Island of Unproductivity – It’s where your mind goes as you scroll through an endless stream of banana breads on Instagram and binge watch three series consecutively on Netflix. You then decide to work and focus on that upcoming project for 5 mins until your phone pings and you immediately drop everything to fill out the newest bingo available on social media.
The Plain of Procrastination – A constant plane of existence to be honest, with constant stress and constant listlessness. The Plain seems to be an endless patch of land, with no achievable goal in sight.
Mountains of Mental Health – These are huge hurdles, which have always existed but now look taller. They make you feel like Sisyphus on the mountain but hey you must imagine him happy – fake it till you make it! To add a desi reference, you sometimes feels like Hanuman from Ramayan – carrying the weight of Sanjeevani – hoping that one day, you will not have burdens on your shoulder but instead, a metaphorical, life-affirming herb thing that will cure you of your troubles.
Department of Dreams – Weird, vivid and at times creepy. This department works in overdrive when you’re resting, just to ensure that you are not happy even when you sleep. To apply to work at this department, you have to exhibit a special level of sadism. Guaranteed extra weird dreams during the lockdown.
Sea of Sleep – Sometimes the sea is deep, sometimes it’s shallow, many a times there are sharks but one thing is for sure – you’re bound to die drowning.
Forests of Fear and Anxiety – Will law firms stop hiring?? Will I get infected? How long before my parents throw me out? Will communalisation get worse and am I going to witness riots soon? WILL THERE BE ANOTHER PROJECT EXTENSION? Involves staring at your phone for a potential mail from the admin providing an extension.
Swamp of Social Media – I feel so bad that everyone is PUBLISHING ARTICLES and that PEOPLE ARE ALSO DYING and that I’M JUST LYING IN BED- social media is the worst but also the only way to feel connected to friends.
Happy Place – Mostly elusive. Can be seen in the form of fleeting hopes. Can also be found occasionally while playing Pictionary and during Zoom calls with friends.
River of Regret – Shit man, should have gone out that last time everyone went for drinks! Oh damn, did I clean my room before leaving, whoops 
Oh god, I wish I’d travelled more! I really wish I’d started therapy earlier! Urgh, why did I snap at mom again, uff I’ll be nicer to her tomorrow *repeats cycle*, I wish I’d spent more time with my grandparents earlier ://
And so it goes.
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Many things have been said aloud
Within these sound proof walls
After every word, cheered the crowd
But no sound seeped through the halls.
If listened to by a complete stranger
These words were enough to enrage,
For every word spoke of instilling danger,
To those outside this gross cage.
The boys’ locker room is no longer secret,
The sound proof walls have broken it seems,
But those inside don’t deserve a clean chit
Not by any amount of not-all-men memes.
But let’s not pretend we didn’t know,
About the locker room at all,
It was only a matter of time, in status quo,
Before these walls were meant to fall.
The movies we watch, the songs we hear,
Are testament of the fact,
It’s not just ‘them’, but all of us peers,
That are participants in the act.
Although individuals make up society,
It’s society that an individual would ape
But did we really go wrong in entirety?
What led to the normalisation of rape?
I’m angry. I’m sad. I want to scream
At this dire state of things,
But I also want to hope and dream
Probably escape on some unicorns’ wings.
But problems aren’t solved by running away,
Of this much I am sure,
Check your actions and what you say,
Mentalities needs to change from their core.
The conditioning and structures we see,
Although pervasive, aren’t set in stone,
Support others and share your story,
In fighting this patriarchy, we’re not alone.
For everyone to fight we call,
So that equality and respect we bring,
But girls, we’ve already torn down the locker room walls,
Now we just have to break the glass ceiling.
[Image Description: The focus of the picture, in the centre, is the NLS library. Surrounding it are doodles of various things in Law School. There are mentions of all the food places in and around campus – Bistro, Chetta, Rohini, Hungry Hub, Juice Shop, Atithi and Gokul. Law School events are depicted – Spiritus (with a basketball hoop), SF (with a strawberry wearing headphones), Univ Week (with a banner), GCL (with a cricket bat and ball), Mooting (with a trophy) and Nego (with client and counsel placards). There are doodles of Dan, Dominos, Pride, a laptop running out of charge, a bookshelf, a hot beverage, weak wifi, a clock with the bell – various aspects of Law School. These are accompanied by mentions of Nagarbhavi skies, field scenes, Maggi and bun butter bhujia, tort v torts, “pedagogy” and “academic rigour” – all those little things that make Law School, Law School.]
