What an interesting movie!  I’ve been thinking about it a lot, trying to figure out the message.  Is it that we should let other’s help us?  Or we shouldn’t?  Or is it more than that, is it just a general statement about not looking for reasons to accept help, about standing on your own two feet as much as possible?

Same director as Pathemaari, of course, because it’s another self-sacrificing noble humble patriarch.  Which isn’t a bad thing, in an odd way it is a story that we don’t see much, even in extremely patriarchal Indian film.  Most films focus on the “hero”, but usually on the hero as a young man, conquering challenges and getting everything he desires.  Not on what happens when that same man grows old and has responsibilities.  Or if they do, it is more in the “wise powerful elder” mold, like Amitabh in everything since Mohabattein, not in “sad, struggling, powerless and ignored” mold.

I kind of wish I had seen this film before Pathemaari, because it is the director’s first film, and the one that he was studying and planning and dreaming about for decades.  His more personal project.  But then Pathemaari was a lot more accessible and simple to understand, with the stars and the production values and all, so it was a better gateway.  This was a very dark film, like literally dark, like I was squinting at the screen trying to make out people’s faces and what location we were in much of the time.  According to what I read, it was shot on a shoestring with a digital camera, and it has that look to it.  I’m sure it looked lovely on the big screen, but on my TV, with the bright summer sun shining through the windows, it was really hard to see.

It is a really simple story, not a lot of twists to it, just a series of small obstacles and challenges.  I kept waiting for there to be a big obstacle, or a villain, or anything like that, but nope!  Everyone was really nice and caring, and all the obstacles could be overcome fairly easily.  Which is what made it so noticeable when the final obstacle was not overcome, simply because of our hero’s obstinacy.

Our hero is played by Salim Kumar, who I know I have seen in a ton of other things, usually as the comic relief, and yet I did not recognize him in this at all!  He is usually something of a conman, a little clever, a little fast-talking, a little abrasive.  But in this, he was very quiet, slow, respectful and humble.  Very different!

(I know the beard made sense for his character, but it also really helped him look different than his other parts!)

His wife is played by Zarina Wahab, who always has such a lovely onscreen presence.  And such a CRAZY personal life!  I have to divorce her characters from her personal life entirely if I am every going to be able to enjoy one of her performances, because they are so different from each other!

They are an elderly couple, living in a little village where everyone knows everyone else.  They are liked and respected, but unassuming.  Salim asks advice of the local wealthy men and humbly follows it, Zarina sells milk to a nearby Hindu family and conscientiously takes their orders and follows their requests.  After years of dreaming of it, this year Salim decides they should try to go on the Haj.  There is no big reason to do it this year, no huge change to their life, just that they notice the local mosque is taking a larger group than before, so they might want to consider applying.

But once the thought enters their head, it grows and grows.  They quietly go about making plans, asking advice, raising the money.  The entire community becomes part of their dreams, the locals who have gone before giving advice, the police helping them clear the way to a passport approval, even a neighbor with whom they had a dispute in the past forgiving them so they can go on the trip with a clear conscience.

Not just their local community, but the broader one becomes involved through their decision to use a travel agency for the trip.  I was ready for this to be the big obstacle, the first time they leave the village and try to attain help from someone outside.  But the travel agency is the best part!  The wealthy local recommends them, the travel agency owner takes a personal interest in their plans, gives them instructions on passports, on paying a deposit, reassures them that everything will be taken care of while they are traveling, tells them what bags to buy and what clothes to bring (beyond the traditional clothes that Haj travelers are supposed to bring).

It makes sense that the travel agency would be so important to the story, because that is how the director came up with this film idea, through his work at a travel agency, seeing these couples come in for Haj trips.  I think he must have seen it as a privilege, to be able to help these people, and that is how the travel agent in the film sees it.  Not just because he is helping them to complete a holy duty, but because they are the kind of sweet simple good people who would normally never come out of their village, the wider world would never get to meet them and experience their goodness, and have the chance to help them.  Only through the Haj journey, would such people even consider leaving their hometowns.  So for a travel agent, it is a blessing to organize these trips, to help these special kinds of people on their one and only trip outside of their home.

