MAIN AISA HI HOON:

A Parable of the Blessed Fool

I love Indias Bollywood for so many reasons - the beauty, the dance, the music of
love but also because now and then Bollywood films (made in Mumbai India) refle
ct the timeless spiritual traditions of India. A recent film, Main Aisa Hi Hoon,
is a great example of this. There are so many implied spiritual truths in this
film that could only emerge from an understanding of unconditional love that is
so important in Hinduism as Bhakti Yoga and in Sufism.

The film is the love-child of writer/director Harry Baweja and stars Ajay Devgan
. For those of you who dont know who Ajay (pronounced ah-JAY) Devgan is, I can te
ll you that he is one of Indias finest actors. Ajay has made over 60 films and ex
cels at the tender tough guy. Ajays father was a stunt master and Ajay loved doin
g his own stunts. This guy is all man and has these Attila-the-Hun eyes that cou
ld melt the coldest heart.

Recently he has acted in films that show his more complex and vulnerable side. A
jay has a wide range of emotions that over the years he has learned to express t
o the camera. He is a master when it comes to showing immensely callous icy crue
lty (Company). Sometimes Ajay makes me think of Robert Mitchum not in the way he
looks, but in the emotions he holds and communicates in his acting. Ajay should
remake that old 1955 Hollywood film Night of the Hunter! <g> Hed be terrific as th
e creepy sinister Harry Powell.

There is always a kind of smoldering intensity, a subtle sense of insecurity and

vulnerability beneath the tough guy act that makes Ajays characters deeper, more
complex, and therefore more interesting. Ajay can be the scary silent type who
keeps his turbulent, sometimes threatening emotions locked up inside (Deewangee)
. Or he can be just plain meltdown sexy with those hypnotic eyes of his (OMG!) an
d very tender with his many leading ladies.

There is also a wonderful little boy in Ajay who gets way overjoyed, excited and
energized with happiness (Itihaas). Occasionally this little boy has an endeari
ng sort of comical goofy quality that makes Ajay even more ever so appealing in
his kind of vulnerable charm. Its obvious that Ajay has been working on his actin
g, and it is a real pleasure and fun to watch him perform.

***

In Main Aisa Hi Hoon, Ajay plays an adult male with the mind of a seven-year-old
child. I did not expect to feel comfortable watching my hero Ajay act this rol
e, but his performance just made me love him that much more. Ajay is brilliant i

n this film; his acting is impeccable and heart wrenching.

This wonderful film is a parable about the meaning, the power and importance of
Love. It is also a profound and insightful metaphor with into what is happening
to people in this world as the plague of greed and ambition spreads around the p
lanet, while love takes a back seat to success, status, and consumption.

Ajays character is a normal man in an abnormal world he loves and that simple love
spreads out and touches everyone around him. He has the mind of a child and a he
art of gold! Very often in Hindu Sanskrit texts it is suggested that when a yogi
achieves enlightenment, he or she should pretend to be the fool. The disguise o
f the Fool protects. Anyone who is lost in the bliss of Divine Love appears fool
ish the worldly. Ajays character is happy, loving, giving, and forgiving.

The gorgeous Sushmita Sen plays the successful unhappy lawyer, who is lost in he
r ambition and feelings of being superior and smarter than everyone. This ladys
performance was unusually excellent, showing real depth of character and feeling
.

My generation never used the mean term loser to describe people we felt superior t
o. Those of you who are young probably dont even notice how your world is being a
ltered by greed and the callous attitudes of those who imagine themselves to be
smart, superior, and special. You are just trying to make it in the world like so
many others until you wake up alone one day like Sushmitas character and sadly re
alize that you have forgotten how to love, how to feel, and how to cry.

The fact that a film like this was even produced is amazing in itself and a cred
it to Harry Bawejas soul, and his courage and willingness to take risk. India sti
ll understands love, even if it doesnt pay off at the box office. Ajays spontaneou
s innocence, his unconditional Love, and his capacity to forgive conquer all!

***

In perhaps one of her best performances, Esha Deol plays the character, MAYA. Th
is Sanskrit word means illusion to most westerners, but a deeper look at the met
aphysical nature of the term shows that Maya is more than illusion. Maya is also
the creative Shakti power, and this Maya creates a child, which becomes the foc
us of the film as the forces of evil are eventually vanquished by the power Love
.

In the film Maya is the lost-rich-girl searching for love, having been neglected
by her ambitious rich father who is forever too busy to notice her. She has the
symbol OM tattooed on her arm and practices meditation and yoga. She craves the
escape of ecstasy and uses hashish to get high.

Fate leads her to the protection of Ajays simple minded, childlike character and
his unconditional love, which she cannot resist. But after a year of living with
him, she is too attached to her pain to be able to accept his love. Overwhelmed
by her personal demonic illusions, and fearful that she will lose him, she leav
es him and abandons the child they have created. Maya acknowledges that he is th
e better person and hopes the child will not turn out like her. The goodness of
the fool is valued above all.

