Naayi Neralu

Please forgive me. I am not competent to write this as I do not know to read or write Kannada. But, after seeing Naayi Neralu last night, I can't help saying these. Samskara, Vamsha Vriksha and now Naayi Neralu churn something in me. Back in the 70's, my mentors told me that Samaskara was an international great -deemed as good as a foreign art film, what with an Australian photographer, progressive elite makers and so on. I saw the film with respect and came out respectfully with no further thoughts. Later I had to watch it again, to assist a French prof who was to subtitle it, then too the same sort of blank respect. Vamsavriksha was a different experience. It ribbed me somewhere in my Brahmin culture ethos. Though not a Nanjangudu-aficionado, I could feel a little twang about the past and present. (May be because I was raised in a Thanjavur village?) My mentor critiqued Samkara which was considered a 'committed' film (about the breakdown of the old culture) and Vamsha Vriksha as a bottleneck (two generations to their respective predicaments). Lately I begin to feel that the latter was closer to reality. Byrappa was also throwing a cultural poser like URA but was coming closer to the gut. After all dead bodies never posed such a crisis. Now Naayi Neeralu begins like Samskara. It starts with a puzzle of Vishwa, accepted as son-reborn but not as daughter-in-law Venku's hubby. In the rural Brahmin culture I've known, such issues are settled in a down-to-earth manner based on power equations and not as a Sastra-dependant-riddle. But the film progresses slowly from a cultural conflict into a personal one – a feminine predicament. The agony and expectation of a Brahmin widow, head shaved, blouse-less, devoid of flowers and life-celebrating things, living on a single meal a day; all this amidst all others living auspiciously. These are shown poignantly. Though initially annoyed, I began to see why. These are the inner churnings of Venku. She is not bothered about whether Vishwa is a husband reborn or not. Her issue is one of re-life for herself, right or wrong. Ultimately her resurgent zest for life gets the better of social taboos. Leaving the elders to debate the puzzle posed to the Sastras, she opts for the new incumbent. So the story takes a new turn, from Samskara to Vamsha Vriksha. Venku goes to an isolated islet to live with this claimant. Soon his pre-natal clairvoyance wears off and his current youthful extra-marital attractions surface. So Venku is damned. The 'sanctity' of widowhood gone, her man is slipping away, leaving her an unaccounted child. Here she makes an existentially admirable decision. Having opted for a second-married-life she'd go all the way. She is ready to live on in that islet with her child with no hope of a husband. Here Venku goes one step further and bolder than Vamsha Vriksha's remarried lady lecturer. Bravo Venku my heart says.