In the year 2018, a well known print media put up an article whose headline was this - "88% of marginalised children beaten at school; 91% parents ok with it." It is called the 'CORPORAL PUNISHMENT' and comes into existence when a teacher picks up the extreme way of disciplining a student. I am sure most of us as teachers and as parents will disagree to this kind of behaviour and maybe few of us will be ok with using stricter ways of disciplining children both as parents and as teachers. Are you of the opinion that Sex Education should be a must at school or do you think otherwise? Have you ever come across the sensationalism of media personally? How was that experience? Or are you someone who would rather hang yourself before being caught in the claws of media? If you are wondering why I am putting up such questions, it's because during the week I came across a teacher who had been through all this and made me think more about it.
#LIFEGOALS - It's about a newly wed couple Merlin and Manikandan. Merlin is a teacher who comes from a family where her Mom, a hardcore believer in the lord who is against her decision of getting married to someone from the other caste. Thankfully for Merlin, she has a friendly environment at her school and is surrounded by well wishers. She wishes to make her Mom understand that her decision is right. On the other hand, her Mom refuses to even speak to her on phone. It is 3 days after her Registered Marriage that Merlin joins back her duty as a teacher. Merlin is then requested to go to a certain class as a substitute teacher. After a while, owing to a certain situation, Merlin slaps one of the students Cheziyan who goes unconscious immediately.
#STRENGTHS - Everyone in the School including the Principal are seen running hither and thither to make sure the boy is safe. The Principal, advises Merlin and her husband to go to some other place for a while and come back after things settle down a little. Though initially Manikandan wants to be there and make sure that things are getting back to normal, gradually he realises that it is going to be a huge issue because the kid lived with his single Mom who is an Auto Driver. Auto Drivers can be a dangerous Union of people. He takes Merlin and they get away from Chennai. But it is difficult for Merlin to absorb the fact that she had hit a kid, all of 10 years just for a small thing. So she decides to meet the child's mother come what may.
#FATALBLOWS - Things get ugly when Udhayan, Cheziyan's Uncle, an Auto Driver who is a communist at heart takes things into his hands and starts searching for Merlin frantically to make her pay for what happened to his nephew. And then there is the media intervention that makes us wonder if we are answerable to law and order or to the media itself. Like it is the most common thing to happen if a child gets slapped at school by a teacher. Amidst this commotion, the child slips away into coma stage. Unbelievable, right. How can a mere slap make someone go into coma? And unknowingly, we tend to start blaming Merlin for routing in her frustrations on a mere kid.
#GIVEAWAYS - Though there were elements that were untoward and unnecessary that were added maybe to spice up things that are already hot or to mirror a version of our own mindset to us. I wouldn't call it a masterpiece though and yet I could relate to every thought that Merlin had, the pain that Cheziyan's mother was going through, Udayan's restlessness in not being able to get to the teacher because of whom his nephew was in this state and Manikandan's helplessness in understanding what Merlin was going through all along. It also reflects how we as a society don't stop in judging people instantaneously and reason out things that go wrong.
I am sure all the teachers, parents and students out here wouldn't want to miss out on this little Tamil story I wrote about in #DigitalDabba on #AmazonPrime.
Merlin played by Radhika Prasidhha in Kuttram Kadithal
And about the questions I asked earlier, you don't have to answer me. Just give it a thought. And if you watch this movie, I am sure you will also think about those questions.
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