Meiyyazhagan review - A deeply moving character driven drama

Imagine a scenario where you are living in the city, away from your native place like the millions of Indians in the metro cities. You are attached to and have fond memories and attachments to your childhood home. What if you had to sell it out of necessity? The very fact that you had to leave was a very traumatic experience for you. You might be afraid of going back because you don’t want to reexperience those traumatic memories.

This is the internal conflict that Arulmozhi Varman (Arvind Swami’s Character) is facing in the movie. If you remember the director Premkumar’s 96, it was also a character driven drama with not much importance to the plot. It flows through the memories, conflicts and growth of the characters. Meiyyazhagan is similar in that vein. The main 2 characters, Arulmozhi Varman and Meiyyazhagan is extremely well fleshed out. The journey through their backstories, their conflicts, relationships and growth is shown with so much care that I found myself teary-eyed at multiple points in the movie. The dilemma one feels when another person knows you and you don’t remember them when you go back to your native place can sometimes become extremely awkward especially if you care about not hurting the feelings of the other person. The visual detailing of these conflicts makes this movie extremely relatable and emotionally impactful.

Premkumar also does not shy away from weaving in his political perspectives through Meiyyazhagan’s character. The conversations between the two characters include the need for protecting one’s culture and history. The point about avoidance of south Indian history in Indian school textbooks deeply resonated with me. Meiyyazhagan’s backstory also shows how political decisions affect the common man. I didn’t find the political subplots distracting as it moves smoothly through the conversations and backstories of characters. These conversations also deepen the bond between the characters which justifies the conflict faced by Arulmozhi Varman.

Now this is not a movie for lovers of fast paced action movies. The deliberate slow paced narrative can be off-putting for those audiences. I didn’t find the movie too slow as I had already prepared myself to watch a deeply moving character driven drama. I recommend doing that yourself so that you have a highly rewarding experience.

Terrorism Simplified

Terrorism Simplified

Terrorism has nothing to do with mental health as some seem to indicate on social media. It’s basically a type of new age guerrilla warfare. Religious Extremism is basically a learned set of belief systems which is in turn an extremely conservative version of conventional religion. These type of radical conservative elements exist in all religions (cult christian militias in the southern US is an example). The argument that Islam is a violent is unacceptable as the term Islamic terrorism was unheard of before second world war. Let me explain. These are some of the wars going on in the world right now:

      

1. Taliban & Al Qaeda backed forces Vs Pak Army backed by US in Pakistan                  (164 children killed in a school in Pakistan a few months was an ARMY school)      
2. Isreali Jews Vs Palestinian Muslims (1 sided affair, I know)
3. Shia Muslims backed by Iran Vs Sunni Muslims backed by Saudi Arabia in Yemen
4. ISIS (Sunni Muslim extremists) Vs Shia Muslims (and also other religious groups)  in Iraq
5.  ISIS vs Shia Muslims (president Bashar Al Assad is a Shia Muslim) in Syria
6. Muslim extremists Vs other religions in Africa
7. Pakistan backed Sunni extremist Muslims Vs India                                                       (majority of 15 crore Muslims in India do NOT have extremist views and  have no intention of  supporting or going to that hell hole created by Americans and Pak army)
8. Shia Muslims vs Sunni Muslims in Pakistan
9. Sunni muslim extremists Vs US and Allies (This seems like more of a cultural warfare due to the fact that western culture is more liberal as against conservative culture of Muslims especially the extremist)

The Players

Shia Muslims are a sect of Muslims who follow the teachings of Prophet Ali instead of Prophet Mohammed (followed by Sunni Muslims) and are not supported by Sunni Muslims. Iran is the only Shia majority country and usually backs Shia groups in these wars.

Iran is in turn backed by Russia, China and its allies and the US & allies usually backs sunni groups even though extremist groups like al-Qaida, ISIS Taliban etc are at war with US. It’s a lot more complicated mess there because of the cultural factors I mentioned above. So in short it’s a complicated tripartite war which can be simplified as

1.  Sunni Muslim extremists  Vs Shia Muslims
2.  Sunni Muslim extremists Vs western liberal culture (US and Allies)
3.  Sunni Muslims Vs Jews (Palestinians are not extremists at least not in my view).        
4.  Sunni Muslim Extremists Vs other religions

Factors behind Extremism

There are 2 factors which propagate Muslim religious extremism in the world. They are:

 American Myopia

      The Americans educated (more like brainwashed) poverty stricken Muslims in various parts of the world into believing a radical extremist form of Islam so as to use them against the Soviet Union (as communists were atheists) during the Cold War. As the Soviet Union disintegrated and became a non threat, these extremist Muslims trained their guns against their masters, the Americans. This is due to the fact that the western culture is mostly liberal and Muslim extremism is extremely conservative. The Muslim extremist viewed this as threat to their lifestyle and existence.

 Saudi conservatism

      Saudi Arabia which is the Epicenter of Islam still follows Wahabism an ultraconservative radical form of Islam even though it is an ally to the US. This indirectly gives support and confidence to the extremists and therefore uses violence to propagate this form of Islam. It should be specially noted that majority of Muslims in most of the other countries do not follow this form of Islam.

I know this might seem to be a simplistic account of a complicated issue but that’s exactly what it is supposed to be.

Final word: Let Humanity be your community and let love and peace be your belief.

NH 10 review: A movie that should be made and seen

For the past few days since ‪India‬'s daughter released there was a lot of debate whether people should watch it and whether it will help uncover the mindset behind that brutal act. While I found myself oscillating between both sides of perspective, I happen to watch a movie called NH10. Its about an urban couple, while on a road trip happens to watch an honour killing on NH10 with a nearby village ruled by khap panchayat.

         Throughout this edge of the seat thriller where the couple is terrorized by the gang, the director tries bring out the stark contrast between urban and rural India and its attitude towards women. The entire movie has a sense of doom to it as if you are watching a horror movie except the situations are realistic and so are the characters. it has all the elements of slasher-thriller to it a la films like eden lake, Hills have eyes etc. But what makes this one different is that the director has deftly embedded into its soul, critiques on rural India's misogynistic attitude towards women.

         

         Though adeptly scripted and directed, this film has its share of flaws. After giving us a sense that this film is realistic, the director does expect us  suspend our disbelief. For example people will run only through roads in which trucks can pass through so that they can conveniently get injured or killed. But for the most part the makers of NH10 have given us an immersive and thrilling experience with its usual twists and turns. The only time you flinch are at the time of those horrific scenes where the women are slapped, hit and bludgeoned with an iron rod. This film is not for the faint hearted, mind you.  If you are looking for a nice romantic outing with your spouse, look for something else  


              NH10 is, on the whole, a must watch for those who want to experience the environment where people like Mukesh Singh are born. Kudos to Navdeep Singh for his brilliant attempt at bringing those routine newspaper articles to life while at the same time never letting you become bored with any cliched "heropanti" or "dialoguebaazi". Acting is top notch from Anushka Sharma and rest of the cast even though a good actor like Niel Bhoopalam is wasted in a badly written role. Apart from the fact that this film will negatively impact Haryana tourism (Nobody will venture into rural haryana for a while after watching this film, trust me), this is a film that should be made and seen in spite of the fact that it may not run in packed houses collecting "100 crores"