Avatar: The Way of Water and Amrita
The India connection to Tulkun
Apart from being an unmatched technological marvel — especially the extended underwater sequences which are a visual treat, the Avatar movie sequel (The Way of Water) has layered spiritual, social and hisotrical messages that when understood can make the movie experience more wholesome.
The spiritual message is that of interdependence vs greed. The humans (“Sky people”) are attacking Pandora out of greed to extract minerals, hunt and colonize. The natives of Pandora (“Na’vis”) live in harmony with nature, taking only what is needed and leading a simple, contented life. There is a line that the entire biosphere of Pandora permeates with something deeper than intelligence, and it can be called Awareness. So when the Sky people attack and seek to destroy the Na’vis, the animals and the ecosystem of Pandora helps the Na’vis in defeating the Sky people. The interdependent Nature vanquishes individualistic greed.
The social message is that of strong community and family bonds among the Na’vis. The whole community is together in all major decisions. The importance of a family with a mother and a father who need to be respected by the kids comes through. The father is hard on the children for their long term safety and welfare. Not the soft, indulgent parenting that spoils children.
The historical message is mainly the symbolism of the Sky people to the European settlers who came to colonize America and destroy the way of the Natives symbolized by the Na’vis. While in real history, the settlers prevailed by eliminating most of the natives, the movie shows a romanticized outcome of the natives winning with help from Nature.
And there is another historical message that seems to have an India connection. Pandora is shown to have as their most evolved life form giant whale like creatures called the Tulkuns. The scientist who has studied their neural system declares that they are more intelligent and also more spiritually evolved than the humans. And the glands of their brain secrete a fluid that stops aging of any human who consumes it. And here is the kicker, the name of the fluid is amrita, Sanskrit for immortality. Being more intelligent and spiritually evolved, the Tulkuns also have adopted a pacifist stand that they will never attack anyone to retaliate or even defend themselves through violence. The invading Sky people take advantage of their pacifism to hunt and kill the Tulkuns and take away their most prized possession, amrita. All to sell it for profits of millions of dollars. Finally one Tulkun who was also wounded badly by the invaders shows the way and retaliates with such intelligence that the invaders are destroyed effortlessly. It is no stretch to see the parallel here to India’s history of invasions where a highly evolved and spiritual civilization (symbolized by the Tulkuns) adopted a largely pacifist stand against invaders who plundered and took away the great store of knowledge that bestows immortality (symbolized by the product of the brain of Tulkuns called amrita).
These historical and social messages only add to the spiritual core of the movie that is a battle between greed and interdependence.
It is well known that such messages resonate with the subconscious parts of the mind through a story or a movie more easily than through reason or logic. It is good to see a popular movie that is not simply popcorn entertainment but also conveying such deeper messages as layers embedded through the story narrative.