Kannathil Muthamittal – A Peck on the Cheek

Home is where the heart is…

When I was about three years old, I would refuse to eat a single meal unless my parents played Gitanjali. I watched it almost everyday until we left India, it was my first film, and it is why Mani Ratnam seems to have an especially close association to my memories of home. Watching his films, the pangs of missing are so strong I can feel them in the pit of my stomach, ropes pulling at my heart, and tears that well in my eyes. Every frame is a reminder of home, depicted with a mix of accuracy and nostalgia. It is not what Ratnam does, but what he doesn’t do. He doesn’t change India, he doesn’t cover her in glitter and glamour, nor does he search for melodrama. His lens captures her natural beauty, the rural villages, her people, her soul, drawing human drama from reality. His films radiate with a love for India that is incomprehensible. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and to me, there is no place on earth more beautiful than home. There are no people on earth more beautiful than at home. In all its colorful pieces, from the cold touch of temple marble to the old ladies chewing paan, India is home.

I’ve spent a lot of time wondering why I despise a majority of Bollywood films. Most Indians are fanatical about every hip shake on a foreign moutain. What is wrong with me? Am I not Indian enough to understand? They are beautiful looking films about beautiful looking people, by any measure. But they have no soul. They have no heart and lack an essential human element. My despise extends beyond Bollywood to most Telegu and Tollywood films I grew up watching. Overly violent, bloody, melodramas that can stir up powerful emotions, but again lack soul and a human connection. India has a handful of good directors that do not get the credit or recognition they deserve. Mani Ratnam is one of them. He has a unique ability to both satisfy Indian audiences and make a thought-provoking film, a feat very few can accomplish. The Bollywood machine churns out glamorous and extravagant films with super-star actresses and chiseled actors living in mansions. Bollywood has been looking to the west for so long that it has forgotten what India is. Ratnam has been successful making movies about Indian issues, that take place in rural areas, shot in India, with Indian actors that actually look like Indians. Kannathil Muthamittal is such a film and has instantly become one of my favorite Ratnam films, along with Gitanjali and Roja.

The story of Kannathil Muthamittal takes place between Sri Lanka and Madras. Shyama, a Sri Lankan woman played by Nandita Das, is forced to abandon her baby in an Indian refugee camp in Rameswaram due to civil war. Her husband disappears early in the marriage due to ties with the LTTE. A family in Madras adopts the baby girl, Amudha, who at the age of nine is told of her adoption. A confused child, she desperately seeks to see her real mother. The family travels through Sri Lanka in search of the girl’s mother. The separation of child from mother is an interesting theme in Indian cinema and literitature. India is the land of the mother, she provides us sustenance, food, water, and allows to earn a living. She has, in essence, lost two of her children to war and strife: Pakistan and Sri Lanka. A war in the north and a war in the south, it pains to see a country separated by fighting. No country is perfect and co-existence has proven to be the most difficult task for human beings. Drowning the truth in sugary celluloid, as most of Bollywood does, only ignores the existence of the problem. Ratnam acknowledges these feuds and still sees only the best in people, no matter their circumstances. There is abundant beauty in India, and there is good in people, even if it is buried under decades of hatred. Who needs the streets of Amsterdam or the Swiss Alps to sing of love? Just watch the sun set over the coconut trees on the banks of the Godavri or the fishermen drifting into the harbor in Cochin and you will understand the love of mother India that binds us together, as we are all her children.

While the civil war in Sri Lanka has recently reached it’s bitter end, one can only wonder how long peace lasts, it is our nature. Ratnam draws some fascinating themes from this story, along with interesting characters. The adoptive father is a Tamil writer who fights with words and not bullets. The family’s guide is a Sinhalese man who is almost killed by the LTTE. The adoptive mother is a fair-skinned TV news reporter, while the real mother and Amudha are dark-skinned: a point that is especially explored in the film. Amudha is a child born from violence, she is the hope of peace brought to and protected in India. She seems to have always felt like an outsider, more so once told of her adoption. As war rages on, her innocence slowly withers during her ventures through Sri Lanka. She meets all people in her path with an unbiased kindness only capable in a child. When an LTTE suicide bomber speaks with her in a park, she asks him why his Tamil is funny. He smirks at her innocence, but is captivated at her simple and perhaps ideal view of the world. Both skin color and the Tamil language serve as a way to bind the characters together but also as a way of discrimination. There are many other themes that Ratnam explores in Kannathil Muthamittal, much beyond the scope of this journal. Watching the film, one will understand how well Ratnam films work on two-levels: a seemingly simple drama to appease audience demands with complex and thought-provoking themes underlying it. Pay close attention to the music and lyrics, as they are never ordinary Bollywood junk, and Ratnam uses his songs for a very specific purpose.

This has been the year of learning in my life, the year of numerous self inquisitions. I have been walking around for years with a void in my chest, searching for something, anything, to fill it with. While somethings fixed it temporarily, the void has never been really filled. I realized that home is where the heart is, and I left my heart in India a long time ago. Since I first opened my eyes to the azure painted walls of a hospital room in Bangalore, to the brown skinned gazes of my family, I gave my heart away under the auspices of colorful incarnations of Vishnu. Now on the other side of the world, after a journey of wonderful sights and people, I find myself missing home. I may never be whole again until I go back, but it isn’t time yet. Until then, the images and characters of Mani Ratnam will suffice.

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” – T.S. Eliot.