सुना था मेरा खुदा तो सिर्फ मिट्टी मे ही हैं
और वो तो सिर्फ मेरा ही हैं जो इस मिट्टी मे हैं
ना जाने कितनी सदिया वो मुझे देखकर बोले,
तु मुझे युं आपनाते क्यूँ नहीं?

अनगिनत ख़यालो में डूबा हुआ मैं,
कितने ख्वाब सजाता, संवरता हुआ मैं,
हाथ मैला करने से कतराता हुआ मै
और फिर कोई भले आदमी की बुलंदी भी क्या जो मिट्टी को आपनाएं, खुदा के वास्ते ही सही?

फिर खयाल आया कि अपनी मिट्टी ही तो हैं,
जो अविरत हैं, जो अपनी हैं...
तो सो चल पड़े हम चूमने उस समंदर को रेगिस्तान के जिसने कभी आसमां नहीं छूए।

Film Review: Asuran (2019)

Film Review: Asuran (2019)

‘Asuran’ is a must watch film primarily for its realist and unexaggerated portrayal of the struggles of Dalits, the Indian ‘have nots’ and showing their oppression at the hands of the landlords and the upper castes. I watched Asuran coincidentally and I wouldn’t have watched it, had I not been in South India. I imagine the same situation for many Indian viewers like me who either get to watch Hollywood/Bollywood films or regional cinema according to their state of residence. Films in regional languages of social relevance, unlike the Marathi film ‘Sairaat’, have been mostly confined to the consumers of regional cinema. Bollywood has given a couple of films (Dhadak, Masaan) in the past few years and others dating back to 1970 and 1980's (Diksha, Ankur, Nishant, Manthan etc.) that have indeed talked about different aspects of the life of Dalits. However, they have been just a handful. As such, the caste question is an extremely sad reality, it's further appalling and equally pathetic that just a handful of films dealing with this subject are made today by an industry that boasts of huge capital investments.

Quite a few of films I mentioned above often fall under the category of ‘parallel films’ or ‘art films.’ Viewers of parallel cinema are a niche audience and somehow, the caste issue fails to grab attention among the common masses. Further, what I regret most is that none of our great celebrity stars of Bollywood see worth in doing films highlighting the caste question. Then, films dealing with caste, if any, get easily relegated to the margins of any discussions or within the confines of scholarly seminars and conferences. This lack of discussion and quasi-absence of any urge to portray, talk about and engage with a social issue of such magnitude is indeed regretful. To watch ‘Asuran’ was therefore, in itself, quite something. To talk about the film, it is interesting for not only it realistically depicts the remote interiors of our country where casteism is a way of life, but also because; it historically foregrounds this phenomenon and provides a workable solution at the end. The film thus presented an important issue of contemporary India, traced, showed its modus operandi in the early years of Indian Independence, followed it through the early years of liberalization in 1990s and finally, imagined a message for all of us to realize in the times to come.

THE PRIMARY CHASE

The chase, the running away and the kill constitute the focus points of the film. The chase as a trope acquires different meanings and therefore, occurs many times in the film. Obviously, ever since the start, we realize its significance. The film opens with what I call is a primary chase – in an overt, physical chase induced by personal vendetta, Siva Saamy (Dhanush) and his son Chidambaram (Ken Karunas) are shown running away from a gang sent by the landlords (Vadakuran, played by Pavan) to kill them. Such an attempt to escape from oppression and caste injustices is frequent as is seen from Sivas life. His struggle has two dimensions. On the one hand, a) he has to tackle the upper castes, and on the other hand, b) he needs to train his son.

