Why a must watch
A $237mn film, with astounding graphics, depicting every move of the colorful creatures of Pandora, audacity of comparing the US invasion of Iraq, capturing the jingoistic nature of human beings, their greed for money and power and portraying the love of the natives of Pandora for Nature - James Cameron's Avatar excels in whole and parts.
If above mentioned are the reasons you want to see the movie, there is a far more interesting reason about the Avatar story and characters that we must know, that too being Indians. James Cameron has told in one of his interviews that he was inspired by a blue boy his mother saw in her dreams. But is that all or something bigger is being swept under the carpet? Let us explore.
The Indian Connection
The word Avatar itself is of Sanskrit origin, which does not have an equivalent English word. It roughly translates into God coming to this mundane world in the form of man for a specific purpose and thereby makes this world a better place to live for all its inhabitants. For example, Dasavatharam means, ten such instances when god came to earth to help living beings from catastrophes or great miseries that could alter the course of life forever. Let us have look at the story line and then analyze in-depth the inspirations taken from Indian mythology.
The Storyline
4.4 light years away from earth, in a moon called Pandora in the Galaxy - Alpha Centuria, Humanoids are exploring options to carry out mining of a precious mineral. The mineral that they want to mine, Unobtanium, costs $20Mn a Kg back in Earth. The effort is profit driven, without any sympathy for the natives of Pandora. The center of the Unobtanium deposit is located beneath an ancient colossal tree called The Hometree, in which a clan called Omaticaya live. The corporation that has undertaken the mining wants to make it a profitable endeavor by either relocating the clan or destroying the whole area and appropriating the mineral.
Humanoids can't stand the atmosphere at Pandora for more than 20 sec. To aid them in the exploration, to understand the local clan, their capabilities and negotiate with them to relocate, with the advancements in medical science, they create hybrid bodies of Navis and transmigrate the human souls in to it. The Transmigrated Navis (TN) or Avatars are then trained to get accustomed to their bodies and sent into the forest to mingle with the tribes.
One of those Avatars, is our hero Jake. While wandering alone, he is attacked by some canine like creatures. A Navi girl, Neytiri - the heroine, comes to his rescue. She, takes him to the head of their clan, her father. On noticing sacred omens and sensing premonition, Navis not only to forgive him, but also try training him. If successful, he will become a member of the clan. Jake understands that Navis' lead a life in harmony with nature and they will not part with the Home Tree, which is their home life and everything. They have been there for generations. It is a mammoth tree spanning acres of land. The whole ecosystem in Pandora is interconnected like a neural network. To put it in our scientific terms, the connection between the floras is equivalent to Gigabits of bandwidth connecting them, which they use to communicate. The flora also can interconnect using a special hair strand like extension. By connecting a horse's neural strand with a human, one can sense and feel the other.
To complete the training Jake needs to catch a bird and finally hunt a deer, which he does with great difficulty. He also understands that Navis don't require any thing that humans can offer. He records it in this daily vlog. On seeing the log, the head of the corporation decides that there is no use of negotiation and that Navis are powerless. The remaining film speaks about how hero joins arm with Navis and help them defeat the humans.
Where did James cameron borrow ideas from
See the analogies below to have a clear idea.
a) A blue skinned Navi (the Avatar, blue colored) flies on the king of the birds (golden colored) to save Navis from their miseries. Lord Maha-Vishnu flies (blue colored) on The Garuda (kind of birds, golden colored) to save his devotees from their miseries. Either James Cameron would have visited ISKCON temple or one of his chief strategists should be a devout Hindu.
b) Even the Navi makeup and color seems to have a resemblance to Lord Maha-Vishnu's facial decoration. Don't miss the namam (trident like symbol) in Navi's forehead in the picture below, which is a pious symbol of Vaishnavas. The garland of beads that he is wearing also resembles Tulasi mala, a garland worn by devotees typically in ISKCON.
C) The idea of soul transmigration might be new to western movie watchers. But it is a very old concept in India since we understand the difference between body, soul and mind. Transmigration had been introduced in Tamil movies way back in 1970’s, with very minimal technology by directors like Vitalacharya.
d) Similarities with Ramayana – Hanuman (Ape god with tail) helps in saving Seeta from Ravana. Jakes (Avtar with tail) helps in saving Pandora from Human beings. Seetha stays under a tree in Lanka, Navis stay on the tree in Pandora.
Fill up the remaining storyline with contemporary issues like – US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan for oil, preemptive attacks and Corporate' indifference to the climate change and endangered species. Add on to it the need for a fairytale ending. The story is there for you to create the film "AVATAR". Now you only need the tag of James to convince a producer to invest $237 mn.
Conclusion
Every frame of Pandora was scintillating. Hats off to the animation team for bringing up Pandora so vividly. While thanking James for bringing the Indian thoughts to the western world, it dawns to me that Hindu saints (equivalent to today's scientists by definition) or at least kavis (today's equivalent of Hollywood directors) were millenniums ahead of westerners in science, technology and entertainment. I certainly believe that India has lagged behind quite recently in the way we deliver it to the world. Let us not be laid back and allow more James Cameron’s arise from the West. Our scriptures are too precious or advanced to be left back unattended only to be referred to by tourist guides and read by foreigners. Let us get back our Valmikis smuggled away by James Camerons.
