Like an Afternoon Dream–Many Questions!

What happens when James starts believing and behaving like Sundaram who is permanently gone a while ago? How are they connected and separated? How do the people surrounding them understand the transfer and transformation? At what level do we understand such acquired and accidentally acquired identities? The Malayalm movie Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam (Like an Afternoon Dream) (2022) written by S. Hareesh, produced by Mammootty and directed by Lijo Jose Pellissery, echoes such questions.

James is on his way back from Velankanni to Kerala along with his people. While all of them are in deep slumber, James wakes up, asks the driver to stop the bus and walks into the village nearby. He is no longer James after that but is Sundaram. The village he has reached knows Sundaram, but not in James’ body. The audience also travel along with his co-travellers in search of James. They can see James turned Sundaram but cannot make out why James turned into Sundaram and how. They are left guessing why James is behaving like Sundaram. The movie quotes Thirukkural in the beginning, “Death is sinking into slumbers deep, birth again is waking out of sleep”, hinting towards the supernatural element. But, that is not what makes us think about the movie much. It would have been another thriller if that was the case.

The movie makes us think about the binaries that are employed in the movie. Two villages, two states, two languages, two individuals, two families, two religions and two lives. James is from Kerala and hence a Malayalam speaker, Sundaram is from Tamilnadu and hence a Tamil speaker, so are their villages respectively. But, this language divide does not affect their communication and understanding. Their interaction in crisis transgresses the linguistic barrier. The line between the two worlds gets blurred when James enters Sundaram’s village. James crosses the line “unknowingly”, and his people cross the line in order to take him back, while Sundaram’s people stand on the other side of the line wondering, condemning, and reacting aggressively. 

The bus that James is travelling turns into a means of metaphorical journey between the two worlds inhabited by James and Sundaram. James moves into the other identity abruptly and the return is also equally sudden. No reasons are given for this brief stint of another life that is not acceptable to anyone. The binary is not just about James and Sundaram, but also about the women in two families. Despite the difference in their contexts, the “wives” manifest maturity and balance. Sundaram’s wife is suspected of being in relationship with James, and though villagers sympathise with James’ wife, her capacity to hold onto the husband is undermined. The man is supposed to be the centre of family, business, village and the world. His absence is a problem and another man taking that place is even more problematic. So, not just families but also the communities intervene, interfere, contradict and support where necessary. 

Men in their families and villages get enraged but the women stay grounded, despite being neck deep in anguish, till James returns to his identity. They understand each other without interacting with each other. Sundaram’s mother, who is visually challenged, is seen to be sitting in front of the tv and listening to it continuously. A visual medium turns into an audio medium for her, questioning the functions that the sensory organs are understood to be allocated. Similarly, the visually challenged mother accepts James as her son and gives place in her lap. She cannot see the outer appearance but can only perceive the inner self like she gets the essence of the television programmes through her ears. 

James to Sundaram, James and Sundaram, Sundaram in James– every presence is transient and transitional. Body has changed but “soul” is the same. Both the men are deeply into their religious beliefs and activities. One loses life while fighting for a temple while the other is “possessed” by him on his pilgrimage. The journey motif functions at various levels, including the final journey. The movie seems to say that Sundaram comes back briefly through James before leaving forever. There is a constant and continued dichotomy between attachment and detachment. 

We are “haunted” by many questions once the movie closes. Probably the movie did not intend to answer these questions but wanted to leave them open for interpretation at whatever level one wants to do so. But, what if there was.a woman in the place of James? Would the families and communities forgive that shift and persuade her to come back? Would they have understood the transition, though temporary, without attributing motives and relationships in the past and the present? 

Can memory also create two worlds for people? When we are lost in memories, where do we live? In past or in present or an imagined future? The past is unaware of the present but present is born out of the past and is fully aware of it, but gets lost in selective oblivion. 

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