It was just another hectic day at office. My friend and I decided to take a long tea break to give our stressful minds some rest. We usually discuss a lot of things during our breaks and today, we ended up "arguing" on Kamal sir's Tamil Movie, Devar Magan. You might wonder what could have possibly led us to an argument over a movie released almost 26 years ago. There was one. According to my friend, the movie propogates one caste "Devar" over the others. And, that is contradictory to one of Kamal's ideals. My friend, let's call him AJ, strongly feels many of Kamal's movies, portray different castes. I, being an admirer of Mr.Kamal, couldn't take this accusation and gave a lot of supporting arguments to prove AJ wrong. I succeeded in making him give up but he wasn't convinced and I am sure, though he wouldn't bring this topic up for a discussion ever again, he would, secretly, continue sticking on to his conception about Kamal Hassan. Though, the so-called argument ended and we went back to work that day, it left me thinking a lot about how people have different views on casteism. Let's drop Kamal Hassan out of the picture. I don't have the age or the experience or the wisdom to judge a person who has proved himself over the years. But, movie? Yeah. I can be a decent critic and voice out my opinion which is definitely against what AJ tried to make.
When we look at Devar Magan as a movie, it simply depicts one of the many castes in Tamil Society and stages their beliefs, practices and way of life. And, that's it. I have seen the movie umpteen number of times and never once did I feel inclined towards the caste or did the movie force me to consider Devars as one of the respectable castes. Respectable over others. No. Its a big No. The moment we mention about castes, our brains immediately picture revolt, struggle and then suddenly there is a fear of being seen as an anti-social element if u speak anything supportive. Let's just get one thing clear. Casteism needs to be banned because there were castes that were discriminated, looked down upon and denied facilities which the "privileged" few got. There were numerous reasons why this whole concept needs to be wiped out. I am not going to comment for or against any of those. What I am trying to point out is, discrimination is wrong. But wiping off the word "caste" from our dictionary and blaming someone for portraying a "particular" caste in a movie only makes me feel that we have not yet looked at the bigger picture.
Let's go to the beginning of the formation of families, societies and these castes. We had civilisations, settlements. Each group or each settlement differed in their practices and ways of life. Each caste or each group of people picked up practices that suited their location of settlement, the climatic conditions and other geographical factors. Slowly, they built up occupations for self which developed from barter system to currency. All this is history which, I am sure, all of us are aware of. Mostly, the different castes we know today emerged based on the occupations picked up by different groups of people. So, movies like Devar Magan or even Director Cheran's "Pirivom Santhipom", stage and bring to people's notice, how a particular caste lived over the years, it's practices, marriages, customs, beliefs, system of governance within their own group and basically, their way of life. Stepping out and looking at the bigger picture, the past and lineage helps us understand people better. It is, in fact, an interesting study.
Why eradicate the thought completely out of the picture and blindly blame these movies that they are propagating unethical and anti-social ideals when what we actually should do is to educate people, children, youngsters to be more open-minded to differences, know our history and learn to accept people as they are? In simple words, we need to learn to look past these boundaries, learn them with interest and let them be the way the other but still coexist amicably. It is more liberating for each of us to live our way, follow what we have been following for years without any fear but still not put one down and the other up. Just simply exist with the knowledge that we do differ in our own ways and that's okay. And, this will teach us to lead a harmonious life, hand in hand, but revolting and protesting against every movie, every person, every group that speaks of castes is just not going to help us progress.
When we look at Devar Magan as a movie, it simply depicts one of the many castes in Tamil Society and stages their beliefs, practices and way of life. And, that's it. I have seen the movie umpteen number of times and never once did I feel inclined towards the caste or did the movie force me to consider Devars as one of the respectable castes. Respectable over others. No. Its a big No. The moment we mention about castes, our brains immediately picture revolt, struggle and then suddenly there is a fear of being seen as an anti-social element if u speak anything supportive. Let's just get one thing clear. Casteism needs to be banned because there were castes that were discriminated, looked down upon and denied facilities which the "privileged" few got. There were numerous reasons why this whole concept needs to be wiped out. I am not going to comment for or against any of those. What I am trying to point out is, discrimination is wrong. But wiping off the word "caste" from our dictionary and blaming someone for portraying a "particular" caste in a movie only makes me feel that we have not yet looked at the bigger picture.
Let's go to the beginning of the formation of families, societies and these castes. We had civilisations, settlements. Each group or each settlement differed in their practices and ways of life. Each caste or each group of people picked up practices that suited their location of settlement, the climatic conditions and other geographical factors. Slowly, they built up occupations for self which developed from barter system to currency. All this is history which, I am sure, all of us are aware of. Mostly, the different castes we know today emerged based on the occupations picked up by different groups of people. So, movies like Devar Magan or even Director Cheran's "Pirivom Santhipom", stage and bring to people's notice, how a particular caste lived over the years, it's practices, marriages, customs, beliefs, system of governance within their own group and basically, their way of life. Stepping out and looking at the bigger picture, the past and lineage helps us understand people better. It is, in fact, an interesting study.
Why eradicate the thought completely out of the picture and blindly blame these movies that they are propagating unethical and anti-social ideals when what we actually should do is to educate people, children, youngsters to be more open-minded to differences, know our history and learn to accept people as they are? In simple words, we need to learn to look past these boundaries, learn them with interest and let them be the way the other but still coexist amicably. It is more liberating for each of us to live our way, follow what we have been following for years without any fear but still not put one down and the other up. Just simply exist with the knowledge that we do differ in our own ways and that's okay. And, this will teach us to lead a harmonious life, hand in hand, but revolting and protesting against every movie, every person, every group that speaks of castes is just not going to help us progress.
