Maali Pattu - let there be tolerance

In my personal opinion, music and language (the written word) are humankind's greatest inventions.

And even if music is universal because sound can be appreciated by all humans, there's a catch when it comes to linguistics: not everyone appreciates languages that are foreign to them.

How to overcome that problem? You could start by shedding off your xenophobia, a malady which still seems to affect some Maldivians and other nationalities.

To become a good human being takes conscious effort and practice in order to get rid of our biases and prejudices cultivated in us over the years.

So, above is a very soothing song (both the music and language too) from India's 2023 Malayalam language true story film "Christy" which was shot in Dhangethi island (Maldives) and Poovar town (India).

The film also spotlights another critical issue: the prejudice some people have when people with a huge age difference enter into romantic relationships.

This theme of younger people entering into love relationships with older people is not only frowned in reality but in art as well.

Any movie which explores this theme is at risk of becoming a flop, and some have actually bombed at the box office.

I will now refer to some cases like this:

The late German filmmaker Reiner Werner Fassbinder's "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul" shows an elderly German woman and a young Moroccan man falling in love.

"Titanic" star Kate Winslet's Oscar winning movie is "The Reader" where she is shown to have conducted a love affair with a younger man.

And in the Hindi film "Dil Chahta Hai", Akshay Khanna has an affair with an elderly woman (played by Dimple Kapadia who appeared in Christopher Nolan's "Tenet"). But director Farhan Akhtar uses the killing off of her character as an excuse for the climax of the film.

Perhaps movies which are profit oriented enterprises are forced to compromise and fit their productions according to their societies' approval. If not, the movies may be bound to fail to become a hit.

It actually proved to be the case when Yash Chopra's "Lamhe" flopped despite being critically acclaimed. Audiences just couldn't digest the fact that Anil Kapoor's character falls in love with Sri Devi's character who is his daughter's age.

And there are so many people who criticize Priyanka Chopra for marrying Nick Jonas who is 10 years younger than her.

When will we learn to respect grown-up people's choices that are of no harm to them or anyone else? We are talking about consenting adults who choose to enter into relationships despite their huge age gap.