Perhaps it is by virtue of being a GP teacher. There, I have just gone and constructed a sentence fragment which I would underline with a squiggle, had I been marking. As a GP tutor, I have been reading up and explaining and engaging in a lot of discussion off late about the realms of Science and Ethics. Are they necessarily mutually exclusive? Can they co-exist in harmony? Is Science dangerous, does it hold lethal potential? Is human intention the main factor through which Science can manifest itself as good or bad? What is the most noble ideal of Science? To benefit the world of animals and humans alike? How subjective is the notion of 'ethics?' Does the definition change with varying situations? Why then are we seeing the creation of so much technology which is out to destroy? Do we foresee an apocalyptic future, with an Armageddon between Good (humanity?) and evil?(machines?) Or may it be the other way round? Are machines necessarily bad...of course not...then...is it the motivation behind the creation which will determine all that follows...
Questions of this order have been heatedly debated and discussed over the past few days: with students, my parents, my friends...
So as I stepped into Jurong Point's Golden Village to watch Krrish 3, I felt like I had stepped into the heart of it all...This will not be a very 'academic' post at all, just an outpouring (hmmm) from my heart...(hmmm again)
Okay, I might s well begin with a confession...of my love for the Roshan boy...he has always struck me as being an earnest, sincere and eager actor, and coupled with his, well, pulchritude, those eyes, that smile, and that nose (yes, it possibly sounds like I am in love, besides other things, with the way he looks) that I was determined to like the film...shallow as that may sound, I beg your indulgence, allow me a fan-girl moment... And I must admit that I have always thought of Vivek Oberoi as an earnest actor, though I must say that this was a far cry from one of his better performances.
So I was excited...despite having heard and read reviews which vehemently trashed the film.
Two scientists, both undeniably intelligent, endowed with resources galore and heaps of brains are on vastly different missions: one, to benefit humanity by utilising the Sun's infinite energy and the other, to wreak havoc on humankind through biological warfare...thereby underscoring the value of intention which detremines the use or/and abuse of science.
Can Man/Woman play God? Should we intefere with the processes of Nature? Should we be 'audacious' enough to follow in the footsteps of H.G.Wells's Dr. Morrow or those of Kaal, who gleefully merges animal DNA with that of humans?
The idea which has been picked up by many critics, and indeed a focus of the film itself, is that of 'playing God.' Kaal is trying to play God as he unhesitatingly and unflinchingly conducts cruel experiments on animals and humans alike, in a bid to fuse their DNA...some critics have very skillfully ( thanks, Captains Obvious) pointed out that Krrish and Dr. Mehra are also playing at playing God...they are trying to go out and save lives, actively do something to alleviate the misery of the everyday...indeed Dr. Mehra goes against God's dictum of Death and resurrects his only son with the help of his invention...but, hang on for a minute!!!!!! Is this even the issue at hand? In an age where we have witnessed the creation of a Vacanti Mouse, on which scientists grew a human ear for the purpose of organ transplant, in an era where animal testing is rampant, in an era where medical research is delving deep into how to cheat/push away death and disease, as exhibited by the increasing populations of the aged, are we not trying to gain more control over the world than we ever had? Stem cell research has used mouse embryonic cells...aren't we all in our own ways, trying to gain Power over the unknown? But the main and more pressing issue to me seems to be WHY we are doing this? Is it to benefit humankind? One could rightfully argue that we are violating the rights of animals just for human gain...and I do find that a valid claim. However, how can we simplistically say that Krrish should not blame Kaal for playing God because he and his dad are doing the same?
The point is simple...in fact it is so simple that it is dangerously easy to overlook...Krrish and his father are 'playing God' to do GOOD things...and for Believers like myself, God is an embodiment of ALL that is good, all that we should strive to be, the moral compass which directs and guides... Maybe one could argue that the definition of the word Good is subjective, but even by subjective parameters, Krrish and his father's intentions are not to harm or hurt...rather to help and relieve...they are not driven by cold and mercenary concerns ...they are not merely strategising businessmen who devise ways of making the most money with their limited resources...of spreading fear to increase demands for their medicine... the choice here is a moral choice...the tragedy here is, in our endeavour to be astute critics of what many consider a flawed story, we are losing sight of the motivation for evil lurking, in its beguiling and wicked splendor, in so many everyday situations...which we overlook...
And that brings me to a greater question. How many of us are willing to accept help in humility? That would mean acknowledging inadequacies of some sort...or do we seek help in an ungrateful manner, posing as if the helpers could not do without us...recalling the notion of the Hegelian master slave dialectic and the politics of dependence to mind.