P.S.: We still love you, Law School.
]]>We know you’d rather be hearing your favourite professors sing this after a sleepy 8:50AM class but check out this lyric video by Arth for some close enough tonal reference XD. Scroll on for the lyrics display designed by Smriti Kalra (Batch of 2021).
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Here’s the video for the original song to get into the rhythm! Sing along to raise the standards!
Designing credits: Smriti Kalra (Batch of 2021)
Disclaimer: This review is only for the initiated, those who have seen ‘Joker’ and have walked out of the movie theatre stunned into silence. It has a lot of spoilers, so do read at your own risk. The author claims no responsibility if any cinematic viewer’s movie-going experience is ruined. Consider yourself adequately warned.
There has been a lot of hype, a lot of discussion and a lot of mystique surrounding the release of the recent movie that has taken the world by storm – ‘Joker’. It claims to be an independent film and is a different iteration of the character as opposed to the Joker played by the brilliant Heath Ledger in ‘The Dark Knight’.
The first soundtrack that stands out in the movie is the Baroque, which plays in the background when Arthur is bounding along the streets of Gotham with a signboard in his hand. It is a lilting form of classical music, setting an atmosphere of cheer and carefreeness. Then Arthur’s head is bashed in with the same signboard and the title flashes on the screen. This reflects the mood of the entire movie – every time you think there is hope, you are made to think again.
The rest of the movie is predominantly carried by heavy cello music, conveying depth, despair and a strain of melancholy. It adds a layer of depression to all that’s happening on the screen. The shots of Arthur’s face are mostly close-ups, with Phoenix’s face covering almost two-thirds of the screen. The shots in the subway, his house, in the washrooms, in the hospital and most other places are mostly narrow and focus on two or three characters in the screen at a time. This forces the viewers to acknowledge Arthur’s closed-off, solitary, almost claustrophobic world. It reinforces the fact that he is alone and prefers to be so, after facing betrayal from Randall, abandonment from his psychiatrist, belittlement from his co-workers, violence from his co-passengers and most importantly, a constant storm inside his own head.
In a way, Arthur’s character development is reflective of the way Gotham has become and shows the need for the repeated use of the phrase ‘clean up the streets of Gotham’ in ‘The Dark Knight’. In the other Batman instalments, we are shown only specific problems that plague Gotham from time to time – a rise in crime due to particular villains in that period (Falcone, Scarecrow, Ra’s, Joker, Two-Face, and Bane). On the other hand, ‘Joker’ serves as a glimpse into the ordinary, into the daily lives of Gotham’s residents: the casual sexual harassment that happens in the tube, the state that does not care enough for the welfare of its mentally ill patients, the strangers on the street who delight in causing trouble, the general indifference that balls up into the movement that is supposedly spurred on by Arthur. It shows the gradual descent into chaos, the gradual disintegration of a city that blazes with all the injustice that it has faced.
A reviewer of ‘Joker’ commented that Arthur is whatever the clown movement needed him to be. The first three murders that he committed were partly in self-defense and then turned into an aggravated way of standing up to those who taunted him for his affliction. However, since the three men that he murdered were working for Wayne Industries were seen as symbolising the bourgeoisie, for the public, the murderer became a status symbol, the spark that initiated the proletarian revolution. Arthur himself is surprised to see the support that his actions had amongst the general public, who were waiting for a reason to initiate chaos and target the rich. There is a public demonstration with people dressing up as clowns, as Arthur was in the getup of a clown when he murdered the three men. However, for Arthur himself, the clown isn’t a political symbol, as he says so on the Murray Franklin show. It is just who he is and who he aspires to be – a comedian. The narrative around comedy and humour has important implications throughout the movie.
Arthur has a different sense of humour. ‘Comedy is subjective’, he tells his psychiatric at the Arkham Asylum. Throughout his life, he’s had a supposed affliction where he uncontrollably laughs at random times. The acting is just fantastic – Phoenix is laughing, but he is one second away from breaking down. His eyes reflect such sorrow that his laughter becomes a metaphor for what mental illness patients go through – they seem to be something, but are really going through something else. The mental illness aspect of Joker is also handled beautifully. Arthur takes meds which are prescribed to him by a state-appointed psychiatrist. He is mandated to check in with her periodically and at one meeting tells her, ‘I just want to be happy, give me medicines for that’. His medicines seem to be for controlling his mental illness, which is briefly indicated by a mention of him having been locked up earlier in the Arkham Asylum. However, once the State decides to shut down its welfare programmes, Arthur is deprived of his medicines. Unmedicated, he becomes more responsive to the injustice around him. The calm and purposive murders of his mother and of Randall indicate that he has fixed targets in mind. The scene where he kisses Gary on the forehead, claiming that he was the only one who had ever been nice to him, shows that Arthur is not a mindless criminal and indeed has reasons for all the killings, following the ones on the tube.