(a bunch of good humble people who would never consider taking such a trip if it wasn’t for a religious reasons)

They reminded me of the kinds of older couples who lived in the country near where I grew up, and some of my own older relatives, great-uncles and aunts.  They had farms out in the country, they went to church every Sunday, maybe they would travel to the nearest large city (meaning, more than 50,000 people) once every few months, for shopping or for the gambling boats.  But they would never consider traveling out of the country, even traveling out of the state would be a big deal, only justified by visiting a grandchild or going to a funeral.  The biggest trips they would ever take in their lives would be organized by the church, maybe the choir is invited to sing at a regional or national conference, maybe the minister organizes a bus to take the whole congregation to the national convention for their denomination.  Only some kind of religious obligation would be enough to make them consider leaving their homes.

(Exact same kind of people as above)

But the point of this movie, and what I see in my relatives and people I knew who lived like that, is that the loss isn’t theirs, these people who never travel more than a day from their homes, it is ours, the wider world.  They are wonderfully good people, and unless you live within ten miles of the place where they are born, you will never have the experience of getting to know them.

The Haj isn’t the important part of the film.  It is just the only thing that such humble people would ever dare ask for.  And even then, they feel guilty for it.  It is mentioned over and over that the Haj is only a requirement for those who can afford it.  Perhaps people like Salim and Zarina shouldn’t even dream of such a thing?

But since they do dream of it, everyone around them is desperate to help them achieve it, they only thing they have ever asked for.  But they can only give help on the terms that Salim and Zarina are willing to accept.  They can accept some help-advice from others who have gone before, assistance from the travel agent whose job it is to help them, good prices on what they have to sell to their friends and neighbors to raise the funds-but no more.

That is the conclusion of the film, not them happily going on Haj, but them coming so close, and everyone else rallying around to help them make the final few rupees needed.  And them rejecting it.  The reason everyone wishes to help them is because they are the kind of people who could never accept help.  That same quiet nobility that makes them so beloved, is what forces them to reject the fruits of that love.

Which brings me to their son.  What a horrible person!  We never meet him, we only hear the comments here and there about how he went to the middle east and never came home.  Or sent money or letters or anything, because he was ashamed.  Although, again, not unique to Kerala.  The same sort of quiet struggling farm folk that I know in America also have children who go off and get college degrees, move to the city, and never come home again.  And they have much less excuse for it, since it is a lot easier to travel from an American city to an American small town than all the way from Dubai back to Kerala.

It’s the curse of their humility.  If you raise your son telling him that you are simple poor humble folks who want for nothing, and just want him to be happy, there is the chance he will only see you as you see yourself, as nothing special or worthwhile, and only see himself as you see him, and the wonderful perfect child who is so much more than they.  Which doesn’t mean he isn’t still a horrible person!

I mean, come on!  Just because your parents are humble and self-effacing doesn’t mean you don’t have eyes!  All their neighbors and friends are able to see what worthy and good folks Salim and Zarina are, if their own son can’t see it, well, then he’s kind of an idiot, and also kind of selfish and uncaring.  And the best thing to come out of this whole Haj effort for Salim and Zarina might be that they can finally see that.

After rejecting assistance from everyone, ranging from the Hindu family who buys their milk to the head of the travel agency, since the Haj is only supposed to be paid for by your own labor, or money given by a blood relation, Zarina suggests reaching out to their son, asking for assistance.  And Salim rejects that because, although he may be their child, he has proven himself to not truly be their “son”.  To take money from him would be as wrong as taking it from a neighbor.  He is no true relation to them.  They are on their own, just the two of them.

I wish the next step had been to realize that all the other people in their lives who want to help are more sons to them than their own child, and to use that to excuse taking money from them to help pay for their journey.  But of course it isn’t the next thought, because they aren’t that kind of people.  They are always looking for a reason not to accept help, not a reason to accept it.

This movie is such an interesting pairing with Pathemaari.  In Pathemaari, of course, our hero does travel outside of his small town.  But he is of the same type as this couple, the kind who would never ask for help, or want anything for himself.  He is never going to be a “success”, because he is always going to put others’ needs before his own.  But at the same time, there is a nobility to him that will only occasionally be recognized.  In Pathemaari, it is only after his death.  At least in this film, the effort to achieve Haj gives it a reason to be recognized while they are still alive!