Kando Ningal Ende Kuttiye Kando

Twilight descends upon a stage, a deep blue half-light, as seen in the late evening. Through the gloom cuts the form of a lone man, accompanied by a dozen carven faces, frozen in the dark, and rain that is not only seen, but heard, like the serpentine hiss of a dying Earth. In the distance, students cry in protest. For it is 1975, and the nationwide emergency has policemen tearing youths from their homes across the state of Kerala, based on accusations of insurgent naxalite activity.

Students are systematically rounded up and sent to camps, such as the ones in Kakkayam, where grain mill clubs are rolled across their arms and legs, until their muscles rip and tear, and they die. Such is the fate of P. Rajan, a student of the Regional Engineering College, Calicut, and son of T. V. Eachara Warrier, renowned for his subsequent legal struggle against government backed injustice and terror. In this moment, however, he is no professor, nor a symbol of hope in the face of brutality. He is a trembling form against the dark, crying out for his son.

Kando Ningal Ende Kuttiye Kando is not a quiet depiction of loss, but a forty minute descent into the throes of abject despair, unrelenting in its depiction of grief and horror in the face of violence. Warrier is a broken figure, tortured by the echoing voices of peers and loved ones, bent over and practically writhing in agony. Whether the voices are past recollections, or distortions of memory, we cannot be sure. This threnody of pain reaches a climax as Warrier is confronted by one of the policemen who murdered his son, an old man who seeks absolution for his crimes.

When imagining those complicit in the evils committed by an indifferent state, it might be easier for us to imagine devils, or soulless automatons, than come to terms with the banality of evil. Beholding the withered officer, or hearing the voice of a disgruntled minister, we are reminded of our neighbours, our kin, and perhaps even those we once considered friends. The tragedy of Kando Ningal Ende Kuttiye Kando, and of the incidents upon which it is based, is not simply the murder itself, but the world which allowed it to happen, the many people who would turn their heads in the face of brutality. Warrier’s helplessness is felt in each lamentation, with each stumble and fall, as the world around him howls and hisses, a cold and terrifying abyss.