KAAKA MUTTAI - Made me realize how much I have overlooked!

 

A simple yet a brilliant movie, kaakamuttai conveys several important messages, within its span of 100 minutes. Here are some of them.

1. Sitting at the back seat in a car, en route to office, most of us fail to realize that we do not spend as much time looking through the window as we spend on our mobile phones. If we observe people on the road, we might definitely find kids like 'chinna kaakamuttai' and 'periya kaakamuttai', roaming alone on the road. The exposure they have is a hundred times more than what we had then. This is shown in their casual walk with no slippers, crossing the road, climbing trees to get the eggs. This is in sharp contrast with the life of the rich kid in the movie, with whom the boys talk to.

2. With her husband in jail, raising two kids, doing household chores, struggling to get her husband out of jail, taking care of her sick mother-in-law, earning enough to feed the family, here is what we can call the best management. She tries her best to make sure that her children are not affected because of her stress in any way. Though the reason for her husband being behind the bars is not told, the regret on his face is clearly shown.

3. The kids who crave for a mobile phone, pester their dad to get them one when he gets out. Though their friends teach them how to steal a mobile phone from a running train, they never go for it. 

4. When their focus shifts to pizza, their dedication is shown clearly through their hard work. Finally, when they save the required money and try to enter the shop, the security makes a snap judgement looking at them. The innocence of those kids is captured when they think that they were being judged because of their crappy clothes. Now to attain their major goal (pizza), they set up a minor goal (clothes) and again begin to work hard towards the minor goal.

5. When the rich kid offers them some left over pizza, the elder kid refuses it. With such a small scene, the movie gives us a message 'They might be poor but they will never compromise their dignity'.

6. Sticking your desire towards materialism creates a distance between you and your family. This is the hidden message behind the scene when the boys start lying to their mother. The elder kid also vents his frustration on his grandmother without knowing how much the words hurt her.

7. Their friend 'palarasam' seeing their dedication, decides to help besides the risk of losing his job. True friendship knows no age boundaries.

8. The greedy guys plan to threaten the Pizza shop owner showing him the video of the shop's supervisor hitting the kids. However, the greediest one tries to deceive his friend by hiding the 1 lakh amount that he will be getting, lying to him that they will be getting just 6000 INR. The dumb friend sells it to a reporter for 7000 INR. Karma took over!

9. The kids get scared and run away as soon as the video becomes the talk of the town. Their worried mother desperately searches for them, feeling guilty for letting a third person hurt them. While the media debates over the issue with partial information and exaggeration, guys at the pizza place feel helpless and reach out to the local politician. Being one among the cunning ones, the politician tries to play a dual role, pretending to help the pizza owner as well as the mother. Finally they decide to apologize to the public. Media does have a lot of power and it can bring a lot of changes when used properly.

10. Finally, as the kids get a red carpet welcome to the pizza shop, the surprise of the event takes over their excitement. The pizza owner, in front of the media feeds them the pizza and tells them that they can have it anytime they want. The kids taste it, hate it and realize the classic moral of the fox story 'It’s easy to despise what you cannot have' and feel that they should have done that.