Kamboji is a brilliant Malayalam
movie by Vinod Mankara based on a widely published real life incident that happened in Kerala in
my younger days. It is the story of a man named Kunjunnni besotted with the
highly sophisticated performing art kathakali which takes years of training to
master. Kathakali is what Kunjunni lives for, all his dreams are about it. He
has seen the great masters of the art performing and what he wants to become is
what they are.
At a rather advanced age to
learn kathakali, he comes to the guru he adores most and begins studying under
him in his small school in a remote village. He is soon recognized as highly
talented and almost fully accomplished in the art. A loving father-son
relationship soon develops between the guru and his disciple. After some time
the aged guru hands over the kathakali school to Kunjunni and goes away.
Kunjunni is given a place to stay in the large house of the family that owns
the school and soon their daughter Uma, herself an accomplished dancer, and
Kunjunni develop love for each other.
The ugly face of jealousy now
enters the picture and the village prostitute is bribed to accuse Kunjunni of
making her pregnant. Without allowing him to say a word in his defense, he is
asked to leave the school and go away immediately. It is the girl of the house
who asks him to leave, her parents being away, thus bringing to an instant end
his dream of becoming a great kathakali artiste and teacher as well as living
the rest of his life with the girl as his wife. He rushes to his teacher – but
the teacher too drives him away accusing him of shaming him. All these things
happen in the first half of a single night, driving Kunjunni insane with pain
and loss. In a state of fuming rage, Kunjunnni goes to the home of the
prostitute and stabs her to death.
The movie begins with Kunjunni
waiting in jail for the execution of his death sentence.
What happened to Kunjunni that
night is what is called an emotional hijack. Under normal circumstances
Kaunjunni wouldn’t harm an insect, but under the impact of the emotional hijack
he brutally kills a woman.
Modern psychology speaks of
emotional hijacks as states in which we are completely taken over by our
emotions, our thinking and reason are suspended, our intelligence itself is
blocked by the amygdala glands in our brain and we either go wild and do the
craziest things or collapse helplessly under the burden of our emotions,
paralyzed, unable to stand on our legs, our body drained of all energy, our
mind losing all clarity.
Emotional hijacks are common and
a single hijack can destroy us completely. They can be avoided by mastering our
mind and our emotions. The way to master them is practice, as Krishna teaches
us in the Gita. Live mindfully so that emotions get no chance to overpower us.
Also, remember to constantly breathe abdominally; avoid shallow chest
breathing. Abdominal breathing relaxes us and so long us we are relaxed and
alert, emotions will have no power to hijack us.
Mindfulness not only keeps us
relaxed but also brings to us many other everyday miracles.
O0O
No comments:
Post a Comment