Altruism versus megalomania could be the other: megalomania and altruism are not antonyms, but one could try and pitch them against one another in this case...I guess...Krrish and his father Rohit are willing to sacrifice their time, energy and blood for the greater cause of saving the world...they are intensely stirred by the suffering all around them...so emotions can catalyse great scientific inventions and discoveries...it's not only about cold, calculating and uber-logical beings, sitting in a semi de-humanised lab, trying to out-patent one another...which brings me to another theme...is logic necessarily devoid of ethics? Science is logical, ethics belong to the realm of morals...are they necessarily as different as we may think they are? Kaal is an undeniable megalomaniac...though Krrish hides his identity, in keeping with the 'anonymous' vigilantes of the West, he has no clear desire for fame as he never reveals his true identiy...whereas Kaal, despite his metallic, and rather scrappy metallic get up, seems to be consumed by a burning desire for Power...power to be make money and gain control...but does "power corrupt and absolute power corrupt absolutely?" In the right hands, can power lead to benefits? Absolute is the enemy word...the key word, the 'absolute' term...can power co-exist with humility? Can it ever be a one man's world? The film hints a the power of collaboration, of finding the good within...
I was very curious to unpack Kaal's motivation for his unadulterated evilness...what could it be? Why does he wish to create a race of super humans and wipe out humanity? In an age where 'designer babies' and cloning are the topics of raging debates, one could take a minute out to wonder. Does Kaal associate all human beings with frailty, weakness, emotion and most importantly disability? Is it the fact that he is paralysed from head down which prompts him to somehow create a breed of creatures who will never be susceptible to such a condition? Are his machinations an indirect result of suffering? He himself is an experiment gone wrong...he is a guinea pig product of Dr. Arya's quest for a super human...a super human who has not evolved in terms of compassion or kindness...
Which brings me to another question: who is a super-human? Who is a hero? Possessing incredible powers is shown to be secondary to possessing the precious (and sadly, perhaps increasingly rare) qualities of compassion. selflessness and genuine sympathy/empathy for others...hence to 'evolve' into a super human, we don't need to depend on external powers of flight and might, but rather cultivate and cleanse the soul within...as the movie adroitly implies, Krrish is a state of consciousness, the potential for good latent or indeed blatant in each and every person...and on a more sinister note, one could also assume that there is a latent/blatant Kaal within each one of us...What is evolution? Would I be wrong to argue that as our back bone straightened over time, our integrity and uprightness should also grow stronger to evolve into a better breed of humanity? We should not strive for efficiency to a point where anything which is at once obviously necessary yet obviously superfluous should be sacrificed...empathy, sympathy, the act of being charitable, sometimes losing but actually ethically triumphing?
There is one thing which moved me immensely...during his battle sequnce with Kaal, Krrish, in a way which touched me, tries his best to avoid collateral damage...he does not accept "incidental casualties" (in the age of drones and nuclear warfare) with a practical shrug of his (gorgeous )shoulders...he values every human life, even if that "disadvantages" him...to the end, he is more a humane hero than a merely strategising one...and ofcourse, Krrish himself acknowledges that being human gives him strength and not weakness...
And the gratifying realisation that dawns on one at the end, inevitable and cliched as it may sound, is that love is indeed the answer...and we should not relegate this realisation to the realm of the hackneyed, because we cannot afford to take it for granted in an age of civil war, drones, violence and corruption. We cannot...th importance of love is grossly under-rated...it is a term which is hugely misunderstood...some experiences I have undergone and stories I have heard and hear everyday, validates this even more...
There are allusions...the notion of Eugenics...Kaal's desire to create the most superior of races calls to mind the obvious reference to the Nazis...the notion of two people, who are poles apart yet with unmistakeable similarities, drew Harry Potter and Voldemort to my mind...how everything depends on a choice...it is ultimately all in our hands...and despite the aching carnage induced by 'bad,' the movie re-iterates the hope of good, in some form or the other, triumphing in some way or the other, over evil...the fact that Kaal is 'playing God' while the brilliant and kind Dr. Mehra prays to God in humility, acknowledging a Power greater than himself, is another thought that struck me.
All in all, I thought Krrish 3 was thought provoking, creative and had its heart in the right place...of course it wasn't perfect, but to me, that was okay...there is nothing necessarily redeeming about perfection...maybe I would have liked it if there was more emphasis on gender...if Krrish and Priya's child had been a daughter...
