Padhom Onnu: Oru Vilapam

A scene from "Padhom Onnu: Oru Vilapam"

If some researchers want to conduct a study on the violence against women, the film Padhom Onnu: Oru Vilapam, will prove to be a valuable source. Directed by TV Chandran who is noted for his off- beat movies, the cinema documents the sad plight of poor Muslim women in the district of Malapuram in Kerala. The present Kerala is different from other parts of India. Here life is dominated by petro-dollars; here Muslims are no longer a minority: their ministers lobby and manoeuvre politically; here there is an upward momentum in the field of higher education for Muslim women. Yet, there is a minority marginalised by the community from where we hear the wailing that TV Chandran records.

Shoukath Aryadan, the son of an ex-minister, President of Nilambur Panchayath who written and produced the film, is a social activist at heart. His message is the crying need for reform: for the community and from the community. And the Muslim world heard the wake up call at Dhaka. For the film bagged the gold medal for the best film in the recently concluded International Film Festival there. It is a mirror turned towards the villages of the Muslim world where the dogmas of religion play havoc with their lives. Ironically, the fundamentalism unleashed in Kerala blocked the chance for its shows in major theatres and during prime timings.

The film unfolds the world of poor Muslim women in the rural ambience of Kerala. Dry, reaped paddy fields set the frame and the seemingly unending purdha-clad women clutching wailing babies, punctuate the movie. In this world, from grandmothers to grand daughters, darkness brands their souls. Fears haunt and hound them: the fear of the uncertain, fear of sexual violence, even fear of the darkness of the night. Theirs is the world of the displaced and the discarded, tragically, with social sanction .The feature film tells the sad tale of Shahina (cast by Meera Jasmine) an intelligent but innocent girl in her early teens. Her aspiration for education, which is the fundamental right of every girl in the highly literate Kerala is cruelly thwarted by the norms of child marriage and the consequent divorce. She becomes a child-mother unknown to herself while her not so bright Hindu, school friend moves away to college. She is just a pawn in the hands of a backward society where men manipulate for their benefits or for their fancies. The so-called social welfare measures are insensitive to the needs of these women and children who are victims of a medieval mindset. The film deals with many sub texts. The system of dowry is the villain of the piece. Shoukath, the producer during a discussion talked at length on the practice of men from other language communities coming to Kerala to marry. Because the men are Muslims and they demand fewer dowries the young brides move away from their home, their language, and their very roots. Displaced and alienated they lead their lives in total insecurity. The story deals with the theme of displacement and alienation only at a suggestive level. The movie starts with a lone purdha-clad woman clutching her baby alighting a bus from Mysore and move towards her natal home. Soon we learn that she is sent home to bring money with the threat of divorce at her back. It is for raising money to reach the oil-rich gulf countries that Razak (Irshad) plans to get married for a second time. Again when the question of divorce comes, the solution is getting married, for dowry and to pay-off the debt if there is no alternative. At close of the story, we see Shahina alight from a bus and move towards her native shore driven by the storm of her life carrying an unborn child in her womb with the suggestion that this is an ongoing story in this part of the world.

Hajiyar, the custodian of the community who heads the culture police is a satirical figure. Rooted firmly in the outdated cultural ethos, he is confused about reforms. The three wives of his house, garbed to represent three generations are kept in the same boat. And he is willing to be the savior of the girl and her family by offering to marry Shahina without dowry. That he is old enough to be the girl’s father does not touch his conscience. That women live in amity sharing their travails is perhaps the only light in this gray expanse. Though traumatised victims, they are united in helping each other. Their mindscape, rich in understanding and compassion is a contrast to the arid backdrop of their physical world. Instead of the in-law problems common in other communities there is bonding here. Mothers are not on the side of their sons when it comes to multiple marriages. And it has its seamy side too. Here, love for a man makes a woman go against another woman in spite of her conscience. This is another facet of reality. The first wife who has genuine sympathy for the young bride drugs her so that her husband can enjoy his heart’s desire before he leaves for their dream-destination. The story centers round a rural school. Even the School syllabus seems to be out of touch with the reality unable to cope with the needs of a socially backward poor people. Kasim master (Babu Annur) who represents the intelligentsia is worried about the drop out of girls in their early teens. Ironically the school becomes the arena for bride fixing. The village schoolmaster makes a brave attempt to defend true Islam and help the girl in distress only to be blamed by the callous and the cynical. And the imperatives of his own life, takes him away leaving the girl alone. The school acquires dimensions of a character as Shahina runs there seeking refuge. But it remains a mute witness to the tragic drama enacted around it.

Another subtext of the film at the suggestive level is the question of individual freedom in our free country. The debut of the heroine is with a bird in a nest, an over-used symbol. At the end of the story she lets the bird fly away: the aspiration of her soul at the symbolic level. The school rings with the dream of Tagore for free India. This signature song is repeated three times in the cinema indicating three turning points in the development of the story as well as in the character of Shahina. First she learns the poem imbibing its ideal

“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high”

“Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow Domestic walls”

Then she repeats the song on the eve of her examination to deepen the irony of how the ideal she loves dearly will desert her during her trial in life. “Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit”

And it rings hollow as it is sung set to music by a singer for the third time in the film.

“Where the mind is lead forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action”

“Into that heaven of freedom my Father, let my country awake!”

For, Shahina’s husband and friends who do not know what freedom means enjoy the song and the girl forsaken by Freedom sleepwalks into their middle completing the song. Only Sahina’s soul yearns towards the ideal. Denied the chance of education and empowerment, the lonely women are condemned to an existence. Women like Shahina’s mother, Safia ( Pallavi Krishnan) are natural entrepreneurs who can look after their families. But their efforts are nullified by the tragedy that strikes them. And the feature film ends with the long line of purdha -clad women with their babies marching to the river in their daily ritual of a condemned life. Shahina and her baby is a new addition. Their silent but raging wailing is heard in the helpless cries of the orphans on the riverbank. And the river like the stream of life flows endlessly indifferently.”

Though tears do not choke, despair fills your heart. How long, how long will it take to be liberated from poverty and injustice in our days of feminist philosophy? And how elusive is the dream of Tagore. How like a mirage to these minorities within the minority of India’s women!

Language: Malayalam
Release Date: 24 July 2003(New Delhi Festival of Asian Cinema)
Length: 1 hours 45 minutes
Genre: Drama
Director: T.V. Chandran
Editor: Venugopal
Writer: Aryadan Shaukat
Producer: Aryadan Shaukat
Music: Johnson
Cinematographer: K.G. Jayan