After 5 years we went for a movie. And
what a movie ! I would request every person who can to see Kaaka Muttai -
our deepest angst has been addressed in a way that I could only gasp at. It
does not matter if it is in Tamil - just see it. The story does beyong all language limits.
The slum children, their zest for life, their
chutzpah, their intense determination, their character. And the way their soul
is bought by the intense consumerism they see all around. As represented by the
Pizza ! The portals of the glass walled palaces where the rich-and-beautiful
eat, and where they may never enter. And the malls where one child gasps, 'oh,
they will never let us enter'. And the grandmother explaining to them that the
well dressed alone are allowed in because they have money. This one rich child
they talk to across the gated fence, which at one stroke show the two world
which can never meet. And the mother struggling to raise money to release the
father from jail, and this child showing them a pug that cost 25,000/-.
With any moralising, the facts are starkly placed. And
one is close to tears many times. The strength of the poor child juxtaposed
with the heartbreak in unattainable desires that he is forced to face. This
will change some hearts, if anything can. A movie for the times. And a box
office hit.
... My daughter was asking about village justice versus legal justice. I tried to explain to her that in the village madhyasthams for 40 sensitive judgements, there have been 4 clearly biased ones. And that the local community decisions factor in many nuances that are lost in court. And that her Naren Thatha, with his million works including land issues and dalit issues, used to make sure he was there in every village madhyastham as an elder, as he beleived in the system of madhyasthams. This was in the bus as we were going to see the movie 'Kaaka Muttai'.
The movie answered her in ways I could not have. The
protogonist, a 14 year old boy, was determined to have the widely advertised
pizza that leers down every other hoarding at the poor. He and his brother
slave carrying coal to make the money, and then finally when 10/- by 10/- they
raise the 300/- they get thrown out of the shop because their shirts are
frayed. Then starts the effort to save to buy the shirts. Finally at one point
the boy takes up a stick to steal a cell phone towards this end, and there is a
tense moment when he stands on the knife edge of chooseing criminality or not.
Then in a act of frustration he throws down the stick, and makes the choice of
not stealing. And proceeds to carry more headloads of coal.
I asked my daughter that if he had stolen, and a just
judge had condemned him into a juvenile home, what that would mean. And as this
boy was stealing for a pizza and not for hunger, a sensitive judge also would
have only condemned him. A community that knows and understands the
frustrations and immense pressures of consumerism on those beyond the pale of
it can respond with more realism.
It is for my daughter to decide in cases of the poor
children stealing and indulging in criminal activities for those consumer items
that the better off children in our society use so carelessly who is
implicated. The poor children for succumbing to the immense assault on them by
ads, and by over cosuming children, Or the 'better off children' for such
irresponsible consumeing in a society of the poor.
There are questions for each person, even at the age
of fifteen, to figure out in the solitude of their soul.
Sanjay Maharishi To be able to reflect in solitude is itself great education. Always a pleasure to read your posts.
... Kaaka Muttai is a box office hit movie, which most sensitively places the angst of the slum children yearning for a pizza they see advertised everywhere, and working themselves to the bone towards the 300/-, nearly tempted into theft, and lying at home. A commentry on the city, and on the thoughtless display and consumerism. As epitomised by glass walled restaurants with hungry faces outside the walls watching. I thought it would change hearts and habits.
Today two teenagers went with an adult, saw the movie, and then 'for the heck' went to a Pizza Hut to eat pizzas.
I have nothing to say anymore.
I have nothing to say anymore.
" Rarely has the divide between haves and have-nots been laid out with such devastating understatement."
... Kaaka Muttai is so entertaining that it’s easy to forget how sad the undercurrents are. CM and PM no longer go to school because there’s no money. They sell coal they pick up from railway tracks — “oru kilo, three rupees.” The houses are cramped, and there’s no address. The ground they play in is sold to a developer, who builds on it a pizza parlour. In other words, it isn’t just globalisation. It’s globalisation at the doorstep of the underprivileged, whose lives remain unchanged by all this… progress, if that’s the word for it. It’s not like they’re getting jobs in that pizza parlour.
Heck, they’re not even allowed inside. The story is about CM and PM’s desire to taste a pizza, which they see in a mouth-watering television commercial. No, scratch that. The story is about desire, period. It’s about the kids’ desire for a cell phone. It’s about the mother’s desire to bring her husband back home. It’s about a low-rent thug’s desire for easy money. It’s about the desire of upper-class kids for the ‘lowly’ and unhygienic pani puri that’s sold on streets. It’s about the desires invoked by television, which teaches us to salivate over things we never knew existed. Even the pizza isn’t just pizza. After a point, it comes to represent the desire of these kids to get access to a better world — an entry ticket to an exclusive club. Rarely has the divide between haves and have-nots been laid out with such devastating understatement,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaaka_Muttai
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