Annapoorni - The Movie

So I finally watched the Tamil movie Annapoorni. Am I a fan of Nayantara? Nope. 

I only wanted to see first hand how the narrative was set for anti-Hindu, pro-Islam propaganda. The brainwashing is so subtle and soft you might say it isn't there and it is all a figment of one's imagination. 

But nope. The undermining of Sanatan Dharma is very much present. The Islamic agenda is pushed throughout the movie - from Love Jihad to Islamic food habits to dressing and prayers. 

The climax shows a scene in a cooking competition where Nayantara has to make biryani. The first thing she does is wrap herself up in a hijab, kneel down and do namaz!! Seriously!!? 

It is a stupid scene in terms of practicality. She is part of a national cooking competition. Competitions are bound by time restrictions. Never ever seen any cooking competition, national or international, where a contestant indulged in such religious theatrics.

It is a wrong scene in terms of the messaging. It tells you how biryani is a Muslim dish. To make a Muslim dish, one has to do namaz first so that it tastes heavenly. 

I cook biryani. All I do I wash my hands. 

If the filmmaker had shown a Hindu woman praying to Shri Vishnu before making puliogare, it would be immediately labelled as "regressive" and "orthodox." But a Hindu woman dressed in a hijab offering namaz is "devout", "faith", "so beautiful."  That is sheer hypocrisy. 

The hero, a Muslim, tells the heroine, a Hindu "Don't listen to your parents". The irony cannot be missed. A Muslim man who, even in the twenty-first century follows diktats of a sixth century desert cult, goads the heroine to not obey her parents' 'archaic' rules. These men are notorious for shoving down 1450 years old, archaic practices down their women's throats, all in the name of religion. Blind following is the number one trait of Islam. No questions asked. Just follow what is being told. A woman not listening to parents in a Muslim society and not following their orders is blasphemous and an act of rebellion. 

But this is justified in the movie when the girl is Hindu and the adviser is Muslim. Slow claps!

He takes her away from her wedding venue. He asks her to run away from the mandapam. Is this even possible with a Muslim woman and a Hindu man? Nope, unless you want fatwas and Sar Tan Se Juda slogans thrown at you. Mob lynching and murder of Hindu men who dared to marry or have relationships with Muslim women is rampant, though, under-reported or hushed up by the media. And here, we have a Muslim man literally taking the Hindu bride from her wedding in the name of "freedom." Freedom - the word that is the very antithesis of Islam. 

All this within the first forty-five minutes of the movie. 

The movie explicitly sends the message that the picture on the left (below) is a symbol of oppression while the picture on the right is a symbol of freedom and liberation. Left is ugly, right is beautiful. Only a dickhead would consider being wrapped head to toe in a black tent as beauty as opposed to a woman in solah-shringar (16 adornments). The first one looks like a Goddess, the second one like a widow.  

The Muslim boyfriend encourages his Brahmin girlfriend towards non-vegetarianism. If a Brahmin eats chicken, and her parents oppose it, they are orthodox. Can a Hindu man do the same to a Muslim woman and ask her to cut, cook and eat pork? If the heroine made pork biryani, would that be okay? No. That would lead to nation wide protests, burning of cities and endless debates of personal faith. If a Muslim eats pork, then it is haram. Islamic religious belief. In this case, questions of personal taste, freedom and choice do not come up. They are not orthodox for opposing pork. They are "devout Muslims."

Rangarajan, the heroine's father, is the temple chef of the Srirangam Ranganathaswamy temple and is constantly shown as "orthodox" Iyengar family. Can't it be "devout" Iyengar family?   

Srirangam Ranganathswamy Devasthana is a thousand year old temple. It has the mummified shrine of Saint Shri Ramanujacharya. It is an important spiritual center for Sri Vaishnavism. It is the first and most important of the 108 sacred Vishnu temples.  

The movie shows the daughter of a priest of THIS temple being attracted to the smell of figh being fried, cooking chicken, offering namaz, wearing hijab and being wooed by a Muslim. The movie's sole agenda is to show how the traditions of this Hindu temple and the Brahmins are "regressive", that the Hindu society stifles freedom and personal choice, that they are rigid in their rules, that they are close-minded and narrow in their thinking. 

The irony is, all these are traits of Islam, the religion they want to showcase as the torchbearer of liberal values. There is nothing liberal or free in Islam. 

Nayantara herself has chosen the Sanathan path in her personal life. Raised a Christian, she follows Hinduism, married a Hindu man, and is raising two boys in the Hindu way of life.

