Pari's Blog

[this review contains no spoilers]

I just saw this film, நான் கடவுள் (naan kadavul) or “I am God”. Compared with spiritual classics (mostly old black and white films), I’d rank this as just above average, but given that spiritual/independent films are so rare to come by, I think it deserves a lot more. Compared with the tons of shallow run-of-the-mill Bollywood/Tamil films it has to contend with, I’d rank it five star. Also notable, and commendable, is that this film had *no* Bollywood hero/heroine dance scenes. It film received national recognition (so it likely has English subtitles).

Summary: This film is about a person, named Rudra, abandoned as a child along the banks of the Ganga, who is found and adopted by Aghoris. He grows up into an Aghori, and is sent out into the world by his guru so that he may severe any last residual bondage to the material world. He follows his guru’s orders like a true Aghori.

Aghora

Most people follow the right-hand path for approaching God. That is, worship of (connecting with) God through some form of puja: prayer, bhaki poetry, bhajans, offering of flowers and fruits, temples, and beautifully decorated stories and imagery centered around God.

Aghori’s are yogis who have taken the left-hand path of God. The left-hand path is an arduous path aimed at shattering one’s sense of the material world. Usually one of the first steps involves severing all connection to the material world. For Rudra, this was not a first step, but the last in the chain of bonds he had to severe — as he never was in the material world in the first place, having been abandoned and directly inducted into the cult of Aghoris.

Aghoris are not interested in following any set philosophy nor any belief system. Their philosophy is simple: to do whatever it takes, however insane it might seem to strip oneself of layer after layer of conditionings, until they reach the very core and essence of their true being – the Atman (or Supreme Spirit). It follows that it demands shutting out human constructs like right and wrong (nothing being intrinsically right or wrong).

This fast-track path often involves taking our most common vices and inhibitions, and facing them head-on. Engaging them, and transforming them into spiritual energy. This may involve taking to drugs, intoxication, living and sleeping in places avoided by others (like among corpses in cremation grounds), doing things unthinkable like bathing their murthi (usually a shiva-lingam) with human feces. Some even turn to eating the flesh from cadavers. Though these days a lot of this has become very stereotyped by self-serving or deluded pseudo-Aghoris. It just become a test of ego and pseudo-accomplishment, you just become numbed and cut off from society making little or no spiritual progress (compared with right-hand paths like bhakti yoga or jnana yoga).

विद्याविनयसम्पन्ने ब्राह्मणे गवि हस्तिनि ।
शुनि चैव श्वपाके च पण्डिताः समदर्शिनः ।।

The wise ones, sees the same in (or no difference between) a Brahmin endowed with knowledge, a cow, an elephant, a dog, and a dog-eater.
- Bhagavad Gita, 2.47

It is a path meant for a reserved few who are ready to give up everything. Very few survive the mental stamina it involves. Many fall astray into dark alleys, some even go insane. This is especially true for those who attempt this without a guru. For those with bhakti – the guru comes directly, as the God that the bhakta intensely connects/relates to. For those who don’t have the inclination or dedication for bhakti, but still have the desire, the guru comes in human form.

Rudra

Very good acting of the Aghori character. For an outsider Rudra might look like someone who is cold and having an other-worldly gaze (or for that matter someone who is stoned). Most Aghoris are described to look at that. As mentioned, for an Aghori things like right and wrong are meaningless constructs. He sees everything is part of the cosmic wheel and does not interfere with any of it — unless he can act on it with detachment. You’ll know what I mean when you see the movie. Don’t want to give it away here.

The Beggars

What I also like about this movie is that it succeeds very well in putting a human face on the handicapped who have been cast out by their families.

When most people see beggars with disfigured limbs or faces hobbling on the road side, they either turn their heads away (repulsed in some way, just not being able to take the sight of them) or feel some sort of empathy. This film shows that both of these are unwarranted (and wrong). In the film you find that their lives are as enriched (including with its share of humor) as anyone else — despite their living conditions and what we consider as their physical/mental disabilities.

They could use compassion, but not our pity. It is really those parents of such orphaned children who abandoned them without any empathy, the ones who really need to be pitied. The villains in the movie who make a business out of exploiting these beggars are a reflection of the greed found in material life. The beggars are sensitive and caring towards each other than those of the material world. So who is more evolved, who is really handicapped? Who is more entangled in the material world – wasting way one’s entire life chasing after greed, lust, power… in the processing becoming desensitised to the “human touch”?

The title நான் கடவுள் (naan kadavul) or “I am God”, is similar to the Sanskrit: अहं  ब्रम्मास्मि (aham brahmaasmi – “I am God”), the mantra that Rudra utters every now and then in the film.