Movie time
By Aashiq S- India
aashiq.jnv09@gmail.com
@seamless_self
Every part of the deep and diverse world is different. But a set of eyes looking beyond the footsteps over trodden roads and untrodden sights might reveal the untold tales that might spoil the lippy-flappy selfie mood for the traveler. All those diverse skin tones, sounds, songs will feel different at a glance. But for ears and eyes that enable cache, it will trigger some strange connections to literally impossible, yet still existing beads across the globe, connected with some invisible string which seems forged in one feeling – Belongingness. Yes, the world belongs to its original inhabitants, in every part their tale is the same, that of dread, displacement, defense and death.
Southern India’s coastal city Kochi(a.k.a Ernakulam/Cochin) has a history of several centuries as a prominent hub of trade. Ancient kings from China to Jews in exodus found it as a safe haven and hence the city was nicknamed as the ‘Queen of Arabian Sea’. Different communities settled, traded and trod over the soil of this ancient city both in harmony and conflict. The land of Kerala, where the city is situated is famous for its green patches, mountains, forests, beaches and wetlands. The original inhabitants faced a lot of atrocities due to the indigenous caste system but fought and acquired equal rights eventually. Yet the modern world had its own way of relapse and unknowingly the unwritten law of land led them away and made them strangers to their own soil.
The movie Kammattippadam is a Malayalam language film which is an amalgamation of real events represented as fiction. It is a dark movie mourning the misfortunes occurred to the Dalits (the original inhabitants of the land who suffered caste based oppression from other groups) of Kerala expressed through the personification of exploited nature. The green patches and the men who lived in compliance with it were systemically outdated as their profession (i.e. agriculture), land, and people were led away from their ethnicity, way and being. In order for them to adapt to the mainstream city and its persona. The novel generation of the above mentioned had to fit in and find their space by adaptation in the rapidly changing world.
Thus the story portrays the untold history of the building up of *the modern city of Cochin* where the neo-caste based system and upper caste real estate people used the youth of Dalits as goons to dislocate their own people to sell lands where flats and buildings came.
Parallels of the same are seen across the world from ancient times to the modern globalized world were for the sake of political, business and development people, languages, cultures and voices manipulated, maintained and wiped out of existence once proved ‘no more useful’ by the powerful. This is beautifully symbolized through the dual protagonist balance of Ganga and Krishnan, their friendship, conflicts and their circle of existence. The murder of Ganga by the same businessman who used him, within the same apartment built over his ancestor’s land and the retribution by Krishnan in the climax are examples of this symbolism.
As incidentally mentioned, the undertone and essence of narratives are not only of similar, but speaks the sane language of emotion, experience, and endurance across the world and that is where the still green patches and uncovered wetlands of Cochin announces its in depth spirit, that is the real Kammattippadam (a type of agricultural wet land, which was later developed into the townships and residence areas of the current Ernakulam/cochin city) which is the nature’s reminder remnant that makes it transcontinental and universal.
Movie: Kammattippadam(2016)
Country : Language : Malayalam
Director : Rajeev Ravi
Production : Global United Media
Major cast : Vinayakan, Manikandan R. Achari, Dulqer Salman, Shaun Romy,
Similar Posts by The Mt Kenya Times:
- Pan-African leaders call for borderless Africa and urgent continental unity
- Pan-African leader calls for unity, youth empowerment and economic transformation
- Wantam or Tutam: The then what next?
- Gachagua escalates war with Ruto, questions his security
- Uhuru draws the line
About the Author