The director of the movie? Nilesh Krishna. Krishna in his name! Veer Savarkar was right when he said he doesn't fear the British or the Muslims but the Hindus against Hindus. 

Sthal Marathi Movie

I watched the Marathi movie Sthal. The opening shot is a dream sequence. Savita and her friends are "interviewing" a prospective groom. The older ladies are sitting around and snickering. They are all enjoying the nervousness of the boy under interrogation. The confidence and glow on Savita's face is a sight to behold.

But it is a dream. And dreams shatter and she wakes up to the reality of her being judged by an army of men around her. She is dismissed for her height and her duskiness. One uncle even says that he is sure she is dark. Her elbows are proof. She has whitened her face with makeup but her dark elbows are a giveaway. 

The pain in her eyes and the quiver in her voice are heart-breaking. I could not have lasted on that chair for a minute. But she has to sit on it year after year. Her helplessness is piercing. 

My life turned out differently and I was blessed that I did not have to go through her circumstances. I was not subjected to a scrutiny to assess my eligibility for an arranged marriage. I had lucked out. One, there was no male authoritarian figure who forced me. Two, my mother was supportive. 

But - what if I were in a situation like that?

My father was an alcoholic. We were broke. We couldn’t afford dowry nor wedding expenses. The arranged marriage would have to be done through loans. And not marriage loan or any other kind of bank loan. Because for collateral, we would have had to mortgage our land. So basically, that’s most of the things working against me in the arranged marriage market.

I remember just once a talk of a boy from Pune. A proposal. Only son. It came through a family friend. I was in my second year degree at the time. That’s it. It didn’t go further. It was mentioned in passing.

As for me, I wasn’t thinking of marriage at all. I never had. All I wanted to do was study and get a job. "To earn" was my ultimate goal. 

As soon as I completed my graduation, I left home to do my post-graduation in Mangalore and stayed in the hostel for 2 years. When I finished, I started working as an English Lecturer. 

My father had passed away while I was in my second year of college. That was also the year I fell in love with a college mate. I told my mother about it. And that was that. 

Marriage proposals were never sought. I was clear who I was going to marry. I don’t know if it pained my mother that I was going to marry a Malayali Christian. He was a “good boy.”  

Luckily for me, I did not have to face the pressure of someone else deciding for me who I should or should not love or marry. Good or bad, it was up to me and I was prepared to face the consequences of it and I DID. Till today, I do not regret it at all. 

But what if I had to?

What if I had to wear a saree and present myself before the prospective groom’s family? What if I had to go through their piercing gazes? What if I could see them judging me, whispering disparaging comments, and making it clear through gestures that I wasn’t “good enough” for their laadla beta? So many what ifs.

I wasn’t an overly confident person at that age. My overthinking and my awareness of my family’s financial condition were enough to put me on the backfoot. Would I have then accepted whoever accepted me first? I clearly would not have had a choice, right? It would be a big deal if a boy and his esteemed family considered me worthy of their name. What would have happened  to me? Would I have died a little each day? Would I have dared to ask to continue my education and do my PG? Would I have dared to ask for permission to work? Would I have dared to speak? Would I have committed mental suicide? That wajood one speaks of – what would my wajood be? Maid, wife, bearer of children?

I was a people pleaser then. I would have done everything in my capacity to please anyone who crossed my path in my dear husband’s household. 

I have run away from situations that felt nauseating. Claustrophobia, both real and imagined, are my worst enemies. I run.

Considering the way I have turned out eventually, I think I would not have lasted in such a marriage. I would have abandoned it. I would have chosen a poor but peaceful life somewhere far way. I would have worked for a pittance for survival. But I think I would not have continued as a second class citizen in a rich household.

I keep hearing that anth mei sab achcha hota hai. It does, doesn’t it? I struggled a lot through my career choices. I struggled a lot because of the personal decisions I took. They were all my decisions, mine alone. No one to blame. No one to seek sympathy from. No one to expect empathy from. No support. Just me, my decisions and their consequences.

In the end, sab achcha hi hua. It is not like I have a husband who is a Shri Ram. It is not like I am so rich that I have maids hovering all over me. It is not like I have children who are modern day avatars of Shravana Kumara who adored his parents to death.

No. Not at all. But the thing that did happen is I grew through my mistakes. I learnt through all my bad choices. I loved. I grieved. I lived life fully, experiencing everything with a conscious heart, that this is all my making. And for reasons I cannot adequately explain, I feel content about it. I would not have wanted it any other way. It was and is truly MY life. And I lived it on my terms – both the good and the bad. I was free then. I am free now. Aur kya chahiye?