RIFLE RANGE BOY

There was a time, back in the days when the upper echelon of society would just exert their authority on the mostly illiterate, the helpless, the bewildered lower crust of society or natives. Words like 'you listen', 'I tell you', 'do as I say I say, not as I do' would be used with impunity to get things done. And the the elites, the one in power, the leaders could just get away with almost anything. The simpletons amongst the working class thought the elitist knew what they were doing. They thought everything was done in the interest of what they were sent to Earth to do. It was not their position to question. Some even believed that they had descended from the Gods. To disagree was cardinal  sin and treason of the highest order. Teachers, Rulers, Leaders, Heads of Family, professionals can do no wrong. Any mishaps were pure acts of God, predestined and misadventures. Things changed and change it did. In my mind, education and dissemination of information are...

Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury by Lesley-Ann Jones (2011) If you plan to tell the world your legacy, that is if you had left one, it is always better to write your own autobiography rather than leaving it to people who claim to know you inside out. They can even tell the world how you think and what must have gone through your mind when you said or did some of the things in your life. The biography was written by an award-winning journalist who had spent a lot of her professional time with the rich and famous. Of course, some would question her authority to write some intimate stuff about the man who had touched the heart of many, man and women. The book runs swiftly through Farrokh Bulsara's early childhood in Zanzibar and Goa. It concentrates mainly on FB's adult life in the UK after obtaining his Diploma in Graphic Designing all the way through the trying times as a struggling musician to his superstardom and his fall. We, the listeners, alwa...

Your boy, a toddler, plays with dolls, you say there is nothing wrong. Your girl plays with guns, you say there is nothing wrong. Your office staff dressed down to office, you say there is nothing wrong. A doctor comes to duty with jeans and slippers, you say there is nothing wrong. Your child is defiant of your orders, you say there is nothing wrong. Your kid does badly in school, you say there is nothing wrong. With his bad grades, he wants to do a professional course, you say there is nothing wrong. He doesn't have the grades but the passion, you say there is nothing wrong. You choose the back door to appease him, you say there is nothing wrong. Then he fouls up, you say he did nothing wrong. You cut corners and you say there is nothing wrong. And yet you say, the country is coming to the dogs. That is the status of the present world isn't it? Like you tell the whole world about your feelings, like there is nothing wrong. And yet to complain there is no privacy...

Don't Look Now (1973) Landed up watching this movie after encountering Julie Christie in the Barlow and Chamberlain saga 'Dadah is Death'. The height of her career must have been the role she played in 'Dr Zhivago'. This film is supposed to be a thriller, supposed to be but instead it thrilled the audience with the thrill of watching Venice of its canals and buildings up, close and personal. Talking about personal, this movie also courted controversy during its release due to over-the-top and graphic depiction of carnal activity between husband (Donald Sutherland) and wife (Julie Christie) in this romantic city. It is a pioneer in psychological thriller using fresh cinematographic method and some Hitchcockian ones. Overlapping  flashback scenes and slow moving pace augment its artistic feel to the movie. The movies starts with the drowning of Christine Baxter at the Baxters' English estate. Some time later, John is in Venice to do some restorat...

The Great Gatsby (2013) Just wanted to see how modern cinematography added colour to this 1925  F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel and remake of 1974 film starring Robert Redford in the lead role. In spite of the many negative reviews about the movie, I found it quite refreshing. Unlike its  predecessor , this one did excite me in spite of its lovey dovey and love-conquers-all theme. The main selling point is its costume, the excellent props and visual pleasing mesmerizing cinematography. There is no change in story line. Nick Halloway (Tony Maguire) narrates to a psychologist when he is treated for alcoholism about a certain neighbour of his, Jay Gatsby who was an interesting character who held boisterous extravagant parties at his palatial palace. He had mysteriously amassed large amounts of money. Leonardo DiCaprio must be born for this role as he just fits perfectly as a suave love stricken millionaire with a shady background. He return...

First they gave the physical appearance of man to Him.  They gave Him our hue and variations. To give Him power and awe us, they increased certain capabilities, appendages, arsenal, power over beasts... Then they dressed Him like us. Then they gave Him human traits, likes, dislikes, moods, rage, wisdom... All the traits that we feel to have and yearn for more.And they feed Him, bath Him and sing praises of Him. In other they personify Him! That cannot be right. Some force which is way beyond our capability, wisdom and power donning our same traits and attire? And the 'boys club' that propagate and encourage these thoughts and beliefs? Or do they have vested interest? You build a wall of superiority complex around you. You tell yourself it is for the masses who are not as enlightened as you. It is a point of reference for them to focus and understand something quite abstract like the arts. You do not need intermediaries to connect to Him as He is supposed to know your though...

A surgeon does surgery and runs into problems. The surgery can be considered routine, but in life, nothing is ordinary. A mundane day may turn into an eventful day, and a highly anticipated event may be a non-event. Such is life. The surgery is over, but one by one, what can and may happen after surgery or anaesthesia happens. What is justification (excuse)? Do you say it was a complicated surgery? A seemingly routine procedure that was anything but? Murphy's law was the order of the day?  Do you blame the anaesthesia, anaesthetist, the obese patient, the operating milieu, the technical difficulties, the subordinates or God? Whenever anything goes wrong, the accusing fingers will point directly only at one person. That person would be the surgeon. The world does not expect an apology or self-mutilating honour preserving Hirakiri type of reaction. They just want to know what actually happened and the circumstances the misadventure occurred. The one thing that they want to hear is...