Therefore, his descent into ‘crazy’ is actually not a descent at all. It is not that the withdrawal symptoms from medicines that controlled his mental illness lead to him becoming a criminal and murdering people. In fact, the unmedicated Arthur seems to be more at peace and the violence that he indulges in seems to be a truer representation of what actually gives him closure. He is finally able to act on all those who picked on him and who made his life miserable. It makes us wonder if people with mental illnesses are actually controlled so as to put themselves at peace or put us, the public, at peace that we have some control over them.
It is the same, calculated planning that leads him to Murray Franklin and the subsequent unfolding of events there. He has a target and he fulfils his goal. Neither did he turn to violent rampage, nor did he seek a tussle with the police. This shows that Arthur is definitely not the unleashed criminal mind that is the Joker in ‘The Dark Knight’. My theory is that the clown movement that Arthur unknowingly initiated, served as a fertile ground for breeding criminals who drew from the energy of the clown movement. The Joker played by Heath Ledger is different and could possibly have taken birth following the clown movement. When the director of ‘Joker’ was asked if he ever envisioned Arthur and Batman meeting, he said those two worlds would never merge, which serves to show that Arthur is definitely pre-dated and quite possibly not the Joker that is a glorified lunatic in ‘The Dark Knight’.
The clown movement in itself is not representative of Arthur’s criminal conduct at all. In fact, Arthur’s careful planning and execution, if turned into a movement, would be more representative of the way the French Revolution was depicted in ‘Do you hear the people sing?’ from Les Miserables. The clown movement is more unexpected, unorganized and passionate, just like Heath Ledger’s Joker. This is the link that ties ‘Joker’ and ‘The Dark Knight’ and shows how in the most subtle of ways, an independent film can be linked to the series that inspired it.
When there is such stability given to Arthur’s character, it is also limiting because it puts him into a box, by giving him a backstory and giving him a reason to kill, rather than passion. This is why I found the last murder, at the Arkham Asylum, rather out of place. It was certainly an interesting ending, as it truly signified that his life had turned from a tragedy into a comedy. The last scene where he is chased, with the background music resembling that of Tom and Jerry and the flashing of ‘The End’ in the same font as is portrayed in the Tom and Jerry cartoon, is again indicative of the joke that is his life. In some ways, it is also something deeper. The way that his entire love track was delusional gives scope for the viewers to challenge everything that they have seen. What else was a figment of his imagination? How much of his story is true? Was his mother also delusional or is he really Bruce’s half-brother? When he chuckles in the last scene, what is the joke? Well, as Arthur says in the end, I guess we would never get it.
Quirk would like to give a shoutout to our all-time fave movie reviewer Megha Mehta (Batch of 2019). A much revered critic in the movie circles, Megha’s trademark reviewing style of quirky social commentary interspersed with observations on certain actors being snaacccs set her apart from all other reviewers in the field. The law-schoolization of her movie reviews initiated spirited conversation and much laughter at dinner tables. Her pieces were read regardless of whether the movie had been watched or even heard of – they were read solely for the review and not for the movie itself! Megha, you continue to inspire generations of aspiring movie reviewers and we hope that you successfully journey through the wayward trenches of the movie world, adding intellectual depth and throwing shade at all the movies yet to come.
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Like threads woven together to make art
Criss-crossed thoughts intertwine
As we grope around in the dark to tie up the ends
Of the ongoing debate and the questions thrown at us
Stupefied, yet clear about what the art should look like
The clock keeps on ticking
There’s a fading light
As we inch closer to dawn
Our amateur hands slowly weave the narrative
Firmer, stronger and clearer.
The echoes of these actions resonate
And the threads pull in the whole world
Me too, you too want to contribute
And we lend a hand to the fallen artists
Weavers whose stories have been painted red
And we repaint.
Slowly, one thread at a time,
One question at a time
One answer at a time.
And the potpourri of colours, of styles, of rhythms
Add to the narrative
And make it more prominent
And this should give cause to celebrate
Not the fact that there exist fallen artists
But that there are now a thousand more hands to support them
And keep the art going
The threads of the debate have been picked up
Loose ends will be tied together
The red paint will lead to red jails
And as the sun rises, we shall see that time is indeed up.
