Harry Potter & Tales of Krishna

Harry Potter & Tales of Krishna

Saturday afternoon, soft rain pattering on the window sill and a hot cuppa of freshly brewed coffee with a lovely book to read – a perfect picture of peace and serenity. As I was prying through my books to pick up the right one, the TV in the drawing room caught my attention as Ajay Devgan was belting fiery dialogues in high decibels. The movie in question was ‘Singham’ – a 2011 Hindi remake of Tamil film. It had the makings of a normal masala film a la Janjeer or Don of the 70’s & 80’s that gave Amitabh Bachhan the image of a angry young man. The film is centered around  Bajirao Singham (Ajay Devgan) a brave and honest policeman with fire in his belly,  all set to ‘serve his nation’ in a police vardi. The story winds itself through known course of   high-voltage stunts, slow-motion action cuts and larger-than-life powerful action-emotional drama. 

As I was watching the stunts, I was also reminded of a different type of action packed suspense movie –Air Force One. Was wondering – what is it in them,  that these movies command such immense repeat value? These films are loved by the masses and the classes, the men and the women, the young and the old, the rich and the poor alike. Singham is the kind of film which keeps the viewer glued to the storyline and gives him the solace that there is hope of a fight against corruption! The triumph of good over evil! With spicy dialogues flavored with Marathi clichés, heroism, death-defying action sequences and pulse pounding thrills, no matter how dismissive one might be of films that have no space for shades of grey, such films keep lovers of ‘action packed  potpourri’ engaged. 

A runaway super duper hit that comes to my mind is the character of Harry Potter - a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent eleven year old Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The main story arc concerns Harry's quest to overcome the evil dark wizard Lord Voldemort, whose aim is to subjugate non-magical people, conquer the wizarding world, and destroy all those who stand in his way. As children, we used to be so engrossed in reading Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and Secret Seven books that had similar plots. Never realized when we graduated to James Hadley Chase to Alistair Maclean and later on to Arthur Hailey. 

These books have gained immense popularity, critical acclaim and commercial success worldwide despite some fair share of criticism, including concern for the increasingly dark tone. 

One wonders as to how such unrealistic images and scenes appeal to the public eye when to a logical mind, this all sound superfluous. Despite knowing fully well that it is ‘old wine in new bottle’ the fantasies portrayed in these stories continue to enjoy public patronage. One gapes at all this with awe and disbelief but a careful review reveals that the mass appeal lies in many aspects that are effectively interwoven in the fabric called story line. 

Let me attempt to enumerate a few:

The famous utterances of Oliver Twist in Charles Dicken’s celebrated novel – ‘Please Sir, can I have some more?’  Is a expression of a meek force that tries to question the established system that tends to suck within itself the weak and fortify the powerful. Is it not the same stirring force that literally churned the nation to support Anna Hazare’s fight against corruption?

An additional interesting aspect of the plot is that the hero is but always coming from very humble background be it Harry Potter or Oliver Twist – both orphans or for that matter Slumdog Millionaire whose main hero is an adolescent from the zhuggis of Mumbai. There is fantasy and a coming of age flavor peppered with elements of mystery, thriller and romance.

One more common thread that these storylines share is that the enemy or the villain of the piece is very mighty and powerful while the hero though weak in terms of resources has a steely will power. The many heroes are symbolic faces of primarily good versus evil, with evil continually trying to corrupt and exploit good, but good winning out in the end.  Apart form the dogged determination, there is a deep suffering that triggers inborn and innate powers that surge forth in defiance, to root out the evil. There is thrill, suspense and drama entwined into a seamless story with a happy ending.

As the hero progressively faces social and emotional situations that give him a setback, he learns to overcome the problems that face him, including even ordinary teenage challenges such as friendships and exams, and the greater test of preparing himself for the confrontation that lies ahead. Many a times all this is portrayed through an effective tool –‘flashback’ 

Interestingly, these characters although imaginary co-exist in and within a known environment: Harry Potter & Oliver Twist in London, Air Force One deals with real life President of USA while Singham is portrayed in Goa. The environment completely separated from reality is intimately connected to it. This leads the reader /viewer to make believe that it can happen just anywhere, anytime or perhaps he also tends to identify himself with the hero. This is not restricted to men alone as women also identify themselves in such backdrops that make a Jhansi ki Rani or ‘Udaan’ based on Kiran Bedi’s biography and many more, runaway hits. By blending fiction to reality it tends to create a fine balance of truism to the larger than life superman type characters. A smooth transformation from real life to reel life and back , so to say.

When one delves deeper one realizes that this is not a recent phenomenon and dates back as early as humanity itself that makes legendary figures from the Ramayana, Mahabharata or even the Bible to live a life of magic, mystery, in born powers etc etc.

Let me take the life of Krishna as a representation of all the mythologies and folklore. Right from  the prophecy that Krishna will be the cause of  his uncle, Kansa’s death upto the point that Krishna is immortalized, the life sketch is a panorama of miracles and larger than life happenings which make the stories endearing even today almost 5000 years later. Be it  the  heroic feat of Vasudeva to take the new born baby Krishna from the prison cell to Nanda’s house, the suckling of the ogress Putana off her life by the infant Krishna, the taming of  the serpent Kaliya who poisoned the Yamuna river,  the lifting of Gowardhan all portray Krishna’s role as a protector of people. 

Lord Krishna advised the people of Vrindavan to take care of their animals and their environment (symbolically the Gowardhan hill) that provide them with all their necessities, instead of worshipping Indra annually by spending their resources. Was this not a spiritual movement started by Lord Krishna which went against the orthodox forms of worship of the Vedic gods such as Indra?

And then there is romance, song & dance too. The stories of his play with the gopis eternally portrayed as ‘raas leela’ in Jayadeva’s Geet Govind and the immortalized worship of Radha Krishna, to this day is a testimony to the captivation around these tales. 

As a young man, Krishna overthrew and killed his maternal uncle, Kansa, after avoiding several assassination attempts from Kansa's followers. He reinstated Kansa's father, Ugrasena, as the king of the Yadavas and became a leading prince at the court – the triumph of good over evil.

The pinnacle of Krishna’s brilliance is the Bhagwad Geeta, which is the bedrock of Hinduism – a way of life and has inspired many thinkers & philosophers to express the  potency of the fathomless epic be it the Dnyaneshwari, Geeta Rahasya, Geetai et all. Shrimad Bhagwad Geeta is a revered text and often described as a concise guide to Hindu theology besides being a practical, self-contained guide to life.

We also have the real life narratives of Chatrapati Shivaji , chronicled by eminent historians like Purandare , which are thrilling, full of valour & determination, and continue to inspire us.

All this reveals just one truth - that the main theme is triumph of life over death and justice over prejudice - irrespective of which cultural backdrop the storyline is based. It is the innate desire to be happy and devoid of suffering on one hand and the actual unhappiness or sorrows that one faces in real life that makes living in a world of fantasy, albeit for a brief time, a need, which is as crucial for the emotional satiation just as air, water, shelter are essential physical needs. 

It’s said that religion is opium for the masses. The success of these stories does reflect the need of some such opium to numb the pain of injustice and  cheating born out of indeterminate discrimination.

While learning to endure, what cannot be cured, these stories give a strong message, hope and solace against adversity. It’s the angst that finds expression .And so their success.

Anagha Hunnurkar

12^th September 2011