Oh and a passing thought...the character of Kaya, de-humanised, epitomising inhumanity, manipulation and fabrication, too is capable of reforming her non-human self through Love...so the power of love can transcend the non-human as well...
I would recommend the movie, for though it might be easy to dismiss it, as some have, as juvenile and hackneyed, we live in a world, where increasingly, the values it protects are fast diminishing and are difficult to take for granted.
Questions of this order have been heatedly debated and discussed over the past few days: with students, my parents, my friends...
So as I stepped into Jurong Point's Golden Village to watch Krrish 3, I felt like I had stepped into the heart of it all...This will not be a very 'academic' post at all, just an outpouring (hmmm) from my heart...(hmmm again)
Okay, I might s well begin with a confession...of my love for the Roshan boy...he has always struck me as being an earnest, sincere and eager actor, and coupled with his, well, pulchritude, those eyes, that smile, and that nose (yes, it possibly sounds like I am in love, besides other things, with the way he looks) that I was determined to like the film...shallow as that may sound, I beg your indulgence, allow me a fan-girl moment... And I must admit that I have always thought of Vivek Oberoi as an earnest actor, though I must say that this was a far cry from one of his better performances.
So I was excited...despite having heard and read reviews which vehemently trashed the film.
Two scientists, both undeniably intelligent, endowed with resources galore and heaps of brains are on vastly different missions: one, to benefit humanity by utilising the Sun's infinite energy and the other, to wreak havoc on humankind through biological warfare...thereby underscoring the value of intention which detremines the use or/and abuse of science.
Can Man/Woman play God? Should we intefere with the processes of Nature? Should we be 'audacious' enough to follow in the footsteps of H.G.Wells's Dr. Morrow or those of Kaal, who gleefully merges animal DNA with that of humans?
The idea which has been picked up by many critics, and indeed a focus of the film itself, is that of 'playing God.' Kaal is trying to play God as he unhesitatingly and unflinchingly conducts cruel experiments on animals and humans alike, in a bid to fuse their DNA...some critics have very skillfully ( thanks, Captains Obvious) pointed out that Krrish and Dr. Mehra are also playing at playing God...they are trying to go out and save lives, actively do something to alleviate the misery of the everyday...indeed Dr. Mehra goes against God's dictum of Death and resurrects his only son with the help of his invention...but, hang on for a minute!!!!!! Is this even the issue at hand? In an age where we have witnessed the creation of a Vacanti Mouse, on which scientists grew a human ear for the purpose of organ transplant, in an era where animal testing is rampant, in an era where medical research is delving deep into how to cheat/push away death and disease, as exhibited by the increasing populations of the aged, are we not trying to gain more control over the world than we ever had? Stem cell research has used mouse embryonic cells...aren't we all in our own ways, trying to gain Power over the unknown? But the main and more pressing issue to me seems to be WHY we are doing this? Is it to benefit humankind? One could rightfully argue that we are violating the rights of animals just for human gain...and I do find that a valid claim. However, how can we simplistically say that Krrish should not blame Kaal for playing God because he and his dad are doing the same?
The point is simple...in fact it is so simple that it is dangerously easy to overlook...Krrish and his father are 'playing God' to do GOOD things...and for Believers like myself, God is an embodiment of ALL that is good, all that we should strive to be, the moral compass which directs and guides... Maybe one could argue that the definition of the word Good is subjective, but even by subjective parameters, Krrish and his father's intentions are not to harm or hurt...rather to help and relieve...they are not driven by cold and mercenary concerns ...they are not merely strategising businessmen who devise ways of making the most money with their limited resources...of spreading fear to increase demands for their medicine... the choice here is a moral choice...the tragedy here is, in our endeavour to be astute critics of what many consider a flawed story, we are losing sight of the motivation for evil lurking, in its beguiling and wicked splendor, in so many everyday situations...which we overlook...
And that brings me to a greater question. How many of us are willing to accept help in humility? That would mean acknowledging inadequacies of some sort...or do we seek help in an ungrateful manner, posing as if the helpers could not do without us...recalling the notion of the Hegelian master slave dialectic and the politics of dependence to mind.