As a self-proclaimed Strong Independent WomanTM and certified Wanderluster (I have fifteen mainstream travel Pinterest Boards) the natural conclusion was, of course, that I would be an LFT (‘Lone Female Traveller’, uninitiated please refer to Megha Mehta’s article) and at some point, in the future, backpack to waterfalls in Barcelona, or as fate were to have it, dirty rivers in Dublin and London.
So, as I found myself filled with fear, clutching my passport for dear life as I tried to fall asleep in a room with two strange men, I couldn’t help but mope about the fact that I was moping. Here I was, practically alone in a foreign city (a part of my checklist of LFT fulfilment) and yet here I was anxious about every little thing – losing my passport or getting mugged or someone whisking my phone away while I was sleeping or someone walking away with my locker box. Admittedly, these were irrational fears – my passport was under three layers of clothing and I checked for it every five steps out of sheer paranoia, Dublin and London are safer cities than most Indian ones, my phone was tucked beneath my pillow and I clutched it tightly in my hand, and my locker box is heavier than I am (this of course made me worry about them carrying me away).
But, if there is one thing that I have learnt from LFTing, it is the value of safe spaces – something which I had at no point for those seven days of my travel. I mean, solo travelling is great and all – but have you ever felt completely secure and comfortable in a Fort-Knox-security-level safe space?
The thing about living in a hostel is that at no point was I ever completely alone and free of worry. In my room I would share it with three other strangers. In a shower stall I was alone, but all my stuff was back in the room. This means I was constantly worrying about first, whether someone was sneaking my 15kg locker out, or second, whether I even locked my locker, and third, if I did, where the key was – must be in my toiletries bag – and now there’s shampoo in my eye.
It wasn’t up till this point that I truly understood the absolute essentiality of a safe space – and what the term really meant. There is something absolutely paralysing about the admittedly irrational but all-encompassing fear that something will happen. And a safe space is simply somewhere where that fear is forgotten – even though the threat and the danger behind it may still be very very real. There is nothing to say that my room in Yamuna is safer than Generator Hostel, London. In fact, Generator Hostel, London requires you to have a key card in order to enter the living spaces – Yamuna Hostel, NLSIU doesn’t (it doesn’t even require a hand to pull the lock – a dog could do it – Dan has).
To be kind of honest – I’m not sure how exactly I got over the paralysis. To be even more honest – I most probably didn’t get over the fear entirely, maybe not at all. If you happened to follow me around in London, you’d see me stop literally every five steps and pat myself down like a crazy person. Maybe that’s why no one mugged me – crazy people probably aren’t trusted with a lot of money, or even a passport.
But here’s the thing – if you’d followed me around London you would probably also see that despite the fact that you have no connectivity in the Tube, I found it wildly fascinating to be a part of this sprawling city’s arteries. You’d find that even though I didn’t want to travel once it got dark, I decided that maybe spending the three extra hours staring at the Lobster Telephone or the feminist artwork was worth it at Tate. You’d see that I decided to go to a bar and have fish and chips and watch a football match because it just felt like it had a nice vibe. You’d see that I went to Hyde Park on an absolute whim even though my itinerary said otherwise. And when there I followed a canopied, sunlight-filtering path through the deserted woods and happened upon a clearing where a lone stranger was feeding the (surprisingly huge) squirrels. And then, when she offered me the bag of peanuts to feed the squirrels, despite the “what if I lose my phone paranoia”, I happily, voluntarily, gave her my phone to take a video of me while I fed them.
I didn’t ever completely get over the paranoia – in fact, I still find myself having confused moments wondering if I have my passport on me even though I’m back here. I’d have loved to have been accompanied by a friend – the safety of companionship allows you a freedom that can only be got with security. Nevertheless, the freedom of solitude was something I did not know I craved. To be able to split-second choose where I wish to go and how long I wish to stay – there’s nothing quite like it. I could sit for hours at King’s Cross just to feel the hot air that accompanied a train, and hear it shudder down and no one would say a thing.
