The opening credits of Satya Prakash‘s 2018 Kannada movie Ondalla Eradalla (streaming on Amazon Prime Video) rolls out with a song that depicts how unity is important to the world just like how a tune is important to a song, and how being united is probably the best gift that we could give our mother land. With the film receiving National Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration, it isn’t a surprise that the movie takes up social issues on Unity, Harmony and Love.
A man and his wife have been trying for a child for a long time. The man is part of a party whose Party symbol is Tiger, he is dressed up as a tiger for election campaign. There is an opposition party whose Party symbol is Cow and a small boy is dressed as a cow for the election campaign. After a certain set of events, this tiger and cow become friends, and this tiger starts feeling that this cow is like a son to him. The concept of casteism is brought in so organically, that it insists that there is no reason for caste to interfere when there is pure love.
Later, this tiger and cow go about searching for Bhanu, they even shop for ornaments and dresses for Bhanu. This particular premise does seem like Bhanu is that character that drives the whole movie, and you know what, she actually does.
Just to clarify, the “animals” mentioned above are actually humans – Sameera and Huli (which literally translates to Tiger in Kannada), and the Bhanu is the cow that Sameera loses.
The above mentioned depiction of a weird friendship being taken up to show casteism is how visually correlated imagery the entire movie has, and it is indeed beautiful and satisfying to watch such a movie.
Sameera (Rohith Pandavpura, who won National Award for Best Child Artist for this movie) is a 7-year old boy, who loves his Bhanu the cow/calf. They both are partners in crime, they roam the streets together all day with a bunch of bananas. Sameera does not think of Bhanu as a cow or an animal, but considers her as one of his friends that he even takes her with him for playing hide and seek. But being a cow, it moos and gets caught during the game which makes Sameera to properly hide Bhanu the next time they play. Unfortunately, this leads to Bhanu being accidentally taken by a goods van, after which Sameera goes all over the town in search of Bhanu.
The movie has a lot of parallel imagery and addresses socio-economic issues in a way that isn’t strong and vehement, but is put in a very subtle and comic manner.
A man (aforementioned “tiger”, Huli) has been trying for a child for a long time, believes that a cow-donation will bear him and his wife a child. Upon consulting a priest, the priest says that “handing over” Sameera, dressed as cow, to their parents is good enough to be considered the cow-donation that they intent to do.
Another man, who becomes mentally stagnant in time because he lost his son 25-30 years back, thinks that Huli is his long lost son and caters to his wounds. Huli who has neither seen a father nor is a father, feels that this man is indeed his father when he had held his leg and dressed up his wound, in a world where people talk with their legs (kick them). He also regrets not having a son like Sameera during his shopping times for Bhanu. The two men attain fatherhood, even though they are not really the fathers of their recently identified sons. There is an unexplainable yearning and pain (but an internal happiness) when you hear/say the words “My son”, “My father”, even though they are not yours.
The chase sequence (mentioned earlier) between the tiger and the cow is visually and conceptually brilliant. The sounds and the visuals have been made to be similar to an actual chase sequence between the two. The fear of the cow and its movement (the kid Rohith Pandavpura has been carefully auditioned and chosen, as his legs are slightly curved resembling a cow’s feet) and the vanity of the tiger in spite of its ferocious efforts has been shown brilliantly in this chase sequence.
However, in the hindsight, this particular chase sequence has quite a few social comments for us to make note of. The fight is depicted to happen between a hierarchically stronger tiger and an oppressed cow, which symbolises that the fight happens between two different class or caste. The fight or chase is being triggered by the people who particularly do not intend to get into this mess and those people on the receiving end of this trigger movement do not actually intend to be a part of this mess but reluctantly agree to it to supposedly show their loyalty. When this “tiger” and the “cow” get acquainted and become friends/family, it shows that caste or class does not come in between the real love or affection, all these are just superficial things that are being falsely constructed in the society.
Though these are very serious socio- political issues, there isn’t an ounce of seriousness in these scenes, these scenes are a laugh riot, hilariously staged, hence there is no need to worry that this movie needs a certain mood to watch. On the contrary, this movie lifts your mood to a very happy one.
There is a Hindu man, who has a rare blood group, donates his blood to an unknown Muslim man. Also, this Hindu man, though is on his way to celebrate his son’s Many more happy returns of the day, feels happier to buy a random small boy a new dress as he sees this boy gleaming with happiness while donning it. Wife of a poor banana vendor, without any hesitation, is ready to give away all her jewels in exchange for whereabouts of her neighbour’s lost brother. A family sacrifices their father’s pilgrimage to Mecca and their sister’s higher studies just because they would have to sell off their favourite cow for money. A Muslim boy without any awareness steps into a temple to offer prayers for his lost cow, the boy habitually calls the temple priest as “Moulvi Sab”, though the priest is initially shocked he immediately realises the innocence of the boy and prays for the boy by performing puja to another Animal God (Lord Hanuman).
The biggest takeaway from the movie is that it wants the Muslims (Sameera) and Hindus (Bhanu) to keep going back to the very same place where they both were born, where they both first met each other and became friends, and not lose each other while playing hide and seek.
Ondalla Eradalla is a movie on Unity among people coming from different walks of life. At the end of the day, Love and Harmony, irrespective of class, caste and creed, are the two things that would make this world a better place to live. When we see how a child and an animal treat each other with Love, without any inhibitions and discrimination, only then we tend to realise that men treat each other similar to how animals reluctantly treate each other for their own survival.
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