A friend often teases me about my penchant for watching foreign ('esoteric' was his choice of word) language content (movies, series, documentaries) on one or the other OTT platforms. Netflix has been the preferred one for me and I have devoured on the usual suspects across Spanish, French, Swedish and Danish languages in addition to English and Hindi ones. However, I stumbled upon Paava Kadhaigal without neccesarily spurred on by a good review or 'Top 10/20' recommendations. I did not even know what it meant and which South Indian language was it in. I definitely recommend this to you and don't worry there are no spoilers below that would 'give away the plotline'.
With so many options available across so many platforms, we had agreed upon a loosely defined parameter of 'is there a grip?' for deciding to watch the whole series or film. Often, S would be the first to leave the series or film if it did not have the so called 'grip'. I would either agree or continue to finish it on my own. Paava Kadhaigal has a different kind of hold on you as a viewer. It is the hold of the land, which holds your hand like someone very familiar and close to you: someone from your family, from your neighbourhood, from your community, from your caste, from your religion, from your region and from your society. Yes, all of these associations are at the core of these four different stories woven together by ties of blood, fraternity and community.
All the four directors and their teams do a sincere job and the production quality is rather good. The story tellers try to tell the story honestly and eke out the myriad human emotions, reactions, rationale and logic very well. The acting by most of the actors is believable. The background music and songs are excellent and so is the cinematography.
If you have lived and traveled around India, you would be able to understand the stories, their settings and their contexts as something you have been an integral part of. You would have either seen, experienced or heard about the different conflicts that the stories bring out. You would have had an opinion about the same. You have either been a mute receiver of the traditions and belief system that was handed down to you by your family and community or you would have revolted in your way but you would have been affected nevertheless. Even if some of us might think that we ourselves have not had to face the kind of challenges and violence some of the protagonists face in the stories, we read about them in newspapers and see such stories on TV every now and then about honour killing, inter-caste and inter-religion marriages and their ugly fall-outs. There is also the moving and disturbing story about rape. Whether you have been an actor or a close witness to any or more of such issues is incidental. The conflict between the protagonists and their families about something as pivotal as love, marriage and spending life together, is relatable because all of us have had conflicts, resolved and unresolved with the people whom we love and care about the most. All of us have seen one or more of such relationships change from purest form of unselfish love to extreme bitterness, hatred and even physical violence.
There are also strong characters and pillars of strength, positivity and hope as there are thankfully in life. The expressions of some of the strongest human feelings between mother and children, father and daughter, between sisters, among friends and lovers create an interesting roller-coster of emotions that would keep you in the 'grip' of the stories. I realised while writing this piece that the name literally means 'Stories of Sin'. Yes, if you look at the context of Indian culture, the word 'Sin' is appropriate. Only something as grave, unpardonable as 'Sin' necessitates such drastic reaction and violence of mind and action. Yet, 'sin' is usually something that has a method of 'repentance'; a particular way of undoing the harm that has been done by the person on himself/herself (mind you, the gender has significant importance here!) and the family and community at large. Only, who defines what is 'sin' and what is 'right' and with what reference points, becomes the moot issue. Unfortunately, in this series of stories the people who see and define 'sin' diametrically differently are people of the same family, separated often by only a generation or outlook.
Paava Kadhaigal. Strongly recommended.
