Sri Lanka is now getting accustomed to issues and themes like mental illness, social isolation, and trauma. That would perhaps be the growing trend given the revolting period we are passing today.
To his corpus, Dr Somaratne Disanayake has given his newest addition. Everyone knows what it is, and is probably a little too curious as to what it contains. The posters put up on the walls in the capital show the lead actress in an intimate moment with the lead actor. The film is titled Jungi Hora aka Underpants Thief.
“The plot I have dealt with this time is not my usual genre. I was sceptical about how the audience will accept me. I had doubts. With the pandemic we are experiencing, I had doubts if there will be an audience at all,” Dissanayake says.
To his pleasant surprise, Underpants Thief has thrived on for several weeks with a considerable audience. Somaratne Dissanayake is widely known for dealing with juvenile themes. His theme in Underpants Thief is adult-based, but very much required amid human tensions. With much trepidation, Dr Disanayake changed his genre. And he has received even better, and bigger, attention. Pandemic offered nothing to worry about. The theatres were crowded nevertheless.
Dr Disanayake of course wanted a little interest from the movie enthusiasts when he titled the film in a somewhat controversial way. Controversial in the sense, the word jungi is not used in the standard context. Thanks to Dissanayake’s use, the word is now ubiquitously used on the Internet and other media. The word has lost its derogatory sense. However, one thing is certain. The movie is most appropriately titled to suit its theme.
But then was it cheap attention that Dissanayake sought by titling the film ‘Jungi Hora’?
“I don’t think a film title will draw crowds. If titles worked that good, then there have been films with very good titles which turned out to be flops. No, I don’t accept that theory. And I don’t accept that claim. At the same time, I don’t think it’s an offensive word either. What’s the most appropriate title then? The thief of lingerie? The thief of women’s underwear?”
Dissanayake goes on to say that it is nothing but taboo that we have placed upon ourselves. And we, as cultural beings, maintain it in the words and other aspects such as politics and religion. As some cultural aspect has been instilled in us for a century or so, we naturally feel inclined to it. Whether it has a foundation or not, we are not really bothered. That applies to not only the jungi but almost everything in general.
“I don’t like to abide by them just because they have sustained generations. Convention at times must be challenged. Jungi is not an offensive word. It’s not a pornographic word either. It’s an unnecessary taboo. It’s the most appropriate term. Jungi we call it the jungi. Hora, we call it hora. Then what should we call it without calling jungi hora? There is no better term.”
But then it was not that easy for Dissanayake as his friends and well-wishers opposed to using this term of unconventional nature. They thought it would damage the image, personality and identity of Dissanayake as a reputed children’s filmmaker. Dissanayake, on the other hand, had second thoughts and felt it would be betraying himself if he did not use the title.
“I felt that I am in the right. I had no reason to refrain from using it. I am using also an English term. In case you find it awful to use the Sinhala word, here is an English title for your convenience. However vulgar it may be, it may sound quite civilized if you use an English term.”
Jungi Hora narrates us a story about a youth disturbed with a passion for lingerie either washed or worn. He has grown this habit to the extent of a compulsive obsession, disrupting his lifestyle. The average newspaper reader is familiar with this category as ‘Grease Yaka’ who steal lingerie from clothe lines.
“Although we don’t speak this in the open, this is a common occurrence in society. It can exist in any person from the uneducated villager to the educated elite. During my research, I found out that even prestigious professionals such as Supreme Court judges, principals, parliamentarians and business magnates are suffering from this disorder. But they remain scot-free and only the uneducated villagers get caught. Now, this is unfair. Privileged or underprivileged, this category of persons does not deserve any kind of punishment. They need sympathy, empathy and treatment and therapy. Medical treatment. Doctors say that this is incurable. This is my theme. The human quality. The background is that we must view them with human sympathy.”
Psychiatrists classify underwear thefts as fetish. The thief gets sexually aroused by the object. In the likeliest case, the object is lingerie. A study of paraphilias (psychiatric parlance for sexual disorders characterized by sexual arousal from objects) provides strong evidence that men who engage in fetishes are likely to engage in other more dangerous activities. Underwear fetishism is not generally considered paraphilia unless it causes distress or serious problems for the person or those associated with them. Yet in Disanayaka’s script, the underwear fetishism slathers on Ratnayake and the family associated with him.
He is given to this dangerous habit of panty raid coupled with other primal desires. To his rescue comes the last person we imagine of – his sister-in-law. This could be considered the culmination point of the movie. Ratnayake’s sister-in-law has only a soft corner for him as a victim of underwear fetishism. She volunteers to fulfil his primal desires with the sole intention of healing him. This is no clandestine affair as traditionally found in movies. She keeps her husband, the brother of Ratnayake, informed and goes an extra mile to rid her brother-in-law of the disorder.
In Macbeth Shakespeare introduces Lady Macbeth who complains that her husband was too full of the milk of human kindness to kill his rivals. In Jungi Hora, Dissanayake introduces a sister-in-law brimmed with the milk of human kindness who breaks with conventions despite great reluctance within her soul. With that kindness, she kills her brother-in-law’s lingerie fetishism and other primal desires transforming him into a normal human being.
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