Readers Write In #678: The Messiah Among the Sands

By Pranav Madathil

‘Dune’, ‘Aayirathil Oruvan’, ‘Khaleja’, and prophetic protagonist problems

SPOILERS AHEAD

When Stilgar, played by an almost unrecognizable Javier Bardem, first whispered to himself that the young Paul Atreides was ‘lisan-al-gaib’ – the outworlder fated to redeem not only his people (the Fremen) but his whole planet (Arrakis/ Dune), I was overcome by a sense of deja vu. The tale of a ‘chosen one’ born to lead a persecuted people out of the desert that has imprisoned them and into the light of freedom is about as old as the very idea of stories. Moses is often cited as the progenitor of this myth, but as we observe its evolution, we must keep in mind that Moses was a Jew himself, and it was his own people that he freed from oppression. The reiterations of this tale often turn the ‘saviour’ into a stranger, an everyman who isn’t born great, but rather has greatness thrust upon them. Of course, India has no dearth of spins on this archetype- and the ones that stood out the most to me were two films that came out in 2010, ‘Aayirathil Oruvan’ and ‘Khaleja’.

Quick plot synopses to catch up anyone unfamiliar with these movies: ‘Khaleja’, written & directed by Trivikram ‘Guruji’ Srinivas, starring Mahesh Babu, Anushka Shetty, Prakash Raj, Shafi and Rao Ramesh, follows a hot-headed cab-driver from Hyderabad who finds himself embroiled in a corporate ploy to usurp a village, leading its residents to deify him and seek his protection. ‘Aayirathil Oruvan’, written & directed by Selvaraghavan (before he became every Tamil cinephile’s personal ‘lisan-al-gaib’), starring Karthi, Reema Sen, Andrea Jeremiah, R. Parthiepan and Azhagamperumal, chronicles an Indian expedition into uncharted territory in search of the long-lost Chola dynasty gone awry, leading an alcoholic jobber, an exasperated archaeologist and an army officer with a dangerous secret to unite for survival.

Mahesh Babu’s character in Khaleja (and I use that word deliberately- this is one of the rare instances where he’s playing a character) is named Alluri Sitarama Raju- something that he himself remarks on at multiple points in the film. The choice to give the name of a revolutionary martyred not just for the Indian freedom struggle but also the struggle of tribal people’s rights to a man being touted as nothing less than ‘God’ is very clearly political. At the same time, Karthi’s character, Muthu, in Aayirathil Oruvan is marked by all kinds of M.G.R iconography- be it the songs, the outfits or even the M.G.R. tattoo on his arm (obviously, the film shares its title with one of M.G.R.’s biggest hits as well). What does all this point towards ? From what I gather, these bits of world-building serve a similar role to the carefully planted prophecies of Dune’s Bene Gesserit. The ‘Kwisatz Haderach’ is developed as this superhuman saviour figure by conflating him with religious or populist imagery- in the context of Arrakis this means presenting him as the harbinger of the Fremen’s liberation and of the planet’s return to its fabled, prosperous past. In the case of ‘AO’ and ‘Khaleja’, one could argue that the audience are the Fremen- here it’s we who are being told to believe in these protagonists and their destined glory. We are being told, consciously or otherwise, to associate these fictional characters with the myths built around real life ‘leaders’ and ‘liberators’. Tamil and Telugu cinema have made their bones on these tactics of propaganda, often for more potent and dangerous ends than those being served here.

It’s also quite interesting that all three protagonists- Muthu, Raju and Paul, only gain validity in their ‘saviour’dom with the approval of the elder statesmen of their respective communities- be it the Chola king, the Tantrik head of the village Pali or Stilgar, the chief of Sietch Tabr. To some extent, it can also be said that their ascent to the status of a messiah requires a degree of fanatic devotion- a spark to light the fire of dogma across the community. ‘Khaleja’ has Shafi’s character Siddha embody this fanaticism, with his maddening chants of ‘Om Namah Shivay’ punctuating every blow dealt by Raju. In ‘AO’ and ‘Dune’, though, the fanaticism is implied to be embedded within the communities themselves- be it the southern fundamentalists of Arrakis or the voodoo practitioners of the hidden Chola Kingdom. Other common tropes are also seen, like the ‘mark of the messiah’, prophecies entailing strangely specific weather phenomena surrounding the Chosen One’s arrival, and most notably the need for the ‘man’ to die, so he may be reborn as a divine saviour. That last trope is quite interesting in how differently it’s handled across the three films. In ‘AO’, Muthu is driven into a feverish psychotic break in the desert before the mystic Chola Rajaguru discovers the tiger tattoo (a prominent Chola symbol) on his back. In ‘Khaleja’, Raju recovers from being stabbed, savagely beats his assailants, and faints in the arms of none other than Siddha. In ‘Dune’, Paul consumes the ‘Water of Life’, and after experience the avalanche of knowledge it contains, falls comatose, only to be revived by his extremely enraged lover Chani. What ties all these sequences together is not only that they fulfill their respective in-world prophecies to the tee, but also that they involve a person from within the community bearing witness to the transformation from ‘man’ to ‘messiah’- the reactions of these characters vary greatly, but they are crucial in lending credence to the figures themselves.