Joi Baba Felunath (The Elephant God, 1978; Bengal) Satyajit Ray's Sherlock Holmes of the East strikes again! This time around, he (Feluda, who was seen in Sonar Kella; Soumitra Chatterjee), Jatayu (the writer) and cousin/assistant Topshe are summoned during their vacation in the holy city of Benares to investigate the missing Ganesha statue.   This simple case becomes complicated as the people get killed, everyone in the household becomes a suspect, and Feluda and friends are threatened by a local businessman who is also a no-good antique treasure merchant. Along the way comes a sage, Machlibaba, named so as he allegedly swam from Calcutta to Benares and gives fish scales as blessed tokens! I sense a sense of cynicism on the part of the director. Even the meanest villains have pictures of Gods decorating their walls, even when he has a gun pointed at Feluda! He is trying to depict the fakeness of the holy men and the supposedly holy people of Benares!

Zeus I have a friend who was devastated when his only son was afflicted with a scary form of cancer. He was aggressive in offering whatever humanly possible to nip the disease to the root of things. He has thus far successfully dodged his son's disease. At time of the initial denial phase, my friend made a vow at the spur of the moment that he who stop doing his divine duties indefinitely if his son did not escape the grab of the dreaded crab. So far, 2 years on, the Gods have not lost a devotee! Then back to the present time, a plane goes missing. What are we told to do? To pray and invoke intervention of the unknown as the experts do not know what else to do! How is prayers going to change the fate of things that had been predetermined through the synchronised chaos of the butterfly effects? Whatever has happened to the ill-fated vessel had already happened. Our interventions or coaxing of the Forces is not going to undo what had already happened. What prayers could invok...

Yeh Rastey Hain Pyar Ke ( These Are The Path Of Love, Hindi;  1963) Even though at the outset, the producers claim that the presentation was a figment of the story writer's imagination, and resemblances were purely coincidental, the public did not buy it. It is based on Nanavati's murder trial where a Parsee Naval Commander, Kawas Nanavati, stood accused of killing his English wife Sylvia's lover, Prem Ahuja, a wealthy debonair playboy Sindhi businessman.   This court case took the Indian public by storm. They had to chance to have an intimate peek into the private lives of the upper echelon of the society. The crux of the trial was whether the Commander's crime was premeditated or was at the spur of the moment. Pretty soon sympathisers from both sides (those who thought the crime was an accident vs those who believed it was planned) began to make it a community issue - Parsee vs Sindhi. The case heard by a jury, the last of its kind in Indian legal syst...

Ethiroli (Echo, Tamil, 1970) Story, Screenplay, Direction: P. Balachander The opening scene of the movie says it all... Sankaran (Sivaji) is a defence lawyer who stands flabbergasted as the prosecuting officer (VS Ragavan) crumbles his case where a defenceless women stands accused of murder. Sankaran's turn to cross examine the main witness, pin drop silence, only the echo of the sound of the rotating fan. Camera moves on Sankaran's face. He walks towards the witness, staring. He does not say anything, just twirling a pair of reading glasses. He does not ask any question any question, just stares. Beads of perspiration are seen on the forehead of witness. Witness shivers. Prosecution cries foul, accusing of intimidation. Judge presses for Sankaran to proceed with questioning. Sankaran stays mum, still staring at the witness with fury. All of a sudden, the witness breaks down. He admitted that he never saw the accused actually run from the site of crime as he was bad si...

In the course of my daily duties, in providing advice to partners who came in proud to display the result of the union of their love or their lusty clandestine activities, I cannot help but notice that quite a number of them have contrasting personalities. True, opposites attract, men are from Mars and women are from Venus but quite often each are from different poles, North and South, Night and Day, Beauty and Beast. Sometimes I wonder how they reach common grounds. Occasionally, it is a scenario of a beast with a beauty or the hog with a hunk. One may be articulate, the other clueless on social etiquette. One smelling of an English Rose Garden with Parisian perfume while the other with halitosis worse than overnight fermented ashtray. One warm and charming whilst the other cold and vicious. One educated and cultured, the other lacking in simple basic social skills. One may be looking for green card, what about the other? One mesmerized by outward beauty, the other internal which m...

Fascinating photographs show the people and places of pre-revolutionary Russia Colour photographs from one of Russia's most famous photographers,  Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky Tsar Nicholas II commissioned him with taking photographs after being impressed by a colour portrait of Tolstoy The pictures, from the early 1900s, show Russia on the brink of the First World War and on the cusp of revolution By  KATE LYONS PUBLISHED:  07:00 GMT, 5 March 2014  |  UPDATED:  07:00 GMT, 5 March 2014. Amazing photographs, captured in vivid colour, show life in Russia in the early 1900’s as the country stood on the brink of the First World War - and revolution. Photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky was one of the nation’s leading photographers at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. He was commissioned to capture a photographic record of Russia after the monarch saw his colour portrait of Leo Tolstoy.  The portrait of Tolstoy, taken in 1908, just tw...