RIFLE RANGE BOY

Ae Dil Ki Mushkil (Hindi, 2016) Gone are the days when the sanctity of conjugal union and the adage of one man to one woman is guarded until the end of time till death do them apart. Poetic justice would be the order of the day as if one person was born for the other. Love triangles would invariably end up with either one sacrificing his/her love or his demise. The sanctity of marriage or love was kept 'pure'. Coming together of man and woman (only man and woman) is for ever, and there is no such thing as changing partners. People do not break relationships because it does not fulfil their inner desires or because it is meaningless. They make do with what they have and find happiness even the most hopeless of circumstances. When offspring come into the picture, the purpose seems more clear cut. That is in the perfect world of Tinseltown. The celluloid industry used to set the standards of how live should be lived and stuck set in its agenda of praising the age old I...

Khane-ye doust kodjast (Persian, خانه دوست کجاست, Where Is the Friend's Home?; 1987) \ Directed and written by Abbas Kiarostami This film is the first of Kiarostami's Koker trilogy. Just like its successors, it brings to the fore the day to day living, beliefs and trappings of a typical Iranian in its poor countrysides. This time, it looks at it from the eyes of a young school boy, Ahmadpoor. He has a big burden on his shoulders. He had brought home his friend Reza's writing book by mistake. And he is worried for his friend. His teacher had specifically told Reza that he would be expelled from school if he persistently neglects to finish his school homework. So, as a loyal friend, Ahmad feels duty-bound to pass the book to him. The trouble is that Ahmad's overworked mother keeps asking him to mind his baby kid and do chores around the house. His pleas to his busy mother are drowned in the wailing of the crying child. So, when his mother asks him to buy bread,...

There must be something wrong with our top down approach in teaching History to our young ones. And what do you expect from the politicians who always keep changing the origin and the course of history as they fancy to befit their bedevilled agenda? The real history of a civilisation and a nation should be rightly learnt from a ground-up manner. The real story lies hidden amongst the many untold narrations of the little people, the fabric who make the nation, not the generals and warlords who look at events of the day through their rose tinted glasses who would want themselves to be portrayed in Annals of times as heroes. Many such stories of the ordinary people remain untold in this country. Their viewpoints had never been seen as sexy or newsworthy. After all, they are just economic migrants in pursuit of survival from a land already in ruins. What do they know? They are sometimes viewed by the earlier dwellers as just snatchers of the country's wealth to send it...

By Devdutt Pattanaik  Konark Sun Temple One of the most disturbing stories that we find it the Puranas is the story of Krishna's son Samba, whose mother was the bear-princes, Jambavati.  He dupes his father's junior wives by disguising himself as Krishna and is cursed by Krishna that he will suffer from a skin disease that will enable his wives to distinguish father and son. Samba is cured after he builds temples to the sun. All sun temples in India, from Konark in Odisha to Modhera in Gujarat to Markand in Kashmir, are attributed to this son of Krishna. Samba also attempts to kidnap Duryodhana's daughter and this leads to war between the Kauravas and the Yadavas. Peace is restored, and the marriage is solemnised, only after Balarama, Krishna's elder brother, and Samba's uncle, in a fit of fury threatens to drag Hastinapur into the sea.  Then there is the story of Samba pretending to be a pregnant woman and duping sages who were visiting Dwar...

Malaya had it better. Not that we were not colonised but because our colonial masters were much kinder than some that over neighbours got. Look at the Indochinese countries and the mess the French left behind. Their masters not only pilfered the region of its wealth but try to erase their advanced ancient culture. The Dutch left a bad aftertaste even long after their long departure. Belgians used their subjects as target practice to milk their dry of their diamonds, minerals, natural resources and even exotic fauna. Even the Land of the Free, the Thais, did not gain so much of order in their country. Elsewhere, the Spanish wiped out a civilisation with their carnage and smallpox. Malaya was left by the captors a proper system of administration, legal and education systems when they finally gain independence. With this head start, they started their status as a new country with an advantageous jump-start. The euphoria of the new nation pushed it great heights producing new ta...

http://m.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2038580/how-one-malaysian-school-became-bright-spot-colonialisms N. Balakrishnan celebrates the  founding two centuries ago of Southeast Asia’s oldest English school, which gave generations of youth an education not just of the mind, but also of the heart.  N. BALAKRISHNAN PUBLISHED : Thursday, 20 October, 2016, 12:39pm UPDATED : Thursday, 20 October, 2016, 12:39pm The Penang Free School. Minority voices have been saying that the old school was a colonial relic best forgotten. But while the school may have been “elitist” in one sense, it was also an avenue for social mobility for many. Neither of my parents knew any English. The reason I can write passable English is down to the schools I attended in Penang, Malaysia. Penang Free School, my secondary school, celebrates its 200th anniversary on October 21. It was established three years before modern Singapore was “founded” by Stamford R...