Tackling the dominant castes - Siva’s resolution to the struggle with the upper castes both through dialogue and violence doesn’t seem to have worked as shown in the first part of the film. The landlords are willing to go to any extent of bloodshed and the chase in the opening scene, if successfully done, will lead to the killing of Siva, the most dreaded of the lower castes and symbolically, an eventual wiping out of those poor people who are primarily invested in tilling their lands. This revenge will also help the landlords to establish a cement factory and strengthen their existing capital and supremacy. In a context where dialogue and violence have both failed, the running away in the first scene becomes one of survival and importantly, also of creating a buffer time and space for one self to survive and tackle the deadly attack. At the end of the first part of the film, Siva Saamy resolves the chase by overpowering the gang in an action packed scene. In a twist to viewer’s expectations, however, Siva decides not to kill them. This, I think, was his predicament. Violence begets more violence and Siva wants to move away from this vicious circle. He probably wants to let his killers realize their own (mis-)deeds and the landlords’ cunning. In the meanwhile, we are shown that previously Siva’s whole clan including his fiancée and later his son too had been burnt alive. He had been at the receiving end of the bloody violence and killings by the landlords and therefore appears to have chosen the pacifist path when vengeance beckons. A temporary peace is an attempt to change the rules of the game of chase or to revert the subject positions of the chase. The prey (Siva, the hunted) strikes the gang (the hunters), paralyses their members and at a crucial moment, decides to spare their leader. By deciding what to do next, Siva alters the course of events too. All this happens at the surface level.

SECONDARY CHASES –

a. At a secondary level, the symbolism of the chase is also cleverly depicted through another chase scene – this one (secondary) between man and animal. We see early on in the film that a big swine that may ruin the crops enters the fields and Siva and his men try to kill it. Their attempt fails and the swine is able to get away. The swine can be seen as an agent of the upper castes possibly meant to provoke the poor labourers. That he survives is a strategy to show the agile and cunning operation from the landlords. What happens in the meanwhile is quite tragic. The loyal dog becomes a victim of the chase and is killed. It will be helpful to think about the way the dog dies. The dog would be alive had it not been for the electric, barbed wires or the fencing done by the adjacent fields owned by the landlords. In the worldview of the poor, lower castes, the livestock (cattle, dogs, hens, pigs, sheep, etc.) are very much a part of the Dalit life. Man and animal live in symbiotic relationship to each other. While a bark from a patrol dog can signal a forthcoming threat and invites a routine check, the electric fencing can be dangerous, even deadly without any warning. The live wire is a very masculine manifestation of ownership, a manly way of showing property. It’s like saying ‘You touch my property and I kill you.’

b. The chase of a woman, though secondary, is equally very saddening. In one scene, Siva’s fiancée is teased, heckled, beaten in public for wearing chappals. This public humiliation is also a kind of chase where one forbids the other from doing things deemed as one’s own privilege. In other words, wearing chappals becomes the exclusive right of the upper castes, not to be enjoyed by others. The right to wear chappals therefore assumes significance, socio-political and cultural, and it is for this reason that later, Siva decides to buy a chappal before entering the court. An act of wearing footwear becomes an act of defiance and also, a symbolic gesture of reducing the lag between the dominant and the lower castes. The scene about public humiliation is also very revealing as the Dalits wear chappals they have themselves made and ironically, they are deprived of their own products.

c. The revenge of the chappal scene happens deservingly but with fatal consequences – that of burning Siva’s entire village. This is another moving scene (of a successful secondary chase) where hardly anyone is able to ‘escape’ or run from the fires in their locked houses.

Transfer of skills - Having confronted with the dominant castes in various ways, Siva is shown tired of the endless violence and all he wants is the wellbeing of his family. He is shown with his son from the very beginning whom he is particularly concerned about. There are a couple of scenes that show Siva’s irritation with regard to his son’s attitudes. Chidambaram’s character is very interesting because he is shown to be sluggish, slightly careless and unmindful of his actions. His actions and attitudes are at times in sharp contrast to his father’s. If Siva is adept in running away from the gang members, Chidambaram is shown to lack vigilance while being on the run. In a way, his body language is akin to someone from the upper castes. A person from dominant caste can afford to be dis-interested in the occupation of his ancestors. By showing this trait, at times at the cost of his life, Chidambaram demonstrates his right to be different, to be disassociated from his father’s occupation. Despite being un-privileged, he does what a son of an upper caste would do. The otherwise negative qualities of being reckless, un-careful let Chidambaram do something none of his ancestors probably ever did.