In a way, I learnt to embrace the streets enough to find moments of safety where the experience transcended my paranoia. I found myself aimlessly wandering the posh neighbourhoods with their big parks, and the little parks within these big parks. I found myself loving the lit streets in the rain when I would escape into the clean-tiled Tube with its weird steep escalators. I found myself forgetting the paranoia in whims of excitement at the idea of just going somewhere, anywhere, because it looked like a pretty street or sounded like a nice Tube station, and stumbling upon a canal with houseboats or a red Telephone Box or just another magnolia tree. I found myself accepting the fear and the routine “did I lose something” check if it meant that I could just spend a moment or two longer admiring the graffiti on a slightly shady street. And I found myself leaving with a smile on my face, checking my pockets for passport, wallet, Oyster card and phone.
So, no, the paranoia never went away. But maybe it didn’t need to, as long as it went along with the LFT experience – as long as I could find pockets of happiness that made me forget everything else for even a minute.
]]>So you’ve watched Padmavat and read Megha’s excellent review of the movie on Quirk. You found the movie mildly interesting and the songs hummable (Thank the classical Raagas that the songs are based on). You also found the entire Karni Sena nuisance pointless and noticed the blatant communalisation of history that the movie partakes in. But did you read the movie from a queer eye? Didn’t think so. You probably wondered why Shahid Kapoor walks around like he’s got a stick up his behind throughout the movie. Well, let’s get some things clear first hand. Pure Straight is boring, I mean, really sucky, and slow-dying boring. Look at Shahid Kapoor’s poor face through the movie anyway, all his stuck up ass can do is stare blankly and make stupid comments about how great his caste lineage is. He, of course, being a specimen of such royal blood, is not bound by monogamy, and of course everything in the movie is started by his immature Raani-Sa, churlishly asking for pearls from Sri Lanka (very conveniently Sita-like asking for the golden deer), but blaming women is not new at all, and this post is not about that. However, you can see without much insight that Raja-Sa’s love life or sex life wouldn’t be quite the stuff of dreams, at best one ten minute affair once the moon has waxed to Ekadashi in a month types. Lol. Deepika Padukone aka Raani Padmini-Sa is sexy and over the top, yes, as you would expect a Sanjay Leela Bhansali heroine to be, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why she would ever fall for our Raja-Sa and eternal Rajput glory dialogues when you have the beaches of Sri Lanka at your disposal forever.
Enter Khilji into the picture and the man is a philandering monster. Unabashedly so. Getting married? No problem, you can still get a quickie literally ten feet away from the wedding party. He’s maniacal, apparently, someone you can never expect things like respect, consistency, or basic fidelity from. You’d be a fool to expect it in any case, and it seems his newly wed wife knows better than to do that. And the acting is over the top as well. There is nothing left to the imagination. You’ve better chances of finding subtlety in your caramel popcorn than in this movie. Khilji is clearly crack, he doesn’t give a shit and he’ll be raping women and conspiring murder at the same time. All this is given to us, we are to take it and marvel at it and maybe feel repulsed and intrigued at the same time. He’s a car crash in slow motion and no you can’t look away. And girl, is he going to take everyone down with him or what!
In this rather drab and pre-set game, we are given some colour (and talent, cough) by the dreamboat that is Jim Saarbh. I have seen the scene of his entry into the movie multiple times for obvious, and not so noble reasons (and you should too). But Sarbh remains on the fringes of the story in this megalomaniac contestation represented as the fight between two civilisations. Not to mention that historically, Malik Kafur (played by Sarbh), was a capable military general, administrator, and badass royal court manipulator, he doesn’t get too much screen time here. But here is the point that I’m trying to get to, sorry Pamela Samuelson, but this ain’t no legal writing. Sarbh in the movie is the slave whore, albeit a really expensive one, and fit only for Khilji. Khilji himself is ecstatic to have him, he surveys him with interest, and tests his assassination capabilities immediately. Along with Khilji’s general sexual behaviour given to be less than faithful, what we are also given is the absolute faithfulness of Kafur. He takes to his master like fish to water and becomes “his” from the word go. The Emperor’s wish is his code of conduct, and the last rule in the book of Kafur’s morality is what would help Khilji’s philandering butt.
A large part of growing up gay is to realise that you don’t fit in many things you seem to be surrounded by. Your desires are not represented in mainstream art or culture. Heterosexuality is shoved down your throat every step of the way, and if I see another loser-Chomu Manyavar or LIC Jeevan Beema happy-responsible-boring family ad when I should be given interesting trailers instead, I am going to throttle the person next to me. So we look for hints and make up our stories, we read between the lines and try to imagine an alternative story to the one we’re being shown, and sometimes that becomes an entire act of creativity and beauty. All it needs is a flick of an eye between two male leads, a double-meaning sentence, or, well you get the drift. And yes, we would like to see more stories celebrating queer love, (not you, Dostana) and this is where Padmavat gives you that potential.
