Traitor. That was how Mappila Lahala subtitled the word “rajyadrohi” on December 31, 2012, when they released their first politically-charged single on YouTube.
By the time the Kerala-based band — although they prefer to be called a movement — came up with their second on May 20 this year, they had a more specific and ominous term: anti-national.
It turns out the change was not intentional. “Traitor was a word we casually used while doing subtitles. Anti-national just became the right term for it now,” said Muhsin Parari, writer and director of both videos.
Three years and five months makes for a good barometer. The first video, Native Bapa , was the monologue of an apprehensive father of a dead youngster who was labelled a terrorist. Malayalam actor Mamukkoya returns as the father in Funeral of a Native Son , a thematic sequel that is also a tribute to Rohith Vemula. Both creations, monologues interspersed with Malayalam lyrics, with English rap as well in the second, are distillations of dissent. However, keeping in line with the times that produced them, Mamukkoya in Native Bapa is subtle, reserved and wonders whether he should be speaking at all. In Funeral of a Native Son , he is explicit, outspoken and goes to extent of saying, “Join us if you dare to tell the truth/Or lock your lips/And dig a grave for your freedom.” “Anti-national” replaces “bomb” as the refrain in this monologue.
In Native Bapa , Mamukkoya’s character concludes by saying that, like his wife, he does not want to see the dead body of his son: “Still she, his mom, says/I wanna ne’er see his body/ Traitor as he is.” In Funeral of a Native Son , the father says that the anti-nationals are not his sons; instead, he expands it to include the countless labelled as anti-nationals and says, “If gallantry be sedition/Show me the body of our gallant boy.”
Talking over phone, Mamukkoya said he was conscious of his character’s evolution. “When we shot Native Bapa , there was this fear of speaking out. Now, voices are growing louder as intolerance grows,” he said. Known for his comedy roles, he surprises with sharp political observations. “It used to be one or two people speaking out. Now, it is a hundred, two hundred,” he said.
He said that a personal experience convinced him to join Mappila Lahala’s project. “I was not allowed to alight from a flight in Australia five years back. Even as they made me wait for two to three hours, I found out that their problem was with the name on my passport: Mamukkoya, and my father’s name, Mohammad,” he said.
The actor added that he had made the trip to attend the Onam celebrations organised by the local Malayalee association. “Officials were convinced only after they went out of the airport and talked to the organisers who were waiting with bouquets for me,” he said.
According to Muhsin Parari, who wrote the monologues and directed both videos, the explicitness of Funeral of a Native Son is not an accident. “When the State is explicit, responses should be delivered loudly too,” said Parari.
Parari had called the father in Native Bapa a reluctant secularist. “There are different definitions, but I would use the one from popular culture,” he said. Rather than attempt an exact sketch, Parari talks about what a reluctant secularist does, “One would have to suppress his cultural expressions to be a secularist.” That is how Native Bapa came to draw from the story of Mohammad Fayaz from Kannur (Kerala), who was killed in an encounter with security forces in Kashmir. Fayaz’s mother’s decision to not see his body was lauded in Kerala.
In Native Bapa , Mamukkoya arrives at the same decision, despite airing doubts about the official narrative.
Funeral of a Native Son takes this suspicion of the State much further. The anguish no longer remains personal to a bereaved father but explodes into a national issue: “The nation too, feels your pain/Thousands too, bear your truth,” sings Resmi Sateesh as she lights candles before a portrait of Vemula.
The State, however, has its way of making itself indispensable. Thanks to its help with logistics, Funeral of a Native Son begins by registering the makers’ gratefulness to the Kerala Police.