Siva’s desperation to impart skills is apparent and obvious. How to keep vigil on one’s fields, how to kill a harmful animal (intruder), how to be alert while being pursued, how to physically confront stronger men, how to move around in the jungles, how to deceive one’s followers, etc are some of the skills required to sustain one’s life as a poor untouchable and Siva is keen to transfer these skills to his next generation. Interestingly, many of these skills can be identified as pertaining to hunt/chase/escape. Therefore, what Siva is essentially doing is to tell his-story and importantly, teach his son how to physically survive a chase. It thus underlines chase as an historical persecution of Dalits from the castes above them. The film shows different ways in which Siva tries to deal with the chase. At the end, he realizes the futility of violence - that he can never equal the economic, social, cultural, political and brute muscle power of his oppressors. Due to his failure to confront the upper castes through violence, in order to save his son from being killed, he tries the legal way, even surrenders his lands but that too fails. His concluding message is therefore far more consequential, relevant and deeper - to prepare his son for a longer fight for and of History in which only Truth will prevail. The fight for justice can be realized only though education and this will help his son to ‘catch up’ with the dominant castes in various spheres of life and even to historically outlive them.

On the flip side, the film seemed to lack a feminine presence. Apart from Siva’s wife (Manju Warrier), most of the characters are males and the film failed to explore the double oppression of women - victims of caste and patriarchy. The film is shot through Siva’s lens and his wife’s life doesn’t add anything significant to the narrative. While an upper caste or a landlord’s wife will be happily caring for children and cooking for the men of the family, the women of the lower castes can never afford to be just engaged in household chores. It was therefore heartening to see a seeming equality on the fields – to see Siva’s wife tilling the lands along with her sons and to see her physically confront men of higher castes. The point however remains that the film is not layered to unpack the inequities of gender.

Yercaud as a prototype of hill-station?

The journey from Karaikal to Yercaud was a journey of soft or sobering extremes; the realisation dawned on me after my visit to Yercaud, a pretty hill station near Salem, Tamil Nadu. On the hotter side of the spectrum, Karaikal is normally very humid and at times, very hot to make matters worse. To be frank, I often joke that the weather in this sleepy little district of Pondicherry changes only once, from hot to very hot, or rather from humid to extremely humid. So, within a few hours of drive, as soon as our hired car went past Virudhchalam, we felt a perceptible, good change in weather. Notwithstanding the midday sun outside and the cool breeze, heads popped out of the windows along with their smart phones and fancy cameras to capture the beautiful hills around (like the one above). If you are a first timer in these parts, it is a treat to watch the varying contours of Shevaroy Hills near Salem and the adjoining hills all along the Salem-Cuddlore national highway. As current residents of coastal region, we feel a growing affinity for plateaus and the beyond - mountains, hills and the accompanying luggage of a life suited to these conditions. Coming from the very humid Karaikal, if Salem, the main city was fresh, Yercaud was going to be cold, fortunately, not to the point of hurting, but pricking, just to a bearable extent like a needle oozing fresh blood, injecting the sublime experience of a natural, pure weed, pumping fresh air, some sane thoughts, a feeling of ethereal. 

When we reached Salem and actually started scaling the heights of Servarayan hills (Shevaroy is the anglicised name of the tamil Servarayan), we realised it’s not going to be easy battling the cold, not because it was very cold, but because the hot/humid weather of Karaikal has hardened us only to bear its own extremes. A miniscule change of weather towards the cooler side appears very sudden to us, intuitive, even recognisable and also at the same time, capable of affecting us positively- physiologically and psychologically. This change of weather and the consequent change of thoughts provoked some reflection and is something I am going to talk about in this column. I have travelled a couple of times in the Indian hilly regions – Dharamshala, Yamunotri, Shillong and Dehradoon. These travels to higher altitudes in India have invited a sense of quietude in and of the hills, a feeling of being removed from civilisation and yet, being full-with-one’s-self and of a general well being. Moreover, especially in hill stations, I have a feeling of déjà-vue because unlike the mountains untouched by the human commercial onslaught, the setup of the hill stations itself looks strikingly similar. You will find some lake, some colonial buildings that may include an old library, some charitable trust, oriental or theosophical society, a few tea/coffee plantations, a boarding school, an age-old cemetery and a few English styled houses with sloping roofs of green/pink shades and with big wooden windows of very good quality teak or sandalwood. Both these feelings – of déjà-vue and of the hindi sukoon, a general wellbeing must be interlinked, they must have some connection with each other, I thought. A possible answer to my sense of déjà-vue lies in exploring the premise that the British must have felt the same feelings of cheerfulness and gaiety, after being enamoured by the beauty of the Himalayas in the North and the Nilgiris in the South.

