RIFLE RANGE BOY

Just attended a gala charity dinner organised by a college in town. It was held to honour orphaned children from three orphanages. Sounds like a noble cause, the well endowed high heeled paying back to society, to entertain attention deprived kids and to raise funds for their daily needs! Yeah right! The nihilistic part of prefer to see it from another angle... The college run by fat capitalistic businessmen who, realising the raising concern on the decline and apprehension of the standard of public education in Malaysia, built colleges to offer quality education with affiliation to well renowned overseas universities to entice the ever unhappy paranoid Malaysian (who never believe the official version of Malaysian statistics) to send their spoilt bred kids to them for studies at exorbitant fees. Feeling the guilt and increasing brickbats from the lower strata of society, like the heat felt from the Wall Street demonstrators, these business conglomerates try to wash their '...

The tallest mansion of squatters! One eye Jack is king in kingdom of blind Growing up in RRF, we yearn to have regular addresses, not an address with block number, floor number and unit number. We were quite fed-up explaining to our schoolmates why there were so many dashes, hyphens and digits on our address instead of just the house number and road name. I suppose the stigma of living in a low cost high rise slump-like flats in the 70s was more the reason of the above. Even though living in the 21st century means condominium resort type of living is norm, we from RRF still find contentment living with our feet on the ground in landed properties! Why am I writing this? If you have access to people's addresses like I do, then you would have noticed that some addresses leaves no place for imagination on their social economic strata. Home addresses like 'Projek Perumahaan Rakyat', 'Projek Rumah Murah', Taman Bukit Mewah' will tell you how their home would loo...

Surin Gnanalingam Director and Story teller It is ironic to find a DVD named 'The DVD - pirate copy' from the friendly neighbourhood DVD peddler. This movie is a low key 2008 Malaysian (bilingual Cantonese and Manglish) movie which hadreceived 2 international indie movie awards (California Indie fest Excellence Award 2009 and entrance to South African International Movie festival). It is a story of a college boy, his widowed mum and his involvement with the big bad dudes of the illegal DVD business which is closely related to the city gangsters. At one look, on screen, it looks like everybody in Kuala Lumpur seem to be donning T-shirts bearing logos of English Premier league clubs like that seem to be the national costume of Malaysian teenagers, which actually is quite true. Teenagers and even adults alike, have no love attached to our local national football teams as they are all in doldrums run by pompous feudalistic monarchs and their cronies just to laze off their free...

It looks like in a cycle of every 10 years, someone from some corner of the world will come up with some droll characters which will be personified with human characters and cute aesthetically pleasing features and the world by storm. At the end of the day, it would be aimed at reaping financial benefits out of it. That is always the bottom- line, is it not - $, £, ¥ and €? In the 1980s, it was the irritating pink female feline kitten which ruled the world. Suddenly, it was Hello Kitty everywhere! There were even shops selling only Hello Kitty merchandise - dresses, slippers, make-up, night gowns, accessories, you name it. I suppose even before that people used to have to fetish for domesticated hairy bears fondly named Teddy after Theodore Roosevelt! And the China Dolls, of course now it means something else...or Japanese porcelain dolls ala Chucky! Just for information, as of 2003, Sanrio, the Japanese company who designed this Kitty, was earning USD 1...

So now Diwali is officially over, now that we as a family has watched a movie together. This time around it was another Bollywood sci-fi action thriller 'Ra One'. Oh no, another robot movie after the last Chitty's manifestation in Rajnikanth's 'Enthiran'? Well, this time around I did not doze off and action sequences were acceptable as they were all computer generated, hence people take at face value knowing the fights were supposed to occur in cyberspace. Whatever it was, the VW car chase scenes were literally out of this world as far as Bollywood is concerned and were comparable to 'The Italian Job' and 'French Connection' except that all these happened in London with The Thames and London Bridge in the background. All these were too much for some of the patrons who were expecting tear-jerking melodrama and emotional blackmail and they decided to walk out on the show half-way. Guess some were not ready for this transformation in Indian cinema...

Engeyum Eppodhum  (எங்கேயும் எப்போதும் ) 2011 So you think you have seen them all - Tamil movies with the usual masala, boy meets girl, girl plays hard to get, then succumbs to undying love which  plucked the right chords and strings of the heart, then comes the villain or unrelenting parents and resistance, then climax with a little bit of humour thrown in for your money's worth! Think again! In 1979, just before the heights of the reign of Kamal Haasan and Rajnikanth as the undisputed heavyweights of the Tamil silver screen, there was a musical movie (all Tamil movies are, anyway)  Nineithale Innikum (Sweet Memories) with both of them being band mates with Rajnikanth doing a bit of overacting playing the electric guitar the way only Rajnikanth and maybe Sivaji can play! In that movie there was a song titled 'Engeyum Eppothum', hence the title of this movie 32 years later but Rajnikanth and Kamal Haasan are still very much in the limelight still! Seriously, I...

