Now if she had the xerox copy of Rama’s engineering college degree or his birth certificate, she wouldn’t have had her academic credentials questioned. And I know its hard to abuse someone coherently when ur angry, but the least they could have done was getting Karunanidhi’s name right.

But the Sangh Parivar does get some things absolutely right. The snide remarks about how our politicians have many binamies to enjoy their aggregated wealth hit the right chord with me. They seem to have taken pretty good pot-shots at the DMK, though they refer to it as the DK (must be a hangover from the last history class they attended in school).

The DK has tried its best, but it failed, because, their own leaders have only “exhibited the character” of “Ravana”. They have / had more than one wife one many wives with or without concubines. So not only Sita, Surpanaka, Mandodhari and other Ramayana or other women had / have to be afraid of them. And ironically, none of the wives or women of Black Parivar want their husbands or would-be’s to be “Ravanas”.

The article goes on to talk about how immoral feminists must feel inferior when thinking about someone as pure as Sita

Psychologically, their inferiority complex works opposite with superiority complex. They have only one agenda – attack, abuse or even blaspheme Ramayana, you get attention of all easily. But, they may or may not realize its seriousness. It is just like calling one’s own mother a prostitute (Though I am very sorry to use such expression, as otherwise, people understand only such language in some cases)

As to why feminists are so bad. They say, its because of

a) Love failure at school, college or neighbourhood levels

b) Pre-marital experiences from touching to sex levels affecting them psychologically after marriage or during intercourse with present husband

Note the word present. Its supposed to mean feminists will naturally have many husbands and they – the family moralists, are talking about the plight of the current one

c) Divorce, second marriage with children with indifference of the second husband

If the husband was indifferent, how did they get the kids in the first place? Our guru of Indian traditions and morality explains…

d) Divorce, second marriage without children, but husband living

e)Inter-caste marriage, clash of thinking, culture, etc

This is really disgusting. What do they mean? That all people are not equal? That some people have blue blood, others have red and yellow-coloured blood in their veins? How snobbish, castiest and disgusting!

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