Eight years later Mayas father turns up and ruthlessly tries to get custody of th
e child, a little girl. Towards the end of the film in a court scene Sushmita (t
he lawyer) reads a letter that Maya wrote to her father just before she overdose
d on drugs apparently the only letter she wrote him in 8 years. Maya says that t
he love she shared with Ajays character was almost too much for her and that she
was fearful of losing even that.

***

In spite of the fact that the children of the very rich are greatly envied, in f
act they are rarely happy. The fathers are usually obsessed with their own egos
and the power of money, the deals, the influence and status. They see their chil
dren as assets, extensions of their own egos, and pawns in their power games. Th
e mother is consumed with social commitments that serve her husbands companies.

The males often become drug addicts or alcoholics. The ones who do manage to bec
ome successful in the world or their family business do so at the expense of the
ir own individuality as they are trained to be clones of their father. These men
are often very hard on their children. The demands of staying on top of the hea
p of wealth they have aggressively accumulated leave little time for the kind of
attention, tenderness, and love children so desperately need.

The daughters of the very rich suffer even more than the sons. East or west, the
y are usually compelled to marry someone who is in their own economic class. If
the girl is lucky enough to have some kind of positive relationship with her fat
her, then she has the impossible task of finding a man as good as Daddy at least f
rom her child-perspective.

More often there has been neglect, severity, and the cold tyranny of a man who m
ust control everyone in his sphere of influence. These girls who have never expe
rienced love as young vulnerable children do not easily learn to accept it ever.
They move in fear from relationship to relationship, hoping nothing will ever h
urt them as much as their fathers apathy or cruelty. Thus the term: Poor Little Ri
ch Girl Maya was one of these.

The astrological chart shows exactly how much love and what kind of love a child
receives in the first 3 to 5 years of our lives. This imprint is rarely - if ever
overcome.

Maya acts out how she sees her self worth through her fathers eyes. If he does no
t value her, then she must not be of value. So she behaves in ways that reaffirm
the fathers worldview and moves towards her own self-destruction through drugs.
The love that Ajays character shows to her cannot be real because her father has
shown her she is not worth loving. So she runs away.

***

I doubt if Harry Bajewa intended Ajays character portrayal to be realistic in fact

we know very little about him, who his parents were, etc. That isnt the point.

The essence of the film is that a person who is in a state of unconditional love
, who does not judge others, and cannot tell lies is considered to be abnormal in
our world.

Ajay spontaneously offers Maya the tender shelter of his umbrella even after she
has hurt his feelings. He happily forgives everyone. What Ajay does so beautifu
lly throughout the film is to remain in this kind of innocent child-like love. I
t has been suggested that to find the Kingdom of Heaven, we become little childre
n again.

This is why I mentioned the idea that enlightened yogis often pretend to be the
Fool. Ajays character has become the patron saint of the town because he is innoc
ently carrying the Love frequency and everyone recognizes how his presence enhance
s their lives. They love him back!

At the end of the film when Sushmita tries to explain to him that he is someone
special, he is simply not interested. He is what he is and does not require desc
riptions. He s living Being-ness !

This is a spiritual film like DIL SE which most Hindus and Sufis would understan
d in the context of unconditional love and Bhakti Yoga. The film is a metaphor,
a parable, showing the power of Love to overwhelm a lack of love, to vanquish gr
eed and ambition. The windmill toy handed down from Mayas mother to the daughter
is an obvious reference to the high-minded, unselfish and impractical Spanish he
ro Don Quixote.

Everyone eventually acts selflessly in response to Ajay - the lawyer takes no fe

es, the landlady takes no rent, his daughter decides remain like her father beca
use she senses he is somehow better than the world. People simply give to him be
cause they feel what he is, his unconditional Love. Even the grandfather asks fo
r forgiveness.

As for the ending being unrealistic, when you see it in terms of the spiritual t
he ending is perfect. Marriage is often the symbol of union with God, even in th
e Catholic church the nuns marry Christ. Sushmitas character surrenders her ambit
ion, smart-ness, and pride to the greater force unconditional Love.

I highly recommend Main Aisa Hi Hoon. Watch this film not with expectations of a
nother glittering numbing advertisement for a promised-but-never-delivered fake
impossible world. Watch MAIN AISA HI HOON as something deeper, a glimpse into th
e kind of heart and tender closeness we all dream of the pure Heart of the innoc
ent that does not judge others and cannot tell lies. And bring a big box of tiss
ues!

Bollywood films are easy to buy or rent at nehaflix.com, IndiaWeekly, erosentert

ainment.com, or indiaplaza.com.

A few of Ajay Devgans best films:

Raincoat
Company
Legend of Bhagat Singh
GangaaJal
Yuva
Tango Charlie
Zameen
Zakhm
Lajja
Deewangee

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