Deserts are desolate, to say the least. Scholars say a huge contributor to the basis of Abrahamic religions in desert regions is the sense of dependency and community that this kind of terrain necessitates. The desert becomes a sort of stand-in for the Old Testament God- at once benevolent and malevolent, both creator and destroyer of life. Its beauty is balanced almost evenly by its barrenness, and to reconcile the dissonance this may arouse, societies built around livestock-rearing and living on limited natural resources require belief systems that not only nurture unquestioning loyalty but also a sense of fear for one’s own life. “When there’s no food or water, fear is all that’s left” says Paul Atreides. While it is true that these observations are marred by the cultural detachment of the White men making them (of whom, sadly, Frank Herbert, author of ‘Dune’ was one too), it is nonetheless interesting that these factors are taken advantage of by imperialist powers both in reality and fiction. From the Pandya spy in ‘AO’ using the Chola subjects’ belief in the magical abilities of the ‘messenger’ to extract their secrets, to Prakash Raj’s villain GK in ‘Khaleja’ poisoning the water of Pali to convince its residents that it is cursed, and most importantly the Bene Gesserit not only creating but also manipulating the myth of ‘lisan-al-gaib’ to meet their own clandestine goals, we see this manifest through hopelessly skewed power dynamics.

Speaking of power dynamics, the role of women in these stories is also quite intriguing. Unfortunately, the only female character worth mentioning in ‘Khaleja’ is Subhashini, played by Anushka Shetty. Aside from engaging in the garden-variety ‘loosu ponnu’ activities, she does not get much by way of character development. In ‘AO’ the women (mainly Anitha, played by Reema Sen, and Lavanya, played by Andrea) become arbiters of power to some extent. Anitha’s treachery and instability are in stark contrast with Lavanya’s altruism and composure (although I suspect Selvaraghavan’s twisted gender politics have more of an influence on this than the story structure itself). Parallels can be drawn to ‘Dune’, where Lady Jessica, Paul’s mother and a Bene Gesserit herself, is charged with spreading and building the myth of her son. She goes from being apprehensive about it to becoming its strongest proponent and believer, by process of mere exposure to both the ‘Water Of Life’ and the survivalist demands of the desert. Chani, meanwhile, stands tall as the clear voice of reason- her love for Paul doesn’t cloud her judgment but for an instant when he first rides the sandworm, and even this is only testament to her loyalty to the Fremen culture more than anything else. I did find it to be quite an Oedipal turn of events that after all his talk of not wanting to cotton to the Bene Gesserit and resisting his mother’s attempts to indoctrinate him, Paul ‘chooses’ for his wife Princess Irulan- a Bene Gesserit pawn much like his own mother. Whether this speaks to the inescapability of cultural conditioning or the inevitability of ‘fate’, is something I’m yet to understand myself. What unites all these women across narratives is their defiance of the ‘messiah’- none of them (Subhashini included) bow to the men in their lives, even when the world around them does so gladly.

At the end of the day, I found ‘Dune’ transcendental, ‘Aayirathil Oruvan’ unsettling, and ‘Khaleja’, well, entertaining, if nothing else. I’d like to believe that those were rather appropriate reactions to have, considering that the first was intended as a critique of imperial capitalism and religious fundamentalism, the second was meant to be a genre-bending piece of historical fiction, and the third was an attempt to put a supernatural spin on the commercial star vehicle. Even so, the deterministic outlook that these films share on the idea of ‘saviours’ is perhaps a commentary on our unwillingness to exercise agency as a society, choosing instead to blame everything from the weather to the ‘system’ for our woes. I realize that reeks of privilege, but I feel the need to clarify that I don’t ask for anything more or less than that we all take individual responsibility for our actions, that we all hold ourselves accountable for their consequences, and that we become our own sources of belief beyond all else. In my experience it is only in the absence of belief that fear prevails, and as we know-

“Fear is the mind-killer”

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