The Hero and The Gentleman

Our local channel always telecast "family" movies from 80's and 90's; and even though watching the local channel meant sitting through abrupt ad breaks and poorly made advertisements, the movies were always worth it. I had the joy of watching a 1992 movie Ayalathe Adheham,by Rajasenan, in that while skipping through channels. And few minutes into the movie, I started comparing the character – Rajiv, played by Siddique, with the infamous Shammi, played by our beloved ‘FaFa’ in Kumbalangi Nights. Ok, FaFa is Fahadh Faasil. [Do watch both these movies, they’re very nice.]

Rajiv is the ideal husband, son, father- doting on everyone around him, expressing his love for his wife, Radhika, openly, something most men, at least Malayali men, rarely do according to my mother, and definitely according to the heroine of the movie, Sulochana (played by the gorgeous Gautami), who is annoyed at her husband, Premachandran (Jayaram), for being constantly grumpy and reserved and “outdated”. Sulochana compares the “gentleman next-door” and her husband and this leads to Premachandran hating Rajiv even more. And he even starts reading marriage guidebooks to express his love for Sulochana in an impressive way and that soon leads to her seeking help from the extremely happy couple next-door in taking her husband to a psychiatrist. He finally snaps when he learns from his neighbor Sivan Pillai that Sulochana had taken out her gold to loan it to Rajiv upon Radhika’s request, and slaps her. And the disturbed Premachandran who was sitting on his veranda hears Sivan Pillai’s shouts for help to catch the thief who had been seen occasionally in the neighborhood and catches him with his brother-in-law and security guard’s help, only to realize that it is Rajiv, who was having an affair with Pillai’s wife. Sulochana “understands her mistake” and decides to stop comparing her marital life with others.

My issue with this movie lies in this revelation- where Rajiv is outed as an adulterer whose love for his wife was nothing but a farce. Throughout the movie, we can see Radhika telling Sulochana, very happily, that her husband is the one who makes her wear modern clothes- churidar and skirts guys- instead of saris, who insists on her going to the beauty parlor and technically controls her life so much that he is the one who decides what she should wear when they go out. But the irritatingly pleasant Rajiv does all these with loud love that it is not considered as oppression, not by Radhika or by anyone else, including viewers also I guess.

Rajiv and Shammi are both ideal gentlemen- at least according to themselves. And in both the movies the actual villainy is covered up by a blatantly violent or immoral act. Rajiv becomes a villain only when his affair comes out in the open and Shammi, though Madhu C Narayanan did show his eerie and extremely patriarchal character in various situations, is a villain only when his psychopathic nature is exhibited openly. Shammi is just like many Malayali men- nosy, controlling, pompous and fake. Him squinting through a gap in the wall at Bonny and Nylah and asking Bonny in a very sleazy way how he managed to “get” Nylah, and him slowly asserting himself as the head of the family and not allowing Baby to marry Bobby by pointing out the brothers being fathered by different men- a very common Malayalam usage (njane otta thanthaik ondayatha), are all his normal behaviors- with or without any mental illness. The writer using mental illness seems like a justification for Shammi’s actions.

Both these men are considered as villains for the wrong reasons, I feel. Rajiv already became a villain to me when I heard Radhika reiterate how much he loves her when she tells Sulochana how much he changed or transformed her and and her "modern" and "updated". The real problem, that is, Rajiv controlling and changing his wife “lovingly” against her will is not addressed in the movie at all. I was hoping for the climax to be a revelation of how Rajiv stiflingly "loves" Radhika by taking all her decisions and making all her choices for her. But I was disappointed when Sulochana and Radhika start seeing Rajiv as a bad person only because he broke his wife’s trust by having an affair with their neighbour. Similarly, though Shammi’s cruel, intimidating and snooping behavior is visible throughout the movie, the very common moral high ground nature seen in many people is wrapped into him being a “psycho” and the point is lost in the mental disorder so much that, Pop culture started celebrating “Psycho Shammi” in a very twisted and stupid way.

Rajiv and Shammi should be considered as bad examples because the former is a manipulative control freak and the latter is an out and out patriarch and abuser.

 

Golden lines I saw somewhere- Your mental illness is the reason for your behavior not an excuse.

And no, Shammi will never be a hero.