Monday, March 28, 2016

Of heroes and villains

Now that all the minor issues that can engage humanity's brains have been taken up - with Hawkings and his ilk bothering about 'Why and what is the universe?'; Trump and his ilk ably handling how to help people live with each other; and any number of gurus fighting to tell you the truth of what happens to you after death, burial or cremation or being fed to the vultures apart - I can concentrate on the more important conundrums of life.

Picture this scene - something that is quite common in Indian movies, specifically South Indian. The Mafia Boss tell his henchmen to go and hunt down the hero. Immediately, hordes of them, wielding machetes, cram themselves into cars and drive off in a flurry.

Tell me, is that the time you would feel the pressing need to do some calisthenics? When crammed twenty to one car, with no space to breathe without your stomach bumping the tail-bone of your companion? Yet, there they would all be, with machete-wielding hands sticking out of the windows, swinging them vigorously while they scream at the top of their voices in a pathetic attempt at the Japanese 'Kiai'. One would have thought that a playground would give them more...err...space for their calisthenics. Is it because it is necessary to do warm-up exercises before you engage in murder? Having never committed one, I am woefully ill-informed about these things.

And, of all times to draw attention to oneself, the last, I would have thought, would be when you are out to murder someone. Sort of like taking a selfie, just as you slice someone's neck, and posting it on the net. I mean, I know this is a selfie-obsessed generation but to take a selfie just as you are killing someone and to post it on Facebook is a tad too far even for them. Not even if it will get you a million likes. I don't know if you are allowed to check on Facebook, when they drop you through the floor, with a noose around your neck to keep you from falling all the way.

If the villains flummox me, the heroes leave me gape-mouthed in wonder. The knife flashes in at the abdomen; the hero can twist out of the way, jump backwards, slam the wrist of the opponent aside - and with a million such options available, what does he do? Grabs the knife and, with blood dripping off his palm, twists it out of the villain's hands and tosses it away. That, apparently, is macho behavior. You know, something like a batsman hitting a bouncer with his helmeted head in order to prove his cricketing prowess.

Much of this macho attitude seems to demand such a level of sheer boneheaded behavior that it is a wonder that the species survived till date. If our ancestors had patterned themselves on our heroes and villains, they would have disdained to produce spears; would have attacked saber-toothed tigers bare-handed and skewered their own guts on those saber-teeth to prove their machismo - net result being that the cockroaches would have developed to cockroach sapiens, with us unceremoniously vacating the field in favor of being digested by the less macho, more pragmatic carnivores.

But then all this is peculiar to Indian cinema - or, even, to South Indian cinema. So, perhaps, the species IS safe after all.

Or is it? It seems like the chest-thumping gorilla version of humanity is gaining the upper-hand all over the damn place. But, then, THAT is inevitable when people stop thinking and start emoting. Worse still, when they actually think that knee-jerk reactions are what thinking is all about.

Homo Sapiens, indeed! One needs to remove that Sapiens and put in a more appropriate word. Homo Trumpensis, perhaps?

16 comments:

  1. Ha Ha Good one. But interestingly there is a scientific theory that humans actually developed this kind of behavior for improvement of the species. Typically the ones who survive these kind of foolhardy exercises will be the ones to live on to pass on the genes - so the physical strength to survive these macho encounters get passed on and honed along generations. Maybe the gene to avoid such encounters also may be passed on by those who are clever enough to avoid them. Only the ones lacking the physical strength and stamina to survive such an encounter but lacking common sense to avoid one such will pass on without leaving offspring.

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    1. THIS kind of macho shit, like taking injuries where they can be easily avoided? No wonder, idiots are so ubiquitous in the world - it is all in the genes. Whether or not the physical strength was passed on, the idiocy was :)

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  2. If the heroine were present she would do the grabbing of the weapon or tear a piece of her clothing and tie it on the hero's wound......

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    1. Used to happen, Jaish. Nowadays it happens much lesser, jeans being so hard to tear :)

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  3. A side comment first - what is that reference to the gurus and post-death stuff about? Did I miss some interesting controversy? :)

    Yes, this macho stuff is quite the thing in our popular cinema. Why, even the craze for Hollywoodian superhero stuff is all about this worship of machismo, this need to look up to a super-dramatic saviour of sorts! The ancient ideals of Samurai and Kshatriya have been so distorted and forgotten, and the result is the empty and hollow cult of physical prowess. But this can also be represented by other nonsensical physical things like money power, sexual objectification, empty rhetoric, naare-bazi, etc. Anything that is devoid of real substance. A real downward movement of the societal cycle.

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    1. Oh! No! I mean only the general tendency of 5-Star Ashrams :)

      A sort of return to the roots - 'Oh! Back to the halcyon days when we were not over-burdened with brains' :)

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  4. So many things come to mind reading your post-it is difficult to be brief.

    This macho syndrome is no longer limited to goons and heroes.It is as evident in politics as it is in romance these days.If a girl turns down your proposal,kill her,acid her,kidnap her.

    And politicians--police,bureaucrats,aam janta--everyone has to toe their line.

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  5. Wouldn't being just an ominous presence like that dull black monolith in 2001, A Space Odyssey, boring? Imagine, instead of ten goondas in the backseat, if they had just one monolith, laid lengthwise on the sofa, not moving, not saying a word? 'Main tera khoon pee jaoonga' will sound so flat on it, no? :)

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    1. That it would, Achyut. What I do not see is the point in HAVING to show that menace when you are zooming around in a car. Much better, I would have thought, to reach the victim, get off the car and indulge in the calisthenics when you have more space to swing your arms around :)

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  6. I have lost count of times, I have gritted my teeth in frustration when the hero apparently turns away either in resigned victory or in overconfidence, when the damned villain gets up again. How can someone be so dense not to check whether the villain was really killed ! Homo Trumpensis indeed.. The age of the Homo Sapiens is over :D

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    1. Haha! And the other thing where the villain is cornered and the hero opts to go one-on-one with him to show how macho he is, at the end of which the villain grabs a gun and causes someone to sacrifice his life to save the hero? :)

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    2. I think the thought is that Guns are only for sissies :) or the act of committing a murder should ideally put the Hero behind bars for 14 years and then what will become of the poor heroine

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    3. Don't get me started on that. There were those times when the hero used to kill off a dozen henchmen and then, at the end, just as he is about to kill the main villain, someone stops him saying 'Why go to jail?' :) As though it is a culpable offense only when you kill a main character :)

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