What happens when a society loses its shared moral compass? Why do we find ourselves constantly chasing happiness, yet feeling more disconnected than ever? In this video, we dive deep into John Abraham’s 1986 Malayalam masterpiece, Amma Ariyan (Report to Mother)—recently honoured with a restored 4K screening at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. Even amid the Hobbesian state terror, Amma Ariyan has a moment in which the poem ‘Apolitical Intellectuals’ by the Guatemalan revolutionary poet Otto René Castillo becomes part of the narrative. A revolutionary mass uprising of the working class was what John pinned his hopes on. But times have changed, we’ve moved on from modernist utopias, and we live through metamodern times. The cultural pendulum often oscillates between modern idealism and postmodern scepticism, between naïveté and knowingness, empathy and apathy, unity and plurality, totality and fragmentation, purity and ambiguity. What could we do? Maybe the least would be to surrender in humility to the truth that Happiness can never be pursued; it always ensues from Meaning.