Dasavatharam: Irony and duality, penned by Kamal Haasan

I watched Dasavatharam in a theatre in my hometown during my childhood. People were going gaga over an actor playing ten roles in a film. That was my introduction to Kamal Haasan. I was ten years old and couldn’t understand the chaos theory and butterflies flying, but I was scared to see Christian Fletcher and cheered up for Shingen Narahazi to kill Fletcher in the climax.

Prologue:

Recently, I went on a tour (work+vacation) to Pondicherry for a week. I visited Chidambaram and Pichavaram Mangrove Forest on the weekend. I recollected the mangrove forest shots from the movie but couldn’t realise this movie starts with a conflict between Shaivas and Vaishnavas at the Nataraja Swamy Temple, Chidambaram. I went to the temple and stayed there for about an hour, not realising that this temple was part of Dasavatharam!

After I returned, I wanted to watch the film again after 14 years of its release. This time, I’m slightly more aware of the writing prowess of Kamal, more mature, and can understand the dialogues compared to that kid watching the film, not knowing when to cheer, when to cry, when to clap!

Into the cinema now:

All praise for Kamal for portraying 10 characters in the film. Henceforth, I’ll be talking about the writer Kamal, not the actor Kamal. He wrote the story, and screenplay himself, as he did for a few spectacular films.

If you’ve seen the films he wrote, he loves writing about human irony and duality, leaving it to the audience to decide which path to take. Dasavatharam has many such moments throughout the movie. I’ll try writing about each character and then add the scenes and dialogues I loved most during this week’s rewatching episode.

10 Characters

Nambi

Rangaraja Nambi is a Vaishnava Brahmin fighting to protect Govindaraja Swamy’s respect under the reign of Chola, who worships Shiva. His intro fight has his aggression, reminding of Lord Narasimha.

He decides not to bow to the Chola King and chooses to die, as a Vaishnava, rather than worshipping Shiva. He estranges his family for his belief. He’s tied to Govindaraja Swamy’s idol and thrown into the sea.

This character has a powerful introduction enhanced by DSP’s music. Just a terrific scene and the song culminates the set-up.

Govind

A scientist working on Bio-weapon has many existential questions throughout the movie. His name is Govindarajan Ramaswamy, and since he’s aware of the deadly nature of his work, he tries to protect it from people using it for self-gain.

We travel with this character throughout the movie, discovering other characters, played by Kamal, from the advanced USA to rooted India.

He offers to die for the greater good of saving humanity — the perfect commercial protagonist.

Christian Fletcher

An ex-CIA agent who works for a businessman. Deadly, stylish, and exhibits white supremacy throughout. His character starts by killing innocent Yuka and ends up being killed by consuming that bio-weapon when he learns that he couldn’t win.

Self-destructive terrorist. He is ruthless and kills his people if they become deadweight to ensure no trace is left behind.

I was terrified watching his antics in childhood, assuming he was a trained terrorist, but I realised he was an ex-CIA working as an assailant. I happened to recall Mike from Breaking Bad.

George Bush

This character is excellently written and performed by KH, despite having limited screen time. At one instance in the pre-climax, Bush asks his secretary whether they could use a Nuclear Bomb to destroy the Bioweapon. Leaving it here.

Shingen Narahaz

A Japanese Martial Arts teacher, whose sister, Yuka, gets killed brutally by Fletcher. Comes to India to seek revenge on the killer.

At the film’s beginning, Yuka asks Govind to have dinner at her home when he’s on the run from Fletcher. Govind mentions that his hunger is dead with this tension, to which she responds, “Govind sir, life should go on. Remember, I’m from Hiroshima.”

During the climax fight, Fletcher sledges Shingen about Hiroshima, for which he retorts, “Remember Peal Harbour.” He saves Govind from Fletcher.

Balram Naidu

A RAW officer from a Telugu-speaking place has partiality towards Telugu-speaking people. Apart from the comedy scenes and the uprising yet funny BGM when he encounters another person from Telugu states, he is a bigot. He forcefully moves all the Muslim residents in that street to a nearby Masjid for an inquiry, suspecting them of unlawful activities.

The irony here is that Masjid land is donated by Khalifullah’s father.

Khalifullah

Innocent, funny, grateful and gigantic person. This character has good moments even amidst the bad things happening to them and entrusts Allah. With Khalifullah, Kamal does the confusion and light-hearted comedy and plays with words that bring us good laughter.

Tracing his story, his family is affected by Govind after Govind hits their van accidentally, leading to Khalifullah’s mother getting injured. Govind volunteers to donate blood, thus earning Khalifullah’s respect.

Again, he’s being interrogated for giving protection to Govind & Fletcher in their home and helping them escape. Ups and downs for him in that small duration!

Even though they’re being interrogated unethically in the masjid, their place is unaffected by the tsunami, which begs the question: Doesn’t god hurt the pure souls?