I have come across many teenagers who rationalise their inertia in life and their inability to attain the full potential of their ability which they may conceal within themselves by going under covers of psychological rationalisations. They suddenly have become junior Jungs and Freuds to pass the blame to (thank you very much) their parents who did what they thought was best they could do in their best of ability, knowledge and resources. These young loafers have no qualms in blaming the absence of paternal love, dearth of fatherly bonding, peer pressure of their dog eat dog world, regimental upbringing, systemic humiliation by parents, yearning for brotherly or maternal touch, sibling rivalry or everything else under the sun except themselves for a reason for their ill-fated situation - everyone and everything else except themselves.  They call it the stress of modern living and their role models are none other than the Kardashians - yeah, the dysfunctional fam...

So, you think coincidences only happen in Indian and other Asian movies? Think again! Looks like Western movies are taking their cues from their Bollywood and Kollywood and laughing all the way to their banks wielding their newly earned stardom and trophies. And not forget the rave reviews to go with that. So, Ah Beng, our local illegal DVD seller has gone high culture. In this smattering colloquial Malay, he highly recommended this movie with a 'thumbs-up' sign - "Clear copy, DVD 9, Velly Good!" And I was watching this 2010 French movie, Incendies (a multiple award winning Quebec Canadian and Jordanian collaboration movie), subtitled in English and well and trying hard to infuse a bit of culture into my life on top of the yoghurt that I occasionally consume! It starts with a pair of twin in their late teen or early twenties, Jeanne and Simon Marwan, hearing a bizarre will left for them by their mother and read to them by their mother's employer of 18 years. T...

The Malay diaspora can stand tall in the eyes of the international arena for at least two distinctly unique behaviours - Amok and Latah. The act of warriors going on a killing rampage for pride and honour (amok, meaning frenzied Malay in older dictionaries) was recorded as early as 1670 by European seafarers. Even James Cook, the 'discoverer' of Australia noted that in his journals of these occurrences in the Malay Archipelago. In modern times, it has been described as a mental defence mechanism or a suicide attempt in a society where suicide is frowned upon, knowing well amok results in loss of lives of the sufferer. Over time, amok has been made aware of the international community and had made it to the Oxford dictionary many years ago. It is also said that the warring psyched Viking would also go into a trance-like rage before a duel. Another phenomenon which is unique to the Malay people is the act of 'latah'. Apparently, a small obscure tribe in Hokkaido...

After hearing about all the bashing and publicity about the above movie, I finally watched Namewee's multi-lingualed (predominantly Mandarin with Malay, Tamil, English, Cantonese, Hockkein, Teochew and others) Nasi Lemak 2.0 on DVD. My final verdict is that it is a well produced, entertaining and a meaningful movie. Namewee (Huang), a disgruntled cook whose restaurant is finally closed, is living in own dream of preserving Chinese food in its true authenticity with any adulteration. He lives in his grandeur of being the second best student in an authentic Chinese cooking school in China. His nemesis, the best student, from China, is a chef in another restaurant which undergoing a power struggle for ownership. Huang is very Chinese in his outlook and is suspicious of other races' delicacy. He is out of job and to compete with foreign nationals for work. After many failed attempts at a job, including a stint as a cheap restaurant singer, he drags himself to the road side nasi l...

Race quotas, politics led to falling UM standards, says World Bank study By Leslie Lau Executive Editor October 17, 2011 KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 17 — A World Bank publication has found that standards at Universiti Malaya have fallen and the institution has been kept at a disadvantage because of race-based admission quotas and political interference in university management. In contrast, Singapore’s decision to prioritise research, keeping English as the medium of instruction and a merit-based admissions policy have all contributed to the success of the National University of Singapore’s success, according to “The Road to Academic Excellence,” which studies what contributes to a world-class research university. The study also noted that Malaysian secondary school students are not well prepared for tertiary education. It points out that the Malaysian education system promotes rote learning, conformity and uniformity rather than fresh and creative thinking. The study is led by two sc...

15th October 2011 marked the 20th running race I partook. This time around, I just tagged a friend along who 'chickened out' (okay, he had a big mullah yielding project to complete) on the Seremban 21km. I competed in the Putrajaya 10km night run, sponsored by Bank Simpanan Nasional - the first bank that most of us who grew up in the 70's started with our first savings book and ATM (automated teller machine) card. Appa, however, has the pride of working with the bank which came out with the electronic card in the country - Hongkong Bank with ETC (electronic telecard)! BSN started off modestly as the Post Office Saving Bank. My sisters and I were one of the earlier account customers (A/C 3472, 3838) who used to save our recess money to buy stamps to fill up a savings card. When the card was filled, the accumulated amount would be transferred to the respective accounts. I kept my accounts all the way till 2000 when I started noticed that their counter personnel were very ha...

Lisa Kelly - trucker extraordinaire After the recent passing of Steve Jobs, his touching meaningful speech at Stanford had been making its rounds again on radio, social media and blogs. And everybody now knows about his unwed mother giving him up for adoption and how she reluctantly signed the adoption papers after months after she discovered that the intended adopted parents were not university graduates, as in her mind, only graduates become successful in life. And how he had to travel 7 miles to have free Hare Krsna food! We have also heard of the story of Lincoln Murthi in previous blogs about his roller-coaster escapades from the clutches of poverty to succeed in life. And the list just keeps on going, from AJ Kalam all the way to God knows who! Just the other day, my buddy and I were discussing whether Steve Jobs would have still done what he did for the computer world and Apple if he indeed had been adopted by a lawyer or a doctor. Would he still have brought in changes in t...

