1. The film Tenet and the Crocus Music Hall massacre in Russia: uncanny coincidence!
2. Kantara: what did Hindus like about this film?
I had heard big tales about it: “It celebrates Indian culture”.
I was expecting something spectacular.
Turned out to be a colossal disappointment.
Kantara is utterly communistic: a rich landlord, a descendant of a King, a man belonging to a royal family, a higher-caste and higher-class (straight) man is ruthlessly & deceptively trying to grab the land of people who are essentially tribals…rather, very poor agrarian workers…
This is the essence of the story.
Instigating hatred of the lower class/caste against the higher class/caste – glorifying the rather dissolute, immoral lives of primitive villagers.
As for the miserably depicted religious aspect, which never adds up to anything, or never plays any part in the progression of the plot, the film promotes local, primitive superstition, not “Sanatan Dharma”.
What “Indian culture” does this film project?
That the hero is a thug, a drunkard, a good-for-nothing who keeps loafing around with a bunch of other good-for-nothings, one of whom keeps having sexual escapades in the fields with random village women?
That the “heroine” – a painfully useless character in the film – gets a job through “jugaaḑ” and has premarital sex with her slacker boyfriend?
Seriously?
The hero keeps thrashing the bad henchmen of the nefast higher-caste landlord in a puddle of dirty mud, rolling around in filth – this buffalo-keeper is the shining example of “Sanatan Dharma”?
He takes drugs – peddled to him by an old man who’s perpetually “high” – and is called Mahadeva!
Everything in this film is a snide subversion of Hinduism.
Bollywood films can’t resist using the names of Hindu gods & goddesses for all their obscene, cheap, vicious, villainous characters.
Who do these forest people worship?
I’ve never heard either of Panjurli or of Guliga – nor have 95% of Hindus.
Comes across as a local, primitive spirit of the land – of that particular piece of land – like a hill spirit or mountain spirit or river spirit.
These people are not exactly philosophers or sages.
They are not heroes or poets.
They are totally illiterate, filthy, and believe in the crassest, worst superstitions.
They don’t worship something as exalted as the Sun or Moon or Giver of Rain – let alone the Creator of the Universe or Parabrahm – but a very local land-bound, territorial spirit.
And this is the greatness of Sanatan Dharma?
The idea of a “genius loci” is universal, found in all “pagan” cultures.
There’s nothing Hindu, Vaidik or Paurāṇik about it.
It was not clear to me how far does the influence and protection of Panjurli extend – but he’s supposed to be a protector of that “land”.
Except what does that “land” mean?
Is it bound by some limits, by some river or hill or forest?
Or is it unlimited?
Does Panjurli protect only Kerala or a part of Kerala or a part of Kerala & a part of Karnataka – what does he protect – I didn’t find anything remotely convincing.
What is sacred about that land?
How do you define “sacred”?
How do you know it is “sacred”?
Where does it begin and where does it end?
How is this sacredness expressed, how does it manifest, in real life?
Nothing is shown clearly, nothing makes any sense.
There is no proper moral, ethical foundation or value here.
Why should a King suddenly find peace of mind after coming across a piece of rock in a forest?
What is spiritual about this?
There is no quest for truth or knowledge, no profound crusade for the right and the good: not even average bravery or heroism.
It is all pure superstition: tribal superstition wins over the caste-system.
That is what Kantara shows!
I wonder what do the Kabbalistic-Messianic Israelitish friends of our Hindutva bandwagon have to say, about this form of “goblin” worship – worship of “things created”?
Their darling Zionist “Moshiach” would just open his mouth and instantaneously incinerate all such “idol/stone worshippers”.
And the “Christian Nationalists” who worship Trump – whom Hindutva lickspittles are slobbering all over – and the “Christian Evangelists” who support Netanyahu & Trump – would call it nothing less than “demon worship”.
Which is what it is.
Guliga is basically a demon – a wrathful, vindictive spirit.
If anything, the film showcases the most problematic, embarrassing, unintellectual aspects of Indian culture – rather, the blind beliefs of illiterate tribals of the Indian subcontinent – not the intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and serious aspects of Hinduism.
These are the kind of people who would worship a pile of cow-dung as well as a dog – they are steeped in terrors of ghosts & spirits, in the most mind-numbing, soul-degrading superstition.
The famous song Varāha Roopam, is not only a copy, but has rock music!!
How very Indian!!!!!
Fact is, we are giving our worst enemies all the fodder they need, to run us down.
