Thursday, April 9, 2015

The Medium (Part-1)


Genre:             Thriller (Supernatural-History blend)

Logline:          Attila, a child born at midnight on Indian Independence becomes a Medium and calls the “dead” to reveal the blood soaked power play and terror that ruined the unity of a nation.
Synopsis
“The Medium” is woven on a lucid concept that people born at midnight on Indian Independence had supernatural powers.  It depicts a cross section of India’s pre-independence era and analyses the events of the day when India became free.  And scaling the past 67 years of Free India it develops through political, cultural and socioeconomic scenario, the offspring of the Great Partition that took thousands in its death toll.

Attila (justice) is a girl born out of a down caste Hindu-Muslim wedlock, in a Mumbai suburban slum at the midnight on August 14, 1947.  When the clock strikes 12, amidst the rampant violence, her parents are butchered by the leaving government machinery, and she is ‘forced out of her dead mother’, marking the cry of Free India.  While the babe cries aloud into the ‘void’, struggling in the shivering outstretched hands that took her from ‘the dead, but warm womb’, Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister hoists the tri-colour flag at Red Fort declaring India’s Independence. 

Attila grows up under the care of ill nourished, submissive slum dwellers consisting of scavengers and other underdogs.  She gets “contaminated” at the age of 13 and becomes a medium to bring forth the apparitions of the "dead".  Late rulers, social reformers, god men, etc., appear before her in real forms to reveal the other side of their eventful life…. For, the living tells lies, but the dead does not!

While the rituals continue blending Arabic, pagan and indigenous forms, she has a feeling that these will not last and that the good shall perish soon.  When people assemble around her with esteem piety, to their astonishment, she pronounces the spell, and ‘the actors’ of the 14th August drama appears before her as apparitions.  Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Lord Mountbatten and his wife are all crowding to make known ‘their other side’ to the mass. What the dead tells now creates panic among the people.  They become confused and factions originate. Some go against her, while others support.  The enemies are strong and outrageous.  Attila resists, but they twist the situations in their favor. 

And with the help of Shiva, the god man, the rivals start to make her surrender. In spite of all precautions, Shiva's telepathic impulses penetrate all resistance and reach her.  Unable to withstand the onslaught and fury, Attila succumbs and her whole physical form blazes off in the engulfing fire, and her soul gets liberated.  Before leaving the burnt body, her soul takes a vow that it would come back one day to avenge them.

Medium (Part-2)
Logline:       The soul of Attila revisits the world and induces ESP in a youth to avenge the antagonists for their atrocities on her in the past life.

Shiva, with his magical power wants to eliminate Attila forever.  So, he waits for her return by rejuvenating his body and power throughout the eventful years of free India.  During these years new boundaries and political equations come into being.  The international scenarios change and new allies take form.  Terrorism and anarchy become the flagship of social life.  The intra-socio-economic balance shatters.  The country is in the grip of stale brokers, gamblers and bootleggers.  Political black sheep whistle the tunes and the Indian society is metamorphosing.

And in a modern township away from the city, Nathan, a 25 year old handsome youth is in fits. The mental aberration and nightmares take the brain out of him. He has visions. Attila, the dead, appears in his dreams and induces telepathic marvels.  As if a clairvoyant Nathan interacts with the ghostly form and becomes possessed.  Gradually he gains a psychic power equivalent to that of Attila and declares himself her reincarnation.  Now the disciples throng to be blessed and his words acquire the magnetic beam which is potent to change even the rulers of the country.  The apparitions he brings forward uncover truths and it quakes the nation. Idols and images collapse. Controversies follow. Violence erupts. 

And Liza, a young journalist thinks that Nathan is a swindler.  But later she finds that Nathan has real sixth sense and becomes his follower.  Meantime, some of his disciples want to overpower him to amass wealth and fame.  The murder of two of his disciples creates problems and the police raid his camps.  There are attempts to kill him.  Liza saves him.  She develops a soft corner towards him and tells of her love.  But Nathan cannot accept it.  To her bewilderment he declares, “I am not a man at all….!”  The secret, thus revealed, and Shiva joins his allies to plot against Nathan.  The frequent nearness to Liza causes physical and mental changes in him.  To his bewilderment when the first menstrual vibrations hit ‘him’, ‘he’ collapses under its weight.  The very moment ‘his’ supernatural power fails ‘him’.  Underworld Dons and political mafia attack ‘him’ and ‘he’ is exhausted.  But Liza inspires ‘him’ to regain the lost power by practicing Egyptian black magic or Atharva.    So, in the silence of the night, Nathan, along with Liza and a few disciples, disappears into the dark, unnoticed.

They reach a remote and dense forest.  The forest people provide shelter to them.  With their patronage Nathan and Liza start practicing severe occults.  After a great ordeal they acquire the power they craved for.  But this time the power they attained is negative.  Nevertheless, they with the prowess and fury of Mahakaali and Rudra, wait for the right moment to unleash their revenge…. And the ‘fusion of woman and man in one’ becomes the fire to win… and to win means destroy… For, destruction is the only truth in Nature...!  Destroying to create…
(c) Punalur Chandrasekharan