A life of protest

The times are tough. Despite reaping the fruits of the plethora of privileges and having mastered the blessed skill of ignorance, living has become tough. While the effects of the scorching virus sending me into an endless cough fits are one reason, the major share of applause for breaking my spirit goes to the news I watch and hear. Like any other person in this giant country, I too wake up to news of people dying off breathlessness and lack of basic life-sustaining needs. Once dead, the bodies are kept, dragged and tossed around until they find a space to burn them. Like most of you reading this, I am broken as well. From the horrifying pictures of people carrying the dead bodies of their loved ones to the allegations of our supreme leader being an ignorant peacock, I have cried numerous times in the past few days. The lack of hope and “all is lost” is everything I hear inside my head.

There are times when a human truly accepts defeat and there is nothing more horrifying than this. I am an ignorant man who is only starting to live now but has already come close to this point a couple of times. From personal loss to accepting that I will have to helplessly watch others die before my eyes, my will to survive has taken a few good blows. Being an easily manipulative and vulnerable person, such moments truly seem to take a toll on me. Only a day ago, I had such a life-altering moment and this time, the point of inspiration was a movie.

I watch movies when I am happy or sad. Every time I lose control of my emotions, I boot up my laptop and watch a movie as I believe that it is one thing that truly grounds me. During the movie, there is nothing that matters to me and this form of escapism is everything that has kept me going during the few tough times I have faced in the past. Yesterday, I had begun thinking about the COVID crisis and by the time I hit rock bottom thanks to my pessimistic thought process regarding the topic, I also sustained a coughing fit and had to somehow calm myself down. I fired up my laptop and watched the Dhanush starrer Karnan. Two and half hours of pure magic. As the film ended and names of the cast came up on screen, I am in tears trying to just accept what I had just saw.

Mari Selvaraj is a humane filmmaker and his films are no less of a protest. Showcasing problems of the marginalized, he has often made us realize that there is an overlooked stratum in our country that continues to fight even today. Karnan is no magnum opus but is in fact a mirror to the lows of life many people have sunk to in the past for others to walk now. Rumored to be inspired from the life of a certain real-life person known as Melavalavu Murugeshan, Karnan’s fight for something as basic as his identity is indeed heartbreaking. The movie was the right one at the right time reminding me of the fact that there are people who fought and who never chose to give up. While I sit in the comfort of my room and wonder why the country is corrupt, the point that someone like Karnan lived in the past and didn’t even have the rights I take for granted is indeed a tight slap asking me to wake up.

As mentioned before, I am easily manipulated and the stories of such movies often leave me with the motivation I have been looking for. Turning the pessimistic clock around and looking at the glass half full, I realize that life for some has been their biggest protests and I walk free today because they had their heads raised. This very thought is everything that drives me at the moment and makes me write this piece, which will mostly be of no use for you but a reminder for myself that life must go on. A hard reminder that however worse things seem, it can be changed.