Paradeshi: A daring vision of history

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The war-like political scenario which emerged after the Mumbai terror attacks became a fitting background for my watching P T Kunjumuhammed's 'Paradesi' for the second time. The still festering wounds of partition have pushed a community to the edge of victimisation. The attacks gave a chance to the OCD-affected ultarnationalists of the country to be seriously suspicious of 'the shifting' allegiance of Muslims in the country. Significantly, the council of Imams (Muslim clerics) asked the members of the community to celebrate Eid-ul-Azha (Bakrid) on a low-key mode, wearing a black band around their fists, if possible. Even the orthodox Muslim factions have come out in the open, condemning the attacks. But none of these measures seems to have placated the 'nationalist' gods.
*Valiyakath Moosa (Mohanlal), Paradeshi's protagonist, is a staunch nationalist, who often boasts that his father Ahmed Sahib has sacrificed his life for the freedom of the country. But, for the state, he is a Pakistan spy. The prototype of an outsider dangling like a Democletus' sword atop the fragile security of the 'peaceful' motherland!
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Valiyakath Moosa represents a class of Eranadan Muslims who bear the brunt of the Partition. They had been part of the unified India, belonging to the country's typical working class, when India's struggle for freedom was in its climax. They migrated to Karachi, then a busy commercial centre, to eke out a living mostly by selling beedis. The country was in the orgasm of freedom struggle and of the behind-the-scenes political mechinations.
The sharp sabre of imperialsim cut the country into two pieces. Pakistan was born (or miscarried). A people who had remained a single entity unified by the common factor of nationhood saw in one another an outsider. The pen which wrote the history of the sub-continent in blood rewrote the destiny of the those hapless Eranadan emigrants in Karachi. Most of them being illeterate, either they were untouched by politics or they conceived its emotional part (Like Kayi Abdul Rahman- Jagathy Sreekumar). Passport, a few papers of identity, crept into their inocent lives unawares.
Some of them decided to settle in Pakistan, possessing a Pak passport ( like the husband of Kaddesu- Lakshmi Gopalaswami). Some either tore them into pieces or burnt them into ashes. For them the soil of Eranadu was like the womb of their mothers.
The consequence of their choices becomes their destiny. Moosa and others like him live as fugitives. Buckled by the old age and a strong determination to brave challenges, they exist by giving tips to corrupt police officers. Kadeesu, left alone after her husband marries a Pakistani girl, leaves Karachi and, commits suicide, when she is forcibily deported. Kayi Abdul Rahiman and Usman takes a safer shelter of lunacy. Rayankka, a frail old man, is shot dead, when he decides to go back on the border.
Moosa's sharp memory pieces together the harrowing tales of this fraternity. Usha, a freelance journalist, file them togethr, only to be burnt by the authority. If something you write can ignite the inflated lies of the power that be, it will try its best either to sensationalise your journalism or to convert it into ashes. This is the film's short reminder on the media activism. Moosa's destiny ends nowhere, as much as the film doesn't end conventionally anywhere. The same destiny hovers around the Muslim community in the country in defiance of the will power and prayer of some patriotic Indians.
The charectors in the film are not fictionally fabricated. They live in Malabar, reminding us that the scars of the partition won't heal fast. That P T Kunjumuhammed took years to make the film, gathering valuable legal and other documents adds to Paradesi's credibility as a visual historic document.
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I saw the film in company with my sister-in-law, who is an 8th standard student. From its beginning to end, she kept asking me several questions adout its plot. Despite my repeated explanations, she couldn't understand what the film was all about. Once it was over, I heard her heaving a sigh of relief. " It doesn't come anywhere near TwentyTwenty," she said.
We can ignore her comment as childish. But a majority of school children this writer talked to had almost the same opinion. Don't they belong to a community of viewers who should have roots deep in the history? Must their sense of history not grow at more rapid a pace than the life and technology? Shouldn't films on stunning historical facts do justice to their sensibility? Why can't the film have as much appeal on them as it has always on me?
Technically speaking, the creative indiscipline in sequencing scenes and shots in the film makes its narrative rather complex. For a school child, watching the movie is almost like reading a history textbook. It's a challenge for directors of daring works to make them accessable to all classes of viewers, irrespective of their age and erudition.
When I argued that 'Paradeshi' is one of the best 10 Malayalam films in the last 50 years, some of my friends tried to smother their giggles. But I believe none can ever counter my argument.

By Shameer KS

Death and rebirth of David Gale

By shameer KS
(A review of the film Life and Death of David Gale)

What makes one's life meaningful, a white-collar job with a hefty salary? A big flat at the centre of metropolis? Windows of opportunity for an epicurian post-retirement experience? Having a colourful pix appear on the front pages of newspapers? Awards and momentos, and, after death, obituries written by experts in leading news magazines?