Hill stations as a colonial legacy

Hill stations were among one of the most important apparatus of the British Raj and the history of development of hill stations in India is intertwined with the consolidation of the British power in India. It goes hand in hand with the way the British conceptualised their living as varying according to the unaccustomed, tropical conditions. The climate, especially the heat of the Indian plains, was new to them, difficult to endure and tiring too. In contrast, the geographical location of the hills as vividly different a landscape from the Indian plains prompted the British to develop these regions keeping in mind their countryside, English tastes and choices. I imagine how the Englishmen with their families would be rushing to the hills, unable to cope up with the Indian summers. In fact, one good reason of developing hill stations was partly to find recluse, a place close to their hearts and a home in a foreign land reminiscent of all that was English. The mountains must have led them to experience a sense of rejuvenation, a mental wellbeing that I described above. Besides, the development of the hills was motivated by their private, personal interests and was partly based on hill stations serving an imperial purpose. It goes without saying that the hill stations in India came into being to cater to the official (political) and socio-cultural needs of the British functionaries in India.

The hill stations catered to a set of different functions depending upon the location, the size, the topography of the hill station and the clientele to which it served. Nora Mitchell, a geographer at University of Chicago has identified different types of hill stations depending on their roles/functions – official multifunctional, private multifunctional, single functional, satellite towns of other bigger hill stations, etc. As per such classifications, Simla, Ooty gained importance as they were the official headquarters or seats for administering the Raj from the mountains. They were to become seats of surveillance of the Raj. Many others hill stations were developed keeping in mind the personal interests of the Europeans. These eventually became famous as the summer homes of the British – a home away from home for many Europeans. Again, these places weren’t necessarily meant for official use and were to be places for relaxation and refreshment for the English cogs of the imperial machine. The official hierarchy of the British rule also meant that there were English officials of different classes, belonging to different socio-economic ranks apart from groups of missionaries, doctors, engineers, pensioners, etc. who were primarily responsible for the development of hills in India. Many hill stations like Simla, Darjeeling owe their status and grandeur thanks to the interests of the top British officials where as others like Yercaud, Coorg attracted the other English gentry and commoners. I gather all this must have created a mutually accepted, unwritten hierarchy among the hill stations themselves as a few hill stations attracting Englishmen in higher positions of power would obviously benefit from the corresponding capital- economic and social.

Yercaud

Today, Yercaud is less popular than its counterparts in other parts of India, North or South. I am sure this place will have the least chance of figuring in the list of hill stations of our romantic imagination. And yet, a visit to this place can be very rewarding and refreshing for the things one could do, thanks to their inauguration by our beloved European masters. This place caught the attention of Sir Thomas Munro, the erstwhile governor of Madras Presidency in 1820s and the Scottish collector of Salem district, David Cockburn regarded as the ‘Father of Yercaud’ took interest in developing it. Promoting a cash crop like coffee proved to be a boon as according to Dane Kennedy, the author of The Magic Mountains: Hill stations and the British Raj (1996), the quaint town owed its existence to the coffee plantations and agriculture and was primarily frequented by the local planters, missionaries and the officials from Salem district. Salem was connected with Chennai right from the 1860s. While the development of railways near the possible locations of the hill stations in other parts of India ensured that it was easy for the officials, and importantly, their wives and children to go to hill stations, places like Yercaud remained a bit less frequented despite its rail connectivity and fortunately or otherwise, due to no official links with administration of the empire. I assume this apparent lack of popularity, since the time Yercaud developed after 1830s, is historically true having given more importance, prestige and respect to its elder siblings like Ooty, Simla.