Avatar Singh

A Punjabi pop singer discovers he has cancer and has to take a tough life-altering decision: whether to have surgery and lose his voice leading to not being able to sing again in life, or not having surgery and continue singing for some months until cancer takes its toll on him.

The conversation between him and his doctor is written well. He decides to opt for surgery because he now has a family and a loving wife for whom he wishes to live, letting go of his singing career. A challenging and life-changing decision indeed.

But he decides to go for one last live show before the surgery. His medication box is mistakenly exchanged just before the final show, and he feels God challenges him. The determination and never-give-up attitude of Sikhs is depicted in the movie.

Finally, he is rewarded with his voice, thanks to the bullet fired accidentally by Fletcher/Govind. On a larger scope of things, he gets lucky because of two polar ends fighting, one to protect humanity and one for selfish gains.

Krishnaveni

An orthodox old lady living in the premises of the temple longing to see her son, who is dead already, as per the story. Krishnaveni unites Scientist Govind with Govindaraja Swamy’s idol entrusting that God saves the world from that bioweapon.

This character is introduced in a song about Dasavatharam of Vishnu, and her son’s name is Dasavatharam!

Her character, in the end, is emotional when she grieves for Vincent Boovaragan, a godly activist fighting to protect Mother Earth. Remember Krishnaveni calls her aide (a priest) “Caste-obsessed” when her aide cautions her about the caste/religion of Boovaragan, and he can’t come near Boovaragan with god’s idol in his hand. At the same time, Boovaragan’s opponents refer to him as God for protecting the kids!

Vincent Boovaragan (Vincent Punyakoti)

When I first watched the movie in childhood, Rangaraja Nambi was my favourite character. I have become a fan of Vincent now. Vincent’s introduction is brilliantly written, performed, and directed.

Govind and Andal escape from Fletcher and reach a place where a local mafia illegally mines the sand under a bridge.

The gang leader of that sand mafia tries to rape Andal (Asin) and grabs her saree. She screams, “Narayana!” Then, Vincent comes in with all lights turning on. This was the peak moment for me in the movie.

From this point, the movie is on a different altitude with Vincent’s dialogues and actions. He speaks about “assaulting mother earth” for greed and catching him in front of the media for both — “sand mining” and “molesting a girl.”

Even though he’s uneducated, his choices are clear — to fight for the soil (earth), and he loses his life while saving the son of the politician who is the head of that sand mafia. In his introduction scene, a goon asks if he feels like a Universal Leader, to which Boovaragan answers, “Yes! I’m the universal leader!”

He’s the real hero of the movie, in my opinion.

Writing of the movie:

The Crazy Mohan & Kamal combination has given us many movies with conversational comedy. Kamal banked on this comedy in several scenes throughout the film with actors like MS Bhasker, Asin and a couple of his characters in this movie.

Apart from the funny ones, these are a couple of dialogues that made me go wow:

“కైలాసంలో కపటులకు స్థానం లేదు.

వైరులను వైకుంఠం స్వాగతిస్తుంది, వచ్చి చూడు.”

“గోడల్లో, స్థంభాల్లో ఉండే దేవుడు, పాండిచ్చెరిలో ఉండడా?”

And there are many such dialogues throughout the movie. This movie has one of the most excellent editing that I’ve observed.

When Govind and Andal (Asin) escape from Fletcher on a train, they search for ice to keep the vial in a cold and dry place, and they jump off the train at the Chola Mandapa. This is where Chola, in the 12th Century, submerges Govindaraja Swamy’s idol into the sea while Nambi’s wife dies grieving at his death by banging her head against the stone at the mandapa.

Now, Govind and Andal carefully place the Govindaraja Swamy idol under the sand because it is slightly cold and dry, so the vial inside is safe.

We see one of the activists from Boovaragan’s group singing a poem about comparing soil to our mother. While reciting the poem, we hear these lines, “మట్టి భూదేవికి ఇంకో రూపం” and Govind taking out the Govindaraja Swamy idol from inside the sand (earth).

During the aftermath of the tsunami, Andal says, “భగవంతుడే అందరినీ కాపడాడు.” then the camera cuts to a pool of dead bodies on a boat arriving at the shore.

When Krishnaveni is mourning her son, Boovaragan’s death, the mother of the kid who’s saved by Boovaragan mentions “నా బిడ్డని కాపడిన దేవుడండి మీరు” and then Krishnaveni asks god “నారాయణా, నా దశావతారం వచ్చేశాడా వైకుంఠానికి?”

There are many iconic moments in the movie, and I’m sincerely grateful to Kamal for making such a movie, with his brilliance written all over. I’ll rewatch it after a couple of years and discover new things with the level of maturity and understanding that I’ll have then.

Thank you, dear Kamal Haasan, for making such an ambitious yet thoughtful movie ❤.