Mammooty Starer Malayalam movie ‘One’, though have many patches and pits in the screenplay and having visible weakness in directorial side, is a one-time watch, if you have free time to spend time on some unproductive activities. Intention of this article is not to evaluate the quality of the said film or to criticize on the efforts put in by the team behind the said movie. I started watching the said movie with a preconceived notion in mind that the movie may be an effort to highlight the good sides of Kerala Chief Minister Shri Pinarayi Vijayan and to give him a clean image and donate his party a political mileage during the state assembly elections. Though first few scenes were crafted to project the CM as a ‘fear factor’ , which is very close to what we heard and read about Shri Pinarayi, the movie progressed in a lukewarm manner by plotting it neither as a political drama nor as an emotional drama. And the CM character in the movie is very sober and nowhere near my preconceived notion, as the movie took a different story line than the expectation. However, I found the base story thread of the film as an interesting one, though the screenplay had miserably failed to establish the said storyline in an effective manner.
The story goes like this. Character played by Mammooty, is the Chief Minister of Kerala, who is very strong in his attitude but very soft and passionate in his mind. He is a man of principle and having a very clean political image. Though he is holding the flagship position of the Ministry he is unable to control the huge level of corruption engrossed among his own MLAs and Ministers. Being frustrated about the nose level corruption, he secretly moves a bill named as “ Right of People to recall the MLAs Bill”, at Loksabha through the Sole MP of his party. Though he had failed in initial attempts, ultimately the bill got the assent of the President and became an Act. The intention of the Act was to empower and enable the voters of a constituency to evaluate the performance of their elected representatives and recall him, if his performance is not satisfactory. Then he tried to present the said in Kerala Assembly, but miserably failed in getting even the votes of his own MLAs. The said failure led to his untimely resignation and the story ends with some more emotional exercise.
Though the making of the movie is not up-to the mark, the idea behind the storyline is thought provoking. Many of us may have heard the story of Bhasmasura, a demon king, who prayed to Lord Shiva for immortality and finally got successful in getting a very strange boon that whose head is touched by Bhasmasura with his forefinger, shall immediately burn up and turn into ashes!. On getting the said boon, Bhasmasura overwhelming with joy, had decided to test the boon on Shiva himself. Shiva got frightened and at last, managed to reach the abode of Vishnu and sought a solution to the predicament, for which he himself was responsible.
In democracy, the People are electing their representatives based on the concept of “Of the People, By the People and For the People”. But once elected , the said representatives are turning themselves into Bhasmasuras and using their powers trying to turn the common man, who had given them the powers, into ashes. Unlike in the case of Shiva who ran for his life, there is no Vishnu in near vicinity to save the common man from getting crushed under the iron boots of their elected representatives.
Though the “right to recall” an elected representative is a dream of every citizen of India, the said concept is having lot of practical issues in its effective implementation. However, the practical issues can be resolved easily if there is a strong will behind that intention. Sadly, now a days, we are witnessing very unethical level of blame game among the politicians where, the State Government is blaming Central for their inactions, Central is belittling States for outperforming them, Chief Minister is calling Prime Minister a spade, Finance Minister is presenting bloated financial pictures to lure the voters, Governor is staging protest on decisions of an elected assembly, wrong doers are pathetically justifying the errant and glorifying them in public and many more dirty games and gimmicks are staged on daily basis in a shameful manner. Yes, we had given the boon to Bhasmasuras who can burn us into ashes in a twitch. Our leaders are reminding us the words of The Lord Acton- “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”
Apart from the said concept of “Right to Recall”, the movie One does not have anything material in it.
BIJOY P PULIPRA