I will say this much, that the final two scenes were well-done.
Rishab Shetty acted them out very well: I’m sure they had a tremendous impact on the audience.
3. Kalki 2898 AD: worse – much, much worse – if anything.
At least Kantara is honest.
It shows what it shows, candidly, with much better acting, without any pretense to glorify “Hinduism”: it’s the interpretation of the Hindutva dimwits, showering unnecessary accolades on it, which is the problem.
Kalki is a deeply, viciously, insidiously dishonest film.
It pretends to respect Hindu culture, but subverts it totally.
Ashvatthāma is a powerful figure in the Mahābhārata, but he’s nowhere glorified the way this evil film does.
The character of Karṇa is very complex, and even somewhat contradictory, in the Mahābhārata, but there’s no such thing that he is to be celebrated over & above Arjuna.
Foul lie-berals have no problem salivating over Karṇa, who laughed & approved of the undressing of a menstruating Draupadī, amidst hundreds of Kings.
Typical cheap Lie-beral hypocrisy.
Nothing in this over-the-top melodramatic film seems original: even Deepika Padukone’s haircut seems to be a copy of the heroine of Rebel Moon.
Padukone can, however, act well, and gives decent expressions.
And couldn’t they find anyone younger than Amitabh Bachchan?
The man looks half-dead!
He looks like a doddering old hag!
Like the Joe Biden of Bollywood!
They’ve had to use all sort of cheesy special effects to make him look young, and for all the ridiculous stunts: so the whole thing looks fake.
(Every scene looks computer-generated fake.)
He’s nevertheless done his part as well as he could, because he is the finest actor India ever produced.
Except Padukone and Bachchan, not a single person in the entire film can actually act.
The worst of all is Kamal Hassan, who is the villain of the film, and who, UNSURPISINGLY, is portrayed as a “Brahmin”!
(Kamal Hassan can’t string two words together in Hindi, to save his life.)
This pregnant-woman-killing, fetus-serum-extracting evil “Brahmin” lurks in secret, sitting in a “Yoga” posture, on top of a mountain which is a direct & total copy of the Indian World-Mountain Meru.
Kalki is supposed to be a Brāhmaṇa warrior in at least the Mahābhārata, and this is portrayed by the nasty “Brahmin” villain of the film – in other words, Kalki 2898 AD directly attacks and inverts the fundamental idea of Kalki, though I’d need to see the films yet to come, to make any definitive statement.
The hero is again, another good-for-nothing loafer and thug – and clown.
The whole story of Kalki 2898 AD comes across as Kabbalistic – with Ashvatthāma acting the role of the “Wandering Jew” whose exile will come to end at the termination of 6,000 years of “exile” when the “Moshiach” comes.
This despicable trash film has nothing to do with Hinduism or India.
Kalki has to be the worst film I’ve seen in a long, long time, made by the filthiest, most insidious enemies of India & Indian culture.
4. I am reading the Dune series, and will need to read them at least twice, to come to any sort of conclusion about them.
Frank Herbert is undoubtedly a highly intelligent, intellectual man, but his literary skills aren’t very impressive.
The books are rather difficult to read – they don’t have the flow of really brilliant writing.
It maybe said they’re very cerebral, and need your unflinching focus & concentration, but I didn’t quite enjoy Dune as I did many other novels.
The 2nd Volume is much better written, but both novels contain an astonishing amount of wisdom and are full of quotable quotes.
I appreciate the fact that Frank doesn’t approve of the “Messiah/Mahdi” and his “Jihad” – but he doesn’t denounce it in strong terms either.
Muad’dib is an interesting epithet in the Dune world, in the sense that Herbert gives it a curious interpretation: that of the mouse.
I have sometimes wondered if the name “Moses/Moshe” is actually not related to the Sanskrit mūṣ or mūṣa (pronounced “moosh”) – which mean “rat” or “mouse”.
Moses is infact a Messiah figure – one who leads his people out of captivity into a promised land (except that he never reaches it).
Could “Moshiach” be related to the Sanskrit “mūṣika” (pronounced “mooshik”)?
The Sanskrit mūṣ or mūṣa still exists in the Islamic-Arabic name for Moses, i.e. Mūsā.
musā still means “mouse/rat” in some eastern Indian languages.
Indeed,
Mose = the Indo-European Mouse
I can only wonder if Herbert didn’t catch this curious connection.
– 7.26 Bhagavad Gītā
