Kabali is not an ageing don. He is
not even a person. He is the ‘personification’ of the idea and spirit of Tamil Nationalism in a certain phase of
its expression, more specifically as it played out in the Sri Lankan context.
Yes, I said it, I don’t think this movie is even set in the context of Malaysia.
Malaysia is only a metaphor that I am yet to unravel. What I propose here is a
theory of what the movie is, a speculation, and I leave it to the readers to
accept it or reject it. The only thing I hope for is that let this lead to more
theoretical speculations about Kabali. Why are these speculations necessary?
Because, in an effort to speculate, we will understand more on the history of
Tamil nationalism and the Sri Lankan Tamil struggle.
Ideas do not age
like people. However, they do become old, undergo struggles and express
themselves in various ways over the course of time. From Tamilnesan (Nasser) to
Kabali (Rajnikanth), the movie is one checkered story of the struggles and
expressions of this idea – the hope for a utopian society based on Tamil
ethnicity. Thus the movie stands as a metaphor and moves on a track that
appears linear in time but not in the way we perceive linearity in the physical
world. Ask the question – “What is the story of an idea, the idea of Tamil
nationalism?” and you will understand the linearity of this movie.
Pa. Ranjith has
proved himself to be a master of disguised storytelling and demanding more from
the listener. If you went in with the hope of screaming your heart out at the
top of your voice for the super star, Ranjith is not going to give you that
opportunity. If you are ready to sit quietly and watch the scenes carefully,
you will find yourself rejoicing in your head with all your hairs standing on end.
For those ready to make an effort, the director drops clues all over the place;
some subtle and some not so.
Let us begin with
the first shot. Kabali has almost finished reading the book “My Father Baliah”,
a Dalit narrative about preservation of self-respect and human dignity. In that
first shot, director has handed over to you the first key to open up this
enigmatic movie. As he walks out of his jail room, he completes two pull ups to
show that his spirit is still alive and kicking, and what locked him in can
also lift him up.
After the dialogue
that involves Nambiar (you have obviously seen this in the teaser) – which actually
means that the Tamils should no more be stereotyped as lungi clad people with a
“sollunga ejaman (yes master)” slave mentality, instead they are the proud “TAMILAN
DA” kind, he opens the cage and lets a scarlet macaw free. Scarlet macaw is known
as “Panchavarna Kizhi” (five colored parrot) in Tamil. Dalits are also called
the panchama-varna because they stand outside the four-varna Hindu caste system
and hence considered untouchables. Ranjith sees the hope for Dalit emancipation
as a possibility only under Tamil nationalism. There you have another key to
unravel this mystery.
What makes it hard
for us is that you need many more keys to understand the true narrative of this
movie. I had to sit through the movie in darkness, furiously writing down notes
on a scrap of paper, with the person sitting next to me wondering what is wrong
with me. I had to compare these notes with hundreds of Wikipedia pages on Sri
Lankan Tamil issue to really see the coherence.
As the story
progresses, the clues are also not so obvious. It appears to me that only a
deeper understanding of the history of Tamil nationalism and the Sri Lankan war
will help one enjoy this movie better. What does enjoying this movie even mean?
It means that you are asking the right questions of each scene and that you are
observing for all the hints and seeing beyond the mask.
For instance, what
does spending 25 years in jail represent? Kabali’s arrest happens in 1991 and
coincides with the year of assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and thus began the major
erosion of Indian support (even from Indian Tamils) to the Sri Lankan Tamil
cause. It was as if the Tamil cause and struggle was almost locked up in the
Sri Lankan soil with hardly any decisive support from Indian subcontinent. It
also explains how Kabali was pushed to a corner to kill Tamilmaran, which he
feels sorry for but doesn’t think that it was wrong. Let us understand here
that Kabali doesn’t represent LTTE. Kabali is not even embodied entirely in
Rajnikanth. Kabali doesn’t exist entirely in itself. It extends itself in the
support it gets from Amir (John Vijay), Jeeva (Attakathi Dinesh), Durai (Uday
Mahesh) and many more. All of these people represent something. The idea
survives in its confusions, pain, aggression, thoughtfulness and inspiration.
One can see Kabali
disapprovingly looking at Jeeva (Attakathi Dinesh) as he pushes students of
Free Life Foundation away as he makes way for Kabali, but Kabali cannot put a
decisive end to it. In a manner, it shows the alienation of civilians from the larger
movement by the various groups that took over it, but the movement itself has
to accept these groups and their ways reluctantly. Some of these groups came to
represent the movement itself irrespective of whether the movement wanted it or
not.
At one level, I
feel that Ranjith doesn’t seem to advocate for the LTTE and its methods. It is
apparent in the portrayal of this student at the Free Life Foundation called ‘Tiger’.
He gets a rap on the knuckles for glorifying his life with guns. What this lone
tiger would have done at the end to Kabali, based on support from the
government is open to everyone’s guess. It is reported that Selvarasa
Pathmanathan, the leader of LTTE after the death of Velupillai Prabhakaran has
been arrested and is cooperating with the Sri Lankan government but also runs
an NGO for internally displaced persons. The story here is not clear and is
left open.
Ranjith has
interestingly used tattoos on his characters to help the audience understand
what each one represents. For instance, Veerasekaran (Kishore) sports what
appears to be a lion tattoo. The Sri Lankan flag is also called the lion flag. Veerasekaran
is the one Kabali fights the most in the movie. You can also see Kabali sipping
tea from a cup that has the Canadian flag before he rams his car into Loganathan
(Mime Gopi) and kills him. Canada is a significant part of the global network that
supports Tamil nationalism. These are also the obvious ones to pick.