Answers vary as per perceptions and the way you are born and brought up. But does it look much better that our desires get prolonged constantly? That we have always desires and values?
Fulfillment is not desirable for an activist in an unbalanced society.
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The eponymous protagonist of the film, 'Life and Death of David Gale', has such a perception of life. 'Fantasies must be unrealistic. The moment you get what you seek you don't have want any more. In order to continuously exist desire must have its objects perepetually absent', he says in his classroom.
Only values that are based on a happiness in future can make our lives meaningful.
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David Gale had such an idal. He was an activist with the Death Watch, an NGO working for the abolition of capital punishment. As a staunch campaigner, he articulated his politics, earning enemies. But when he was arrested for raping and murdering his fellow activist Constance, none gave him a chance of suspicion. He was earlier arrested and acquitted for raping his lady student. After all, Gale's sperm was there inside Constance's womb.The jury had all evidences to sentence the capital punishment. Gale is, by 'sheer coincidence', being dragged to a situation which his politics calls inhuman and undemocratic.
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Investigative journalist Betzy ( Kate Winslet) gets the rare chance to interview Gale and bring the truth (if Gale's version of it really exists)into public. What happened in Gale's, as well as Constance's, life is revealed through a conversation between Gale and Betzy in jail and, in the climax, through a videotape, a proof valuable enough to acquit Gale. However, Betzy, who is unable to beat the time alloted to her, is also unable to save Gale.
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The story only begins after Gale is executed. In the second transcript of the vediotape, we see how the storyline of the film merges with its phiolosophy
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There is uncertainity all around at the time when domination over people is getting newer political dimensions and justifications. Terms as revolutionary as democracy and freedom are widely misused to justify the greed of a few tycoons with a dozen adjectives. This uncertanity prevails over the sphere of activism by the metamorphosis of an activist into
unpredictable forms. What continues to happen in Palastine and Iraq happens in the life and death (With or without capital letters) of David Gale as well.

SPACESHIPS OF PLEADES: A HOAX?

SPACE SHIPS OF THE PLEADES: THE BILLY MEIER STORY
Kal K. Korff

Prometheus Books
New York
Pp 440, $ 25.95

1975- The year eventually appeared in the flying saucer (UFO) folklore as the time line of coming of an extraterrestrial prophet .Though no messiahs descended on earth from the abyss of heaven, an ill-educated farmer from a remote hamlet of Switzerland, Eduard Billy Meier became a celebrity overnight. He claimed that visitors from a planet of the constellation Pleiades ( karthika) landed on his estate and entrusted him with a new mission. In essence, a rescue operation bearing a ray of hope for the environmentally-degraded green planet earth. A large number of people who were already bothered in the coming ecocide were at least mentally- receptive towards anything that could provide a cosmic solace. So the dramatic declaration of Meier that he has been chosen as the Messenger who should lead the mankind to a new millennium captured the weird imagination of many westerners.

According to Meier’s version, his first alleged extraterrestrial contact occurred in 1942 at the age of five with an elderly extraterrestrial humanoid named Sfath. Wikipeadia, the most referred electronic encyclopedia records: “Contacts with Sfath allegedly lasted until 1953. From 1953 to 1964 Meier's alleged contacts continued with an extraterrestrial human woman named Asket. Meier claims that after an eleven year break, contacts resumed again (beginning on January 28, 1975) with an extraterrestrial human woman named Semjase the granddaughter of Sfath.”