 

Yercaud lake and the Rose garden

One of the primary attractions of this place is its lake as the origin suggests – from Tamil words Yeri (lake) and Kaadu (forest). The view of a lake with plenty of water and greenery around gives one the impression of a bountiful natural landscape. Lakes therefore attracted the British given that travels to hill stations were inevitable when Indian summers became intolerable. For a British, a leisurely stay in the hills was appealing with a lake and its scenery reminding one of an English countryside. Interestingly enough, I guess (a.) the British made look human a lot of what was natural and (b.) made look natural a lot that was human. Botanical garden and tress plantations could be examples of the former and lakes of the latter. Let me explain the a. part first. Considering the richness of the flora in the hilly regions, the British invested in plantations. Apart from the existing casuarinas, the British planted tea and coffee intended as cash crops and many other tress in such a way that the natural had a humanising effect, an orderly treatment and flavour. The picture below is taken at Rose garden, a beautiful site in Yercaud not to be missed at any cost. Unfortunately for our ill-timed visit, the Rose garden didn’t offer us any roses. However, in hindsight, that was good as we wre left to appreciate the garden with so many trees around that we spent there a couple of hours frantically taking photos and selfies. At such times, I realize how much deprived we are from the Greens of nature. Flowers, fruits and leaves attract us - the urban dwellers as if we haven’t seen them before or seen them only on our swanky, bright laptops or smart screen phones.

May be, this Rose garden well tended and cultured by human touch could be one of those plantations cultivated by the locals and the British. For sure, the part of garden reserved for roses has a distinct appearance of being tended carefully (which explains the a. part). Unlike the Rose garden, lake is something artificial/human that the British made it look natural. To satisfy the aesthetic desire of seeing a lake and opening a possibility of fishing and idling around, a few lakes were built artificially, Yercaud lake being one of them. At first sight, I was thrilled to see a natural water body at a height of 5,200 feet. Later, after returning home, embarrassed to discover the truth, I realised that the artificial, (naturally looking) beautiful lake flourished, first in the confines of the British imagery and then physically, thanks more to an emotional need than an existential one. The construction of lakes and plantations were not the only undertakings of the British in the Indian hilly regions. There were more...

A view of the valley can’t be breathtaking with an empty stomach. Similarly, the sight and sound of clouds descending on the mountain tips can titillate one’s senses but only with an assured forthcoming comfort of a cosy interior decor of a welcome home, a good resort, home stay or a good local hotel. Practically speaking, even before the lakes, in order to live in the hills, one had to think about necessities like houses, food and so, suitable crops for vegetation, places of recreation, schools for children, etc. The British must have felt better in the hills for the sensory aftertaste of nature’s beauty and the fresh weather; such an experience brought them closer to their motherland. But for all practical purposes, they must have had to organize themselves to make the hills first a modestly liveable place and then a comfortable one – Indian in name and English in spirit à la Macaulay. They therefore constructed houses, buildings, offices, libraries in a unique architectural, colonial style, in an attempt to tame the difficult terrain of the Indian mountains, to familiarize an unknown territory and make it perceptibly similar to their English countryside. These developments must have happened in an imitative and competitive spirit. If Ooty had a lake, Nainital had one, Yercaud was fancied to have one as well and so on and so forth. A number of Indian mountains-scapes and hill-scapes, with each set to accommodate an English civilisation in search of respite, changed over time with resembling designs of English mentalscapes!

 

Montfort School - From Mahabaleshwar to Yercaud 
Apart from lakes, gardens, plantations, the British also thought it necessary to build two important establishments in the hills – sanatorium and school. As the climate of the hills is (still) suitable for the recovery of diseased and ailing patients, this must have been the driving cause for bringing the cholera and tuberculosis patients to sanatorium established all along the 19^th century. The beauty of nature in the hills and at times, a spiritually elevating experience (of infinite) must have been important factors for establishing such health resorts, sanatoriums in many hill stations like Lonavla, Dharmkot, Yercaud. Unfortunately, during our visit, we didn’t get time to see neither the sanatorium in Yercaud, nor the Montfort Anglo-Indian higher secondary school whose alma mater consists of Shashi Tharoor and Nagesh Kukunoor.  

