There is much discussion about the movie directed by Bala titled “Naan Kadavul,” and also has a Sanskrit translation of one of the Mahavakyas (great statement) of the Upanishads which says Aham Brahmasmi .
Well spiritual buffs who got attracted by the title Naan Kadavul , or I am God, where in for a big surprise to see that the predominant part of the movie was more a documentary on the life of beggars.
Primarily as the movie took three years to take and there were lot of expectations on the title, it falls flat at the theatre as there is no connectivity between the glorious statement Aham Brahmasmi and the contents of the movie. If that is an accepted norm of Tamil cinema to have a disjointed title and a thoroughly confusing story and a totally willing suspension of disbelief, then it is fine. But from the perspective of Vedanta it is necessary to clarify here the right meaning of Aham Brahmasmi.
Aham means “I”, Brahma means Brahman the creator, God or the Parabrahman , the supreme spirit and Asmi means am. So put together, Aham Brahmasmi means “I am Brahma,” or rather I am the creator or I am god. No issues with the translation of the title in Tamil. But the question here is how much of the meaning is conveyed here through the film.
Considering the fact that the Aghoris are a secret cult of Babas, not much known to the world outside except in a posthumous narrtion of an Aghori Vimalananda in a three-volume book by Robert E. Svoboda, the film throws no light on the Aghora tradition. It is called the left-hand path to god, in which intensity is the key word.
The director’s depiction is a rather a gross interpretation of the truth. Aham Brahmasmi does not mean that one individual - the hero Rudran in this case - is God. Aham means I and that is the I that everybody uses when they refer to themselves. So in that way everyone is God - meaning the mother, the sister, the father, the head of the begging community, the beggars, the villain team from Kerala who lift some chosen beggars in return for money, the actor Puja who sings in trains and advises Rudran how to behave with his mother, whose throat he finally slits to liberate her from the hell of life on earth she is going through, the director, actors, the audience and every one is the same I - Aham or God. It is not just Rudran who is God here and takes up law into his hands to decide the fate of criminals and liberate the suffering. Such a gross understanding of the statement can lead to trouble in a society that is easily swayed by films.
Just as poets are entitled to their poetic fallacies, movies are nevertherless flights of fancy and an individual’s trip of their own truth, but the common concern here is just on account of the Maha Vakya - Aham Brahmasmi . Devoid of that statement and the title, it is just another film where good clashes with evil and the good triumphs in the end, vanquishing evil. There is no place for the realisation of any truth expressed in the - Aham Brahmasmi , here.
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