Ranjith also uses
other kinds of metaphors to communicate with the audience. Abandoning pregnant
women appears for about three times in the movie. Jeeva himself is a child of
such an occurrence in which Kabali sent one Banu to Penang for studies, where
she was cheated and delivered Jeeva. Is that a metaphor for the training the
Tamil militant groups received in India and what they were left with? Meena (Riythvika) is
another example of an abandoned pregnant woman who keeps addressing Kabali as
father. Kabali wonders whether he should adopt her. What might Meena represent?
Use of abandonment of pregnant women as a metaphor shows the exploitation of
the spirit and the people, impregnating them with imaginations but not be there
to parent the outcomes of such congregations, leading to permanently scarring
the psyche of the women or that they represent and the outcomes themselves.
However, though Kumudavalli becomes pregnant out of the marriage of love with
Kabali, circumstances are such that they are unable to nurture the child that is
born leaving it in the hands of traitors until the right time comes. It is surprising
and slightly disturbing that one of the traitors is named Velu (does the name
ring a bell?) who takes care of the child, though he repents for his mistake
later.
The most difficult
question that we need to ask is what does Kumudavalli (Radhika Apte) represent?
She associates with Kabali right from his first struggle, falls in love with
him and marries him. Not only that, she shapes Kabali’s outlook in fundamental
ways. She advises him to wear coats (self-respect) and conduct himself in a
certain manner. She is like this constant guide, the beacon of light that
Kabali relies on. What is it that Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism partnered with,
that shaped it differently, in a manner that made it stronger, respectable and more
acceptable to the world? I think Kumudavalli represents the ideology of revolutionary
socialism. Revolutionary socialism demands support of the masses, in this case
to be understood as the support of the Tamil populace across the world. This
begins to make sense when the priest pronounces in the Madhuraiveeran temple that
if Kumudavalli and Kabali are together, Kabali can never be defeated. But the
death of Tamilmaran (Charles Vinoth) separates them. The anger of Tamizh
Kumaran (Kalaiyarasan) at Kabali is not lost on us. Does Tamizh Kumaran represent
the anger of larger India against Tamil nationalism? Does he also represent
India’s efforts to kill Tamil nationalism clandestinely? Time will tell.
Kumudavalli’s and
Kabali’s congregation leads to the birth of Yogi (Dhansika), but she grows
without her parents under Velu’s custody. Does Yogi represent the Sri Lankan
Tamil youth of today housed in the Tamil Eelam – the north and eastern
provinces of Sri Lanka? It is hard to miss the similarities of Yogi's tattoo on the neck, the map of Sri Lanka and the peripheral areas that are claimed to be Tamil Eelam. Was she the dream – the anticipated outcome of Sri
Lankan Tamil nationalism? Her fear and lack of trust on whom to believe is clear
in her encounter with some Tamilians when she arrives in Tamil Nadu. What is
the author trying to tell us about what she represents? She was asked to kill
her own father, but she didn’t. Where does she fit in the history books?
What is Tony lee?
If one explores China-Sri Lanka relations it is hard to ignore the warmth these
two countries share. China has publicly assisted Sri Lanka in expanding its
army and put an end to the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Tamil struggle. Tony lee who
heads Gang 43 with its logo that looks like a dog from the side has too many
similarities with the map of china or even the idea of a dog in Chinese culture.
What does 43 stand for? My guess is as good as anybody’s. For instance, China
holds control or claims to hold control over 34 provinces and if you add the 9
provinces Sri Lanka considers as its own country, you arrive at the magic
number 43.
Ang lee, who is
hundred years old seems to roughly stand for the Republic of China (founded in
1912) by Sun Yat Sen, which is very different from the People’s Republic of
China (Tony lee). His political philosophy of three principles, one of which is
non ethnic nationalism can be seen in Ang lee’s first and last attempt in the
movie to bring all groups together.
One of the major
criticisms of the movie is that it lacks pace when Kabali begins the search for
his wife. Kabali cannot win without the support of his wife. The moment we understand
what she represents, which I think is the support of Tamils in India and all
over the world, you begin to understand the pain of an idea that is looking for
its people. Kabali’s search for his wife and finding her in Pondicherry in a
French settlement is very close to the setting up of the Transnational
Government of Tamil Eelam.
Looking at all
this, it appears that Ranjith has not written a story, but only stated history
that most of us are very unfamiliar with. Ranjith’s own story in this movie is
short. It is only the final confrontation with Veera and Tony in Ang lee’s
party. Ranjith hopes that with support of the Tamil masses (Kumudavalli), India
(Tamil Kumaran) and the youth of the Tamil regions in Sri Lanka (Yogi), the
Tamil people can win even a violent struggle against the Chinese and the Sri
Lankan forces, if it comes to that.
Thus a story of
metaphors is told. This is also the biggest challenge I think Ranjith faces as
a director. He is struggling to show us two movies at the same time. “Kabali
the movie” you see on the screen is a mask that struggles to conceal “Kabali
the story of Tamil nationalism”. If you go for the mask, you will say that it
has many holes. Well, the holes are meant for you to throw the mask away and
see the real story. It doesn’t matter whether you like the movie or not. What
is important is that you come back from the movie, go on the internet and start
studying the story of Tamil nationalism. I am just doing that.