Meier’s claim seems astonishing. He was instructed by the alien visitors to transcribe the conversations between them which have been later published in the German language. This interplanetary gospel is known as Contact Notes . Currently there are 9 volumes of the Contact Notes (titled Plejadisch-Plejarische Kontaktberichte) published. Some selected portions were translated into English; a four-volume Message from the Pleiades by Meier spokesman Wendelle Stevens.
These stunning revelations, though accepted by many at face value turned into a nightmare by the investigations of Kal Korff. The book ‘Spaceship of the Pleades’ narrates Korff's investigations in detail. Like many others , Korff also swallowed all these stories. For more than two decades he had been investigating various claims brought forward by different witnesses regarding the sighting of UFOs. In 1991,he arrived at Semjacy Silver Star Center where the so-called the extraterrestrial objects were exhibited. The unique collection consists of stones, metals, photographs and many other things claimed to have been brought from Pleades.
How did Meier produce the photographs of the alien spaceships? Kal Korff, the Sherlock Holmes of flying saucer world began running after this enigma till he gets an opening. Nearly one third of the book (pp 109-271 ) deals with the detailed examination of the photographs which were subjected to digital analysis , thus conducive to detect any conceivable manipulation and fakeness. Usually very often people forget the fact that photographic adulteration is comparatively easy to the extent that applying modern technics, a totally fraudulent motion picture can be devised instantly. Korff took all these into consideration when he x-rayed the Billy Meier photos which ultimately exposed the deception practiced and resulted in the formation of a documentary film broadcast by the Fox channel in their popular serial ‘Encounters’.
Investigation by the help of computer enhancement is better possible with the negatives than the photographs, but they were not available. Meier explained away the non-existence of the negatives saying that it got lost in the postal department, some were taken by the Crime Investigation Department and still others were given to the extraterrestrials as they return to the home planet. Amazingly, all negatives seem irretrievably lost. Very convenient indeed!.
Reputed investigating agencies, claimed Billy Meier , had checked the photographs thoroughly and had confirmed them to be genuine. Wendelle Stevens, the ring leader of Meier, asserted that the De Anza Systems of California had carried out detailed investigation on the two volumes of the ‘Journal of Photographs of the Pleiades’. In spite of all those tall claims, Korff decided to go ahead for the verification. He contacted with Mr.Wayne Heppler , the manager of De Anza Systems who informed that no such investigations were taken place at anytime by the company(pp 111-121 ). A number of such mythical claims turned out to be pure white lies.
Michael Taylor, another investigator of Meier story could not escape from similar conclusion: “The Meier photograph of the beautiful Pleiadian alien, Semjase, turned out to be a photocopy of a model from a Sears Catalog. Another one of Meier's photographs, where he allegedly traveled into the future aboard a Pleiadian Beamship to photograph the aftermath of a 9.0 earthquake in San Francisco showing the toppled Trans-America building, turned out to be a realistic looking painting from a geology magazine article about earthquakes. On top of these damning examples, every single one of Billy Meier's photographs of Pleiadian ships have been shown to be of third, fourth and even fifth generation(photographs of photographs). This means that he likely airbrushed suspension wires and other signs of fraud. There is not one example of an original, first generation Billy Meier photograph. On top of that, it has been shown that the reflections on some of the Pleiadian ships are not consistent with the position of the sun, indicating possible superimposition techniques. To top it off, a reporter found a bunch of miniature models exactly matching many of the Pleiadian ships shown in his photos. His ex-wife has come out to denounce him as a fraud as well. The evidence is overwhelming that whole Billy Meier story is unquestionably, absolutely, completely and totally 100% BOGUS. Case Closed!”
Initially, the Billy Meier case was considered irrefutable by many leading UFO experts but changed the whole scenario after the subtle probing of Korff. Walter Andrus, the director of MUFON, the biggest UFO investigation center in the world who attested the results and observed: “ Karl Korff must be congratulated for his determination and persistence in seeking the truth. His outstanding investigation is an exciting and yet intriguing expose of what opportunists has caused the most important U.F.O. case in history.” Jerome Clark, the Vice President of Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies stated that this book was the definite expose of the most ambitious hoax in UFO history.

Reviewed by

N.M Hussain

Cold Mountain: A pilgrimage from history to commune

It was in the month of June when Icame to read Charles Freizer's ' Cold Mountain". June is the foreplay of Monsoon's tryst with the Indian Subcontinent, August being its orgasm. We like to spend most of the time under blanket. Usually I choose fictions to read during the month as much as I like roasted cashew nut and a cup of black tea.
Coincidentally, the novel is all about the cosy laziness its characters desire to have during the peak of American Civil War. Laziness is a blessing when hyperactivity like war takes the toll of life in collectivity. In the novel the journey that the protagonist Inman undertakes by bunking compulsory military service, purportedly to meet his beloved Ada, takes him nearby the cold mountain, which symbolises yearning for laziness and collective living
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June is the month when lovers meet and exchange memories albeit in a short span of time. Inman meets Ada and hands her the tales of travails he has undergone on his way to meet her. They build a future in the way they build fire to keep off coldness. But no fire can keep off winter, which is the destiny pervading in the novel throughout. We see, towards the end of the novel, the hopes of a bright future, when there is no fear of war, smoulder beneath the cold mountain. Inman, who overcame all difficulties during the journey resembling that of an epic hero, is wounded fatally in a climatic fight. Our struggle, ideal as it is, will be ultimately overpowered by Destiny
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But can love be ever defeated? Inman dies not at the battlefield from where he escapes to a commune, but in the lap of Ada. She saw the wound beneath his neck, which reminds her of the sacrifice and recklessness that love brings about in human beings. It is this recklessness that gives Ada the the strength to exist in the loneliness.
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Cold Mountain is more a sonnet than a novel. Even descriptions of sexual activity is rendered poetically. I don't think the novel is historical fiction, as some critics have pointed out. It is an escape from history, which is bitterness in every sense of the term
Reviewed by

Shameer KS

Visit him at ksshameer.blospot.com
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