Last Friday afternoon was a bonding time of sorts for father and son. Danny is an avid reader who finds pleasure in knowing things beyond his tween age of 11. So when news came that Big Bad Wolf was coming to town, I thought of exciting him by bringing him there. Now, the Big Bad Wolf, as the name suggests, is a book warehouse sale put up by the Big Bad publication house of unsold but fairly new books to be sold at dirt cheap prices. Malaysian who find it hard to miss a bargain were turning up in droves in suitcases to carry their bargain home. Paperback bestsellers of Amy Tan, Jeff Archer and Nora Roberts, to name a few, were going at unbelievable price of RM8! (Normal retail price: RM35-40). Hard cover coffee table books were on for RM20! After goggling the venue, we headed to the sale. We, the tech-savvy people, decided to use the 3G GPS technology to good use. All was fine until we were barely 1 km from the venue. The map told us to go straight when the road was leading to a dirt ...

I remember a time circa 1972, when the streets around my primary school was plastered with billboards bearing the words 'I found it!' - with the letter O written in heart shaped manner. Nothing else was written on these billboards, stirring the curiosity of man that killed the cat! A couple of weeks later, the rendezvous was flashed across billboards without indicating the purpose of the meeting except with messages like "I found it, have you?" That got more people more curious and the dead cat twitched too! And the curiosity mounted to a climax as time went on. People started asking each other what that was all about. Was it a new wonder medicine which was the panacea to all human woes? Or a new shopping mall? Whatever it was, they knew that it was all a business strategy. Never in their wildest dream did they expect to see what they saw when they saw it anyway. It was a mass congregation of souls in a field to listen the gospel word of the Lord by a world famous M...

Just the other day, I visited my long lost schoolmate for Raya. There he was in his bungalow with 2 Porsche parked majestically in his posh porch (Cayenne and a 911) with a 24 hour security guard stationed in front of his house which was already sitting in a guarded community housing estate. Understandably, his sensitive position as a high flying executive in his line of work warrants such an arrangement. After living and working in the US for more than 10 years as well as living flamboyantly in the fast lane, he returned home to settle down. And here he was sitting down with me and other old schoolmates. I noticed that he had become quite private in his outlook. He does not have many friends. He does not have a Facebook account for fear of intrusion of daily activities! Eh, does he have more that he needs to hide? Maybe... Later, we were discussing about his toys - his Porsches and their performance! He had apparently hit 240km/h on the highway! When asked about speeding t...

I am just toying the idea of coaxing my uncle (LM) to start writing his biography. It may not be much but may be of value in the family in generations to come. 1955 He started reminiscing his old times, as he always does, when his sister (my mother) gave him a courtesy call recently. And for the umpteenth time, (as if I, the little child in his eyes, have not been told before) he retold a part of his childhood stories. This time he started talking about his famous chicken pox episode! 55yrs later There he was, after changing from school to school more often than they do 'dress change' in Tamil cinema, on the eve of his Lower Certificate of Education (LCE).... A bit of background... His mother had succumbed to the dreaded malignancy of the mammary gland a year earlier. His father, the man who lived for the moment, was busy looking for a new bride. He called in a family meeting (basically the 2 sons and himself, as 2 daughters had been married off in haste and Amma had ...

Only on BFM, you can hear an atheist trying to rationalize moral issues with science!

So, I am writing after watching the first instalment of 'The Girl'. During my purchase of the arty morbid Japanese movie (Departures), I also grabbed a legal National Censorship Board approved, with hologram,18 rating of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'! The seal must have been given by the imams on a day after stuporous meal of santan laden lemang and rendang or flatulent nasi lemak! In their normal tour of duty, their 18 rating is equivalent to Sesame Street! Noomi Rapace@Lisbeth Salander It is always better to read a book before watching a movie. What you see in the movie is just the result of the brain work of an individual director's perception of how a fictional story or event took place. To stimulate the action potential at the cerebral level (probably to decrease the chance of senile dementia and possibly Alzheimer's disease), it must be therapeutic; if not life saving, to read and form your own impression of how a paperback fiction should happened....

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A couple of weeks ago, I was an accomplice in someone's crime. A crime of a trivial nature meaning to do no one no harm but only a pleasant surprise. The intended victims are relatively young; hence their heart should be able to take the shock of the deceit! The modus operandi was planned with the daughter of my friend (RM) calling to get contact numbers of my friend way back 6 months prior to the event. What event? My friend and wife's 50th birthday and 20th wedding anniversary. That was it. RM never called back. She single handedly right under her parents' noses managed to arrange the venue, the caterers, contact all the relatives and friends secretly, sneak out some of the family photos for the slide presentation, organize the invitation cards, get the caterers, arrange the itinerary of the day and at the same time juggling with her work in college. She managed to cough off some of pocket money and squeeze out contributions from conniving relatives. On D-day, her unc...