Genius of the Ancient World (BBC Four) #3. Confucius What has Confucius, Hegel and ISIS/ISIS/IS have in common? Yes, they all look into the past and try to live the glory days of the past. Thankfully, the similarities end there. Unlike the former two who try to extract the good things of the glorious past, ISIS seems content to reliving the tainted past complete with barbarism, ignorances, ancient thinking and prejudices. At the time of Kung Fu Tze (Confucius), Chinese society was in tatters after many internal squabbles involving its many states. Confucius' father was a soldier who married a younger wife after his older wife could not produce him a son to continue his legacy. Confucius was born after a penance at the temples. Unfortunately, his father died when he was three. Being a good learner, he worked at a grain store when he became an adult. The mundaneness of his job must have turned him to an ethnographer who decided to venture from his home state of Lu west...

Genius of the Ancient World (BBC Four) #2. Socrates. My mother, with her limited academic qualifications due to lack of opportunities, still try to enrich her mind. Her daily dose of wisdom used to come from the Tamil calendar. Besides having the daily almanac, it came with famous sayings and quotations. From them, she knew about JFK's 'ask what your country has done for you but what you have done for your country', Gandhian philosophy and Socrates' famous teachings to question everything in life. At a time when every occurrence happened by the auspices of the pantheon of Gods, Socrates stimulated the minds of the young to ask life's difficult questions. Is wealth a good thing? Does democracy create a just society? What makes Man truly happy? Probably after being a soldier and seeing the effects of war, he must have been disillusioned by humankind. Having the luxury of comfort in Athens at that time, with plenty of time in the Agora and an average of one to ...

Genius of the Ancient World (BBC Four) #1. Buddha Centuries before modern man came up with the concept of cognitive psychology and self-discoveries, there walk a man in flesh and blood who questioned the ritualistic practices of the people in the name of the Protector. At a time when Brahmin sages performed sacrificial rites to appease the Maker so that man can be taken care in the next life, he stood to question the relevance of these. Leaving his comfortable life in the courtyards of the leader of the Sankya clansmen in Southern Nepal, he wandered to the buzzing city in Maghada state. People of the cosmopolitan town of Patna were alive with many questions and ideas about life and its purpose. Siddharta Gautama queried the concept of samsara and the cycle of life. If rituals could change the fate of the high caste in the next life, what happens to the traders and workers rank. Are they destined to be trapped in miseries forever? He sought for his answers with a s...

Heard an interview with Malaysia's premier cartoonist, Lat, recently. I was fascinated with the part of the interview when he was doing a cartoon strip in a national daily many years ago. He was doing a strip which ran daily on weekdays, and it was a continuing story. One Friday, he was stuck. He did not know how to continue with his narration, and he had until Sunday evening to submit his work. He had a kind of writer's block, not knowing how to proceed. Rather than staring blankly at his wall, he thought a little unwinding would help. Downing one or two of his favourite beverages and whipping up a conversation with a couple of his occasional acquaintances, it suddenly dawned upon him. Inspiration sprang from everywhere, and he went on to complete his story to become everybody's satirist. That is what my friends in the creative field tell me. Whenever they hit a brick wall, ideas come sprawling down when they go out and mingle with people. It seems people-gazing o...

http://www.sholee.net/2016/10/mywritersfest2016.html?m=1 Tuesday, 11 October 2016 MYWritersFest2016 This is just a recapped of my first time attending a MYWritersFest event since it's convenient for me to go. It was launched on 1st October 2016 from 2 to 5pm at Kedai Fixi, Jaya Shopping Center. I had arrived on the dot but it's still early as mostly only writers were there. So I took the chance to mingle with them LOL! It was not easy being alone and not knowing any of them even though I've communicated with some via Facebook! Had to put a really thick skin on but the best part, I've left abruptly at the end without saying goodbye to them! I did say goodbye to Tina but then just left after that... dunno why... I was really that blur max! MYWritