I just watched RRR, the Indian epic anti-colonial film that’s now the third highest grossing film in India, and is receiving critical acclaim and attention in the west. (8/18/22 Edit: The movie is also receiving a fair bit of criticism for promoting casteism and Hinduatva)
Indian cinema in the west is usually associated with Hindi-language Bollywood, and tends to ignore regional cinema. RRR is a Telugu language film, and thus is separate from Hindi language Bollywood. Telugu also happens to be the language that my family speaks. It’s directed by S. S. Rajamouli, who has been successful in producing pan-Indian films that are released in multiple languages. Baahubali was another one of his high grossing Telugu films.
Because I grew up in the west and most of my friends are North/Central Indian, I’m more familiar with Hindi cinema than I am with Telugu cinema.
RRR is the first Telugu movie I’ve watched in theaters, and may actually be the only Indian movie I’ve watched in a theater in the United States. It was fairly long, and I found myself taking breaks (and being on my phone – since the theater was empty). But despite my short attention span, I did make it to the end and am really glad I spent 3+ hours watching it.
I have a lot of thoughts on this movie, and will probably need to take a few days to formulate them better. But here are some big things I felt
Language
I couldn’t understand all of the language in the movie, and had to rely on the English subtitles.
But for a couple very emotional scenes (no spoilers here), I was able to understand the Telugu. In particular, just hearing the term amma was so much more impactful than hearing the word mom in a similar context. I don’t call my mom “mom”, I call her “amma”, so my emotional reaction to the story was more powerful because of the language used. That was cool.
Values
A common motif of this movie was sacrifice. Both of the protagonists were willing to go to great lengths to live out their values. Many of the most revered leaders of the Indian Independence movement had strong values, and were willing to do things to live out those values.
This story, and just thinking about the independence movement more generally, has inspired me to want to re-focus on my values. I feel like in college I tried to cultivate a strong set of values and live them out, and generally tried to be the best person I could be. I was pretty idealistic about what I could accomplish, and had pretty high ambitions.
Over the last few years, that’s diminished. I don’t feel as ambitious now, and after the events of the pandemic, plus getting involved in local politics in Detroit, and of course the Trump administration and now the country’s rightward lurch, I feel less idealistic and feel like less is possible.
But I don’t think that’s an excuse anymore to not stand for something. I used to think it was all futile to stand for something that’s not going to happen anytime soon. I thought it was an exercise in futility to fight for something that you didn’t think had any path to being accomplished. The feeling I’ve felt between 2019 and now is one of pessimism, thinking that maybe a better world wasn’t possible and that the arc of history doesn’t bend towards justice (Ta Nehisi Coates made a point about this in this article about British historian Tony Judt).
But the Indian independence movement is a great example against that. It was ultimately successful in bringing about India as an independent nation, but took decades and the sacrifice of many people. The freedom fighters that the protagonists are based on in RRR, for example, died in 1924 and 1940, years before independence was granted in 1947. They had their values and stood for them, even when it wasn’t clear that they would accomplish it.
I think there’s a healthy balance to strike between believing in a better world and believing in your values, and also realizing that not everything will materialize. This idea brings me to the next point:
Don’t get attached to results
In RRR, there’s a scene where a character cites Chapter 2, Verse 47 of the Bhagavad Gita in Sanskrit. This is one of the most popular verses of the Gita, to the point that many schoolchildren in India are familiar with it.
This verse, and Chapter 2 summarize some core concepts of Hinduism [1]. The general idea is that you should do your duty, but not attach yourself with the results. The intuition is that there are many factors that contribute to a result besides your own actions. By focusing on doing the best job you can, and letting the results fall where they may, it decreases anxiety and may in many cases improve the outcomes.
This idea may invite parallels to deontological ethics vs consequentalist ethics in Western philosophy based on the invocation of duty, but from my limited understanding of both topics, I don’t think they’re the same thing.
This topic of non-attachment to the fruits of action is something I’ve wanted to learn more about. But if I were to apply it to the idea of making the world a better place, it means doing the best job you can to have a positive impact on the world, and not be overly attached or attached to the outcome of those actions. Focus on doing a good job and essentially maximizing the odds of success, and be okay with what happens. After all, what else can you do?
Notes
[1] Hinduism shouldn’t be understood as a religion in the Western sense of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. There is no centralized authority in Hinduism and no “right way” to be Hindu. It has sometimes been described as a way of life.