Thinking about hill stations, I can’t stop thinking about boarding schools and there is a reason to this. The first hill station I could think of as a child is Mahabaleshwar, for it was near to Pune and importantly, known for the residential school near Panchgani. As a very young kid caught at times by some whims of a fancy car or some other demands, I was at times threatened to be sent off to these schools. Fearing a life away from my mother and other dear ones, my naive imagination couldn’t even fathom such an existence and the deal/the threats would work well for my parents to get away from my demands. The funny part, I now realise, is that I never imagined that my parents could have ever afforded such residential schooling for me. The word ‘hill station’ therefore rings the bell of a residential/boarding school, of a world I wouldn’t have desired but these two also hint to a type of schooling only a few can afford. This link between the status or standing of a family and the school their kids are sent to is hard to miss today and announcing one’s school name becomes almost like belonging to a ‘brand’ type of living, of being a part of an elite club whose friendship can be capitalised at some point of time. What is interesting however in these schools is their location – the picturesque surroundings of hills and valleys where nature abounds like none other. This striking relation between the scenic beauty of the hills and the education imparted on the young minds through the boarding schools has been distilled thanks to some of the movies like Tare Zameen Par, Masoom (Gulzaar film) or even a film like Main hoon naa. The choice of hill stations, as a ‘natural’ setting for schools, may seem obvious as nature induces a corrupt free and natural environment for the child. In my next visit, I would love to visit this school with a French connection – Montfort Anglo-Indian higher secondary school, the school based on which Kukunoor made his second film, Rockford.

Shevaroy temple and the loop road

Finally, a tourist visit in Tamil Nadu would be incomplete without a visit to a site of worship - a temple, a church or a mosque. There are a couple of temples - the Shervaroyan Temple and Raja Rajeswari temple but we chose to visit the Shervaroyan Temple (a cave temple) to be found at the highest point in the Shevaroy Hills. Being a cave temple, one has to stoop down and walk towards the idol of Lord Murugan and mother Cauvery. Over the years, I have become unable to be adjusting to confined places. Anything that restricts my movements stifles me. My presence before those idols lasted just the time needed to fold 2 hands and offer a quick namaskar. I rushed out of that passage as if my rescue resided out in the open air and cloudy, misty skies.

After this slightly dreadful incident, a hot tea was a must – ‘one for the road’ and we started our journey back towards Salem through the serpentine, loop road, one of the attractions of Yercaud. The distance of around 25 kilometers between Yercaud and Salem is a treat and a stop every now and then is very tempting. On another way to Yercaud when one comes from Salem, one may also come across a shop of Cauvery coffee belonging to Cauvery peak coffee estate. We got some coffee and yes, it tastes quite good. (https://cauverypeakestate.com/ for more information) 

As soon you one reaches Salem or on the way to Yercaud, such advertisements, posters, banners catch the tourist’s eye and we are tempted to visit the adventure sports, taste good food (sadly hardly anything local here) and stay in the most comfortable hotels. Hotels, Resorts, Holiday homes thrive in plenty, no wonder that tourism (apart from agriculture) is one of the most important yielding sectors. It indeed feels very good to sleep at night in a warm quilt and that comfort is precisely what a lay tourist seeks. However, an important element is mass commercialisation of hotels, restaurants at the cost of ecology. The valley is shrouded with hotels and restaurants that offer the best views on the Sheraoyas. Despite the huge number of hotels, there is again a contradiction though - a problem of so many and yet, most of them are full if not booked in advance. Witnessing the crowd of the off season, I could imagine the traffic congestion, the sight of Yercaud roads filled with tourists and hungry visitors waiting in queues for their turns at restaurants, toilets and boat rides.

Such was the discovery of this pretty town near Salem, a hill station which led me to think about how the hill stations came to be as they are and why. A little bit of reading and thinking brought me to a fact that Indian hill stations were succour to the British. However, hill stations stood and happened at the cost of adapting the hilly terrains and their surroundings to the tastes of our former rulers and not the other way round. Had this been the case, we would have been using a desi word for all what stands for a hill station.