But I watched the movie with dismay to see this potential of what could have been being squandered away on the splendid sets. What is happening between Kafur and Khilji is multifaceted, maybe even in a way desirable, but we don’t really get to see that. We see an androgynous Sarbh, clearly the “female” to the straight eye, at the service of the masculine and I-actually-like-women Khilji. There is little nuance to the relationship they enjoyed, though historically, this may have been inaccurate as well. Kafur is meant for khidmat, and that is what he does. He does it with devotion and fidelity, bordering on what is expected of a wife in a traditional Indian setting.
Shall we see what Kafur gets in return? We see zero emotion from Khilji towards Kafur in the movie. We see little physical intimacy as well, but that is not difficult to imagine, hat-tip to the Censor Board for stealing whatever little joy we could have otherwise got for a nanosecond. Khilji does not invest emotionally at all into Kafur. We see him pushing Kafur away in Binte Dil, that erotic song where everyone is feeling horny. Kafur takes all of this in his stride and keeps singing and drawing the curtains over the bed, does not complain, how can he (!), and remains devoted, and clearly in servitude despite being discarded. This toxic relationship is not of his choosing, but one he gets into it, there is no looking back. Kafur here is clearly the gay one. Khilji is ambiguous. Can he be called bisexual? Is he only MSM? How do we categorise him? Khilji is also married, whereas that’s nowhere on the spectrum for Kafur. Khilji clearly desires a particular female in marriage, whereas the only one Kafur desires is him. He is the meant to be taken for granted by Khilji, somebody he can return to when he’s not feeling well or generally has nowhere else to go.
To the gay eye, this evokes a painful truism of our lives. We’ve negotiated this space with heartbreak and psychological damage. We’ve fallen for that “straight” guy who loved being with us and the sex, but would always remain straight on the outside, always in love with a person of the opposite sex, always planning to get eventually married and settle down (puke). The trope is familiar, the gay one falls in love with the straight one, they have discreet and hot sex whenever the straight one feels like it. Anything else is rebuffed and the relationship is never publicly acknowledged. That’s part of the deal. Basic decency is not given to the gay guy and often the straight one feels disgusted after sex and they never talk about it. He also treats the gay one as a valid target for homophobic jokes in front of his other straight friends. To watch this treatment in Padmavat is painful. It is painful also because the director had the option of portraying a complex and nuanced relationship between Khilji and Kafur but chose instead into making Khilji a dick and Kafur a self flagellating slave. There would be no damage to the plot of the movie had this relationship been more than just a fuck and forget, but still we don’t see that. In fact, history itself suggests otherwise, it shows that Kafur was Khilji’s general, administrator and nobleman, and not just a sex toy pastime. Nothing would be lost if Kafur was shown to be in an emotionally complex relationship, in the circumstances, but who cares about his happiness at all? Not this director and not this movie. We’ll just have to wait for a queer historical, ladies.
There’s a thing to be said about you straight people as well. What Kafur is going through is being imposed on Padmini a thousand times worse. She is Kafur’s mirror, tied by bonds of devotion, fidelity and tradition, she suffers as well, although, stoically and with that final scene opium-induced beatific smile on her face. What Kafur suffers emotionally, Padmini suffers materially and physically. Along with heterosexual love come the facts that she will be confined to the Zenanaof the palaces forever doing her Ghoomar. She won’t command armies even though she’s clearly more competent than the rest of the Hukum-saas combined, and and, she will burn herself alive after her fuckall husband finally kicks the bucket. Both Kafur and Padmini are better than their partners at everything they do, but they remain the seconds in command forever.
I remember shutting my laptop and lighting a cigarette after the movie ended, several thoughts spinning in my head. I wanted to know what Kafur thought, what he did in the Khilji camp all day, how he felt about the fact that Khilji was waging this disastrous battle over a woman who he didn’t love either. (Speaking of which, we don’t know whether Khilji lusts after Padmini, wants her because she’s going to bring glory in accordance with what the treacherous Swamiji said, or whatever). The only same-sex relationship in the movie is woefully inadequate, its just incomplete and unsatisfying. As a gay man, you remember falling in love with that straight one when you were young, if you’re currently in love with a straight one, you feel fucked. I, for one, am sick and tired of seeing gay people leading emotionally dead lives and hopelessly pursuing unrequited love in most movies I watch, self respect be damned. So what does one do? One turns to imagination, of course, and in this case, a little historical detail.
