Have you not seen your loved ones become someone else?
I see my father turn into someone else when he loses his temper; An uncle becomes someone else when he has his drinks; My friend turned into someone else when he got sober; My aunt became someone else when she was depressed.
People turn into someone else all the time.
**
James is an exhausted man at the end of the pilgrimage to Velankanni (in Tamil Nadu) with his family and relatives. While driving back to Kerala on the bus, he eases into a nap right after having lunch. When James wakes up with a start, he sees green fields outside and asks the driver to stop. He gets off the bus and walks into the neighbouring village. He goes straight into Sundaram’s home, changes into Sundaram’s clothes and starts talking like Sundaram – in Tamil!
**
Some years back, I was once nervously hopeful about something going my way and when it didn’t, I became sad. Then I became disappointed with myself over how easily all of this had happened. How silly of me to get hopeful and then become sad like this. This made me even more sad.
I was aware of what was happening, and I tried to cheer myself up. I got occupied with reading, writing and being with friends. No matter where I went and what I did, I could not free myself from the sadness that held me.
And just like that, I caught a flu and now I had low energy to match the low mood. The weather outside was bleak, the room was dark, and I couldn’t even imagine any sunshine coming through to me.
It didn’t take long for the fever to leave me. But I continued to stay in bed pretending to be sick.
I had been so intensely aware of everything that was happening to me that I had my eureka moment while I was still lying in bed. I had witnessed the flu come in with the weather and leave my body after the medication. I realized that someday the sadness will also leave me.
This was not the first time I had become sad. It had happened thousands of times before this and I had gotten over each one of them. Even when some lasted for years.
All I had to do was wait it out.
It will pass on. It always has. And it always will.
**
It had been two years since Sundaram had travelled far from his village to attend a market and had never returned. After a search and filing a missing person complaint, his family had begun to fear the worst and had accepted the loss.
Even though James looks nothing like Sundaram, they all feel his presence.
On the other hand, James’ family and his stranded relatives are getting restless and agitated about this situation. They are willing to try any means to take him back with them.
The village elders keep telling them to be patient. ‘Let him get some sleep, maybe he will feel like himself again… Let him eat his lunch first, he might feel better after that.’
**
Breathe, take a break, have something to eat, go out for a walk, watch something, take that nap.
People usually get annoyed when their friends offer such simple solutions to the complex problems bothering them. And then they get more annoyed when they see that these ideas actually work!
Waiting it out is underrated.
Tomy is a minor character in this story. He is among James’ relatives on that ill-fated bus. Tomy seems to have suffered some setback in his life and is prone to getting stuck at places. The first time we see him, he is stuck to a railing, and later on, he is stuck to his bus seat and refuses to get down for lunch. He instead requests James if he can send him bun and tea to the bus itself. Invariably, he is the butt of jokes with the other men asking him to get off the bus, have a drink with them and behave like a man.
When James turns into Sundaram and they are all running around miserably, Tomy announces that he has a plan. ‘I didn’t spend three years at a Nursing school in Bangalore for nothing’, says in a clear voice. It’s the first time we see him not apologetic for being himself. Early next morning, he goes by himself to the nearby town, buys two kinds of sedatives and returns to the village. When the relatives reject his plan to give James an injection, he says he has also brought some tablets that can do the job.
Man with plan A, and plan B.
As if he was not Tomy but someone else.
‘Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam’ (2022, Malayalam) is written and directed by Lijo Jose Pellissery. It is available on Netflix - India.
The way u got this film into the essay is amazing. The movie is brilliant as is this essay!🤩
Karthik, this is my favourite kind of essay. It’s so good, it leaves me satiated and fulfilled for the moment with so many things to take away - realizations about the self, about all humanity and its intersection with art.