Altruism versus megalomania could be the other: megalomania and altruism are not antonyms, but one could try and pitch them against one another in this case...I guess...Krrish and his father Rohit are willing to sacrifice their time, energy and blood for the greater cause of saving the world...they are intensely stirred by the suffering all around them...so emotions can catalyse great scientific inventions and discoveries...it's not only about cold, calculating and uber-logical beings, sitting in a semi de-humanised lab, trying to out-patent one another...which brings me to another theme...is logic necessarily devoid of ethics? Science is logical, ethics belong to the realm of morals...are they necessarily as different as we may think they are? Kaal is an undeniable megalomaniac...though Krrish hides his identity, in keeping with the 'anonymous' vigilantes of the West, he has no clear desire for fame as he never reveals his true identiy...whereas Kaal, despite his metallic, and rather scrappy metallic get up, seems to be consumed by a burning desire for Power...power to be make money and gain control...but does "power corrupt and absolute power corrupt absolutely?" In the right hands, can power lead to benefits? Absolute is the enemy word...the key word, the 'absolute' term...can power co-exist with humility? Can it ever be a one man's world? The film hints a the power of collaboration, of finding the good within...
I was very curious to unpack Kaal's motivation for his unadulterated evilness...what could it be? Why does he wish to create a race of super humans and wipe out humanity? In an age where 'designer babies' and cloning are the topics of raging debates, one could take a minute out to wonder. Does Kaal associate all human beings with frailty, weakness, emotion and most importantly disability? Is it the fact that he is paralysed from head down which prompts him to somehow create a breed of creatures who will never be susceptible to such a condition? Are his machinations an indirect result of suffering? He himself is an experiment gone wrong...he is a guinea pig product of Dr. Arya's quest for a super human...a super human who has not evolved in terms of compassion or kindness...
Which brings me to another question: who is a super-human? Who is a hero? Possessing incredible powers is shown to be secondary to possessing the precious (and sadly, perhaps increasingly rare) qualities of compassion. selflessness and genuine sympathy/empathy for others...hence to 'evolve' into a super human, we don't need to depend on external powers of flight and might, but rather cultivate and cleanse the soul within...as the movie adroitly implies, Krrish is a state of consciousness, the potential for good latent or indeed blatant in each and every person...and on a more sinister note, one could also assume that there is a latent/blatant Kaal within each one of us...What is evolution? Would I be wrong to argue that as our back bone straightened over time, our integrity and uprightness should also grow stronger to evolve into a better breed of humanity? We should not strive for efficiency to a point where anything which is at once obviously necessary yet obviously superfluous should be sacrificed...empathy, sympathy, the act of being charitable, sometimes losing but actually ethically triumphing?
There is one thing which moved me immensely...during his battle sequnce with Kaal, Krrish, in a way which touched me, tries his best to avoid collateral damage...he does not accept "incidental casualties" (in the age of drones and nuclear warfare) with a practical shrug of his (gorgeous )shoulders...he values every human life, even if that "disadvantages" him...to the end, he is more a humane hero than a merely strategising one...and ofcourse, Krrish himself acknowledges that being human gives him strength and not weakness...
And the gratifying realisation that dawns on one at the end, inevitable and cliched as it may sound, is that love is indeed the answer...and we should not relegate this realisation to the realm of the hackneyed, because we cannot afford to take it for granted in an age of civil war, drones, violence and corruption. We cannot...th importance of love is grossly under-rated...it is a term which is hugely misunderstood...some experiences I have undergone and stories I have heard and hear everyday, validates this even more...
There are allusions...the notion of Eugenics...Kaal's desire to create the most superior of races calls to mind the obvious reference to the Nazis...the notion of two people, who are poles apart yet with unmistakeable similarities, drew Harry Potter and Voldemort to my mind...how everything depends on a choice...it is ultimately all in our hands...and despite the aching carnage induced by 'bad,' the movie re-iterates the hope of good, in some form or the other, triumphing in some way or the other, over evil...the fact that Kaal is 'playing God' while the brilliant and kind Dr. Mehra prays to God in humility, acknowledging a Power greater than himself, is another thought that struck me.
All in all, I thought Krrish 3 was thought provoking, creative and had its heart in the right place...of course it wasn't perfect, but to me, that was okay...there is nothing necessarily redeeming about perfection...maybe I would have liked it if there was more emphasis on gender...if Krrish and Priya's child had been a daughter...
Oh and a passing thought...the character of Kaya, de-humanised, epitomising inhumanity, manipulation and fabrication, too is capable of reforming her non-human self through Love...so the power of love can transcend the non-human as well...
I would recommend the movie, for though it might be easy to dismiss it, as some have, as juvenile and hackneyed, we live in a world, where increasingly, the values it protects are fast diminishing and are difficult to take for granted.