For me, as I took a drag of the cigarette, I remembered that Kafur finally overthrew Khilji, installed Khilji’s small kid as puppet monarch, and himself became Regent. I chuckle, served that emotionally bullying and fuck-all Khilji right. I smile as I remember dumping that first love ‘straight’ boy and deciding that I wanted to be with someone who wasn’t afraid of holding my hand and wanting me. My smile widens, Kafur was the Queen after all, all this time being servile and trapped with this emotionally horrible partner for life, he was playing his own game all along, just look at the light in his eyes for confirmation. Move over the in-love timid boy who takes what he gets and cries silently at night, and enter the badass Queen who deserves to rule our hearts and Empire, and takes them in turns with a smile and a knife. Now if they only had the guts to make a movie about that!
P.S.- I think Kafur and Padmini would have made total badass BFFs. She looked like she needed better company anyway. I can see them sipping piña coladas on a gorgeous coconut tree-lined beach in Sri Lanka, far away from all the straight men in the world. Dream away, ladies. :*
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*For all those who have heard of 2.0, the latest Rajni blockbuster directed by Shankar, (and those who haven’t, you poor peasants), here’s a break-down of the movie. This review shouldn’t stop you in any way from watching it, because, hello, if you don’t watch the newest Rajni movie, what are you doing with your lives? Get your Rajni on!*
2.0 has all the components of your quintessential Shankar movie:
- A mega star (The Superstar, in this case).
Rajnikanth is not just a star, he is a phenomenon in South India. If the fame, respect, adoration, love, and devotion (yes, you don’t just buy tickets for a Rajni movie, you purchase tickets for a darshan of the Lord Himself) that Rajni enjoys could be quantified into a statue, it would loom large over the new 3000 crore statue. And I’m sure that more people would identify Rajni quicker than they did Patel, but wait, what, I didn’t say anything, I mean, I like saffron and splurging on oh-so-useful statues. Long live cows!
- A heroine who is young enough to be the mega star’s grand-daughter.
Usually, the heroine would be trained in a modicum of acting or at least have two types of expressions on her face that could be classified as ‘happy’ and ‘sad’ and some are skilled to the extent that they can put on a lovey-dovey face (which usually makes it seem like they are suffering from constipation, but hey, it’s what the masses want – a love-struck expression, not constipation – and you gotta play to the gallery.) Amy Jackson has reached new lows in this movie. She has received her training from the school of minimalist acting (read: a school that teaches one to how to look like a human yet still have the expressions of a dead tree on one’s face). That’s why this role must have been Amy’s dream role. It’s a match made in heaven. Even the SBA’s cent-per-cent accurate mentor-mentee matchup algorithm couldn’t have made a better match. She plays the role of a robot. But the catch is that she’s still a robot modelled after an Indian woman and as a stereotypical Indian woman must be, when asked what her interests are, she replies that they revolve around movies, TV serials and make-up. Yes, here we finally have a woman robot who kicks ass but who still succumbs to the Vani-Ranis and the Naaginis of the day. Talk about having the best of both worlds (Yes, honey, I’ll go to work but don’t worry, I’ll cook and wash the clothes and take care of the kids and do all the household jobs as well.) We must all strive to be this perfect Indian woman. Thanks, Amy, for showing us the way.
- Gravity-defying fight scenes that are so fantastical that they make this grand-daughter typed heroine fall in love with the mega star.
And to add to those, the 3D effects are great. Both the five-year kid sitting next to me and I were shrieking in excitement when the bullets came zooming towards us because of the 3D effects. The kid’s mom gave me the dirtiest look ever and internally I was like, ‘I’m in Law School and that’s the only thing throwing itself at me at the moment. I’m going to take it.’ I don’t think she sympathized with me though or maybe she read my mind or something, for she made her kid switch seats, taking it away from anything that is associated with Law School (yes, her problem is with Law School, not with me, or so I like to think). I feel like this is what my mother also should’ve done when the topic of Law School first came up – warned me to run away as far as I could have.
- A bad, bad villain and revenge by the mega star.
The villain has a senti life story, which could have the potential to make the movie greyer and introduce some ethical turpitude in the mind of the hero and the audience, but is always painted over by loud shades of black, to justify the hero killing the villain in the end. This is especially prominent in a Shankar film, as opposed to films by other renowned Tamil directors. Especially after just having had my idea of objectivity and truth thrown out the window, this aspect seems problematic as it ends up othering the villain. (As all first years hopefully know by now, ‘It is only within a standpoint that privileges objectivity and absolutes that relativism and pluralism present a problem’.) Suck it, Shankar. It’s time for you to attend a History course at Law School.
