Ship of Theseus - A Review

Given the fidgetiness that I witnessed during some of the long, dialogue-less, apparent hiatuses in the movie, I realised that patience is a great virtue to enjoy the film, which is not available in oodles these days. For me it worked smoothly because I just let it happen, let it just spread its wares in front of me to ...take it in slowly, to let it seep in gradually, in stead of judging and analysing it intellectually. Just before I got into the theatre at 10.45 pm, I met a former young colleague of mine, who made a tongue in cheek comment, that being a Bong, it was expected of me to watch this movie. Racial slur or compliment whatever it was, it insinuated that this is an 'intellectual' movie, to be enjoyed at the level of intellect. In the very first place, I have a little discomfort with this perspective of appreciation of any form of art. I can be posthumously famous for my oft used sentence, whenever someone says, "I don't understand Western/ Hindustani Classical Music/ Abstract Art etc". My usual retort to that is "Do you understand Chicken Hakka Noodles/ Rogan Josh/ Sashimi?" Any aesthetic work, and that includes the now popular culinary one, first grabs us through our senses and goes straight deep within, before it resurfaces at the level of our intellect so that we can articulate to ourself and others, if at all we can, why we like what we like.

That is how Ship of Theseus worked. Not through my intellect, although it had more to offer to my infamous faculty than half a century of Bollywood. Because life has taught me over the years to be a patient, detached observer of the world as it goes about its business, I let the ship sail all over me. And it did not leave an inch of empty space. It worked at the level of senses, intellect, emotion and pervasively at an anatomical level.

The first story is about the senses, of sight and sound, the two most impactful sensory inputs in our lives. Alia's explorations in visual imagery through the help of sound, her creative conflicts as a budding photographer who is also visually impaired, her struggle with her apparent fall in creativity when she gets her sight back and her final moment of peace at the lap of magnificent nature.

The second story of Maitreya, the young Jain Monk with erudition, strong resolve and robust sense of humour, is partly at the level of the intellect, as it debates the religious position taken by the spiritual atheist (brilliantly portrayed by Niraj Kabi) with the moral question whether we have a right to hurt even ourselves over such beliefs. But it is much more than that. It is the most visceral of the three stories with the painstaking and painful portrayal of the drastic degradation of his health. While the entire film is on the anatomical backdrop of organ donation and trafficking, this is the most physical of the three narratives.

The last story of Navin, the young Marwari stock broker with provincial ways, having an urbane, liberal, social worker maternal grandmother, is a story of transformation, of final bonding across apparent cultural differences and of universal empathy, works mostly at the level of emotion especially on the protagonist.

I am a sucker for script and editing, two cornerstones of moviemaking and the two most neglected aspects in Indian films. Ship of Theseus, given the structure of the film, does a brilliant work of both, comparable with the very best in the world. The performances, backed by crisp, realistic dialogues with sharp wit and insight, are outstanding. I do not want to dwell much over that as then I will never finish writing this (and I am hungry for lunch), but Niraj Kabi stood out for me, along with Vinay Sharma. Aida was very convincing in her unusual role and portrayed the struggles with ease. Sohum Shah, looks like, played himself and thus was very believable.

The Paradox of Theseus as an identity conundrum is not very relevant for me, although it is a visually interesting question. For me this movie, as I said, worked on several layers simultaneously, and on the level of intellect, this paradox is not something that was my moot takeaway from the film. But what I took away at my subconscious, I guess, nay I am sure, is much much more than that. The tapestry is so rich, so surfeit with themes, issues and motifs, that it could easily turn out to be an unpalatable and uncontrolled smorgasbord. However, unburdened by commercial aspirations or concerns (Kiran Rao be blessed), endowed with the sincerity of any first major work and abundance of talent, and lastly of great teamwork, this, is a tour de force, and IMHO, is a singular movie in the history of Indian cinema.

Death - the God without the halo

No, I still am not afraid of death. I am not afraid of my death as an eventual event. If I start thinking about how it may come, then some scenarios may be frightful. But I am not really very scared to think about death. I was not.

Of late I have been having visitations of various forms of death – permanent silence, permanent darkness and permanent absence. And of being alive but not being able to reach out, or being communicated to.

Last year when Chaklada passed away suddenly, I was suddenly extremely shaken. It is not the first death that I have encountered in my life of 46 years. And in this case I was not even physically near to that tragic departure. But I think for a long time, no death has moved me so much. It’s not that I used be in touch with him very regularly. An occasional phone call, sometimes as rare as once a year or so; an even rarer meeting during one of those trips to Kolkata. Birthday text messages, as his birthday was on my birthday alarm database. That’s it. But when I suddenly got the call, I broke down. In the office. Chaklada was an immensely likeable guy. And the exceptional quantum or degree of his geniality dawned upon all of us when we realized he is no more. As and when I talk to Natu, my friend and Chaklada’s brother-in-law, these days, even after six seven months of the sad event, I realize that even if we are not discussing him, a bluish grey patina of the reality of his absence is hovering in the airwaves that is carrying our conversation. And I start to wonder, how is he and Chaklada’s wife and daughter dealing with the fact that he is no more.  I met him around 18 months back; a few months after his bypass surgery. He looked his affable usual, although a little bruised from battle with the illness and perhaps more with the mundaneness of life. I told him that perhaps this surgery was a good idea as it may bring in much needed discipline in his life style, and that I have seen much older people get a fresh lease of life from this surgery. I did not think that I will not see him again. That I will not be able to pick up a phone and talk to him for two minutes on some obscure trivia. That he will not address me as “Ponting” as the way always does and tells me that he cannot forget the similarity my face has with that of the former Aussie skipper. I cannot understand how Koli-di or her daughter deal with that absence, which was so unexpected, sudden and most of all permanent. Irretrievable. An absence which will never be filled.