- Three hours of a tussle between the bad, bad villain and the mega star completely devoid of logic.
The director assumes that the audience leave their brains at home, (which they do, I mean, it is a Shankar film.) There was a bit of mambo-jambo in 2.0 where the aura of dead sparrows and a dead man merge into some gigantic eagle-type avatar protected by cell phones. This avatar has the power to enter the bodies of other human beings which makes it hard to kill the said human beings, for, don’t kill the messengers, right? There is a very funny scene in 2.0 which is very Anniyan-like, with a split personality. To all you North-Indian non-South-Indian-movie-watchers-because-it-is-beneath-your-dignity (Hmm, I wonder what sort of an effect a History I course is having on me), think of the scene in Chennai Express where Deepika unleashes her dual personality: ‘Thangabaleee, kitta varadhe, nan jora odhipen da// nan unna vida matten// kitta varadhe’ (Thangabalee, don’t come close, I will harm you// I won’t let you go// Don’t come close). Now that I think about it, maybe this dialogue from the perspective of 2.0 is a warning to the audience: “Don’t come close. I will harm you and damage your brain cells with my mind-numbing levels of stupidity.” See, to all the Chennai Express haters out there, there’s so much of depth and this totally justifies my watching that film 15 times.
While these are the components of a generic Shankar film, I found that in this movie, there was another meta component altogether.
- Feminism.
While a pretty woman (a normal, pretty woman, not the hooker, Good Lord, abishtu, abishtu) is the only thing related to women in most of Shankar’s films, I was able to unearth a very deep analogy (that he might or might not have intended; my bet is on the latter).
Warning: Spoiler alert (but this can be easily figured out by watching a video song that’s been released on YouTube. It’s like they wanted to give the “suspense” away.)
In this movie, the villain really really likes birds and goes on rants all the time about how they are essential to the survival of man. When mobile towers are erected, they interfere with whatever it is that these birds depend on for navigation, leading to their deaths and the villain’s argument is that unless we save these birds, we will also die. (Two responses: a) J.M. Keynes said ‘We are all dead in the long run’ and b) Thanos, feeling efficient much? To kill humans #101: erect mobile towers. Saves us the pain of watching our most beloved avengers die. I hope you’re ashamed of yourself, Marvel, making poor kids cry.) Anyway, the dying don’t stop and feeling very frustrated, the villain commits suicide cuz like they all in this together. Then, aura-avatar-birdman is defeated only by mini versions of the robot hero fighting him, all the while perched atop doves. This is because the avatar won’t attack other birds, as the avatar is pro-life (not pro-choice, insert eye roll). Piggy-backing on these birds, the microbot, 3.0, is able to force the villain into submission and kills him.
Similarly, women – they are also quintessential to the survival of mankind because, duh, reproduction but men have been creating these oppressive structures, because, just as a beloved member of the Law School community once said, ‘We are the superior species.’ As a response to this oppression, there are waves of feminism, which unite women and help them in their fight for equality. But then there are random people piggy-backing on these movements (just like I am now, on Megha’s movie column) – corporates, other-agenda groups and even the government sometimes (beti bachao, but beti will make only roti in life – see latest ad by the Govt.) This delegitimizes the movement and turns the fight inwards, leading to a crack in the unified avatar. Ultimately, the men, who are the ‘heroes’ of this story (LOL, sorry, can’t even say that with a straight face), along with the piggy-backers, win. I don’t know if Shankar was trying to make some meta argument while making the film, but this is something that I personally took away from 2.0. Or maybe you could just write it off as me being an ‘over-sensitive’ woman, literally.
All-in-all, I cannot say that it was a bad film, for fear of getting lynched by Thalaivar fans, but all I can say is that, initially, when the words ‘Superstar Rajnikanth’ used to flash on the screen (in the 1990s and 2000s), it used to be accompanied by this cheer of sorts from the movie ‘Annamalai’. Now, it just has sirens blaring in the background, from the movie Kabali or warning piano sounds, from the movie Enthiran itself, I think. (If you can’t recognise these names, plis work on building Rajni knowledge – v. important for survival in case you land up in Tamil Nadu.) Therefore, if Rajni is being introduced in a movie with warning sounds by the director himself, I’d say it’s time for the Superstar to do some self-introspection and see what he wants to do when he realises that his time is actually done.
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