While death is something from which we are hidden in the beginning and from which we try to turn our eyes away all our life, it slowly lets us know that it is inevitable. And we, sort of make an uneasy truce with that knowledge.

But another form of absence that I came to observe, and get completely traumatized by, is what happened to my uncle – Nanukaku. Last July, on a Saturday I got a call from his brother in Bangalore that Nanukaku had a massive cerebral stroke and it is doubtful if he would survive. This was out of the blue. I had met him just a few months back in his residence in Dubai. A man with immense joi de vivre, he has been insisting that I visit Dubai with family and enjoy the riches of the city, before he departs from there to return to Kolkata permanently. That never happened – our visit with family. But I managed to go and see him and Renu Kakima, his wife during one of those hectic business trips and managed to spend an evening with them. While we hadn’t met for a few years, it did not feel like it. Comfortably ensconced in the airconditioned comfort of their small apartment, scotch in our glass, we forgot the hot desert city outside, and it felt like Kolkata of 70s, only him playing my father's role, and I playing his, in a manner of speaking. He showed me his small refrigerator where he stored his perfumes and deodorants, something for which he had passion and he was quite famous for. He gave me his tips and theory about pairing deos and perfumes. We reminisced about Kolkata, about which both of us had love but not steamy eyed and impractical romanticism. He certainly wanted to go back to Kolkata and settle there after being all over India and Middle East most of his life. He was looking forward to it. But what I noticed most in him was that he did not have that fatigued demeanour of someone who has worked for too long and cannot wait to hang his boots. He seemed to be enjoying his job, and although he was in his mid sixties, He did not seem to be lacking the vitality, which is missing even in me quite frequently these days. He complained when I stopped after two whiskeys, and insisted to come out in that stifling heat of the desert night to put me in a taxi. I remember him standing on the curb in his creaseless white kurta-pyjama, his nightdress for years, looking as dapper as he did in his suits in the 80s or as trendy as he did in his Saibaba hair and multi colored shirts in 70s. Those are the indelible images of him in my mind. 

Which is irreconcilable with what I faced when I went to visit him and to meet Kakima in a hospital in Dubai. I was not prepared for what was waiting for me. I had not, till the previous evening, heard about anything called permanent vegetative state, till my other uncle, the medic in the family menioned it over phone. As I was led to his enclosure and bed by Kakima, I saw the body of a man in an unusual slumber on a reclined complex bed, with tubes going in his nose and mouth and underneath the sheet. After sanitising my hand I approached the bed and Kakima gently rubbed his hand and shoulders and started saying in his ears, "See, who has come to see you!! From Bombay! Has come to see you!" The mouth was open with dried dribble at the corners. The face sunken to another face that I do not know. There lay a body which was perhaps completely oblivious to outside world. Or perhaps not. As Kakima continued to talk to him, and tried to relax his stiffened shoulder muscles and arms, and kept on saying my name, I saw the eye moving. Without any focus or visible recognition, without a meaning, without that warmth, vivacity and conviviality that it was always filled up with. My doctor uncle explained to me that unlike coma, some of the parts of the brain is functioning, but it is not known which parts. It is not known if he can see, hear, feel the external world. If he has some or all cogitative powers left intact. There lay a body which perhaps knew that there was an outside world but could not reach out anymore.

This thought is a choking fear that keeps revisiting me in various forms. When I have my morning shower and wash the soap off my face under the streaming water, I suddenly start wondering, in that momentary helplessness and breathlessness, what if I turn blind? What if can't see this world anymore? And then I have been having this dream or vision or thought which reminded me of the medieval practice of throwing people in deep dungeons under the earth and cover the mouth of the hole. What or how would have they felt? Fear of death. Thirst. Hunger. And not being able to reach out to the world or to be reached out to. And still be alive. At least for some time.

But this darkness is as much true as the light if not more. This permanent absence is perhaps truer than the tactile presence we live with everyday. Perhaps this IS the ultimate destination, the ultimate truth.  For ages, man has sought meaning and has sought to throw light on things that we do not know. All spirituality is thus likened with light. But the truth might be that there is no meaning, and this eternal darkness, stillness, quietitude and absence is the reality, is the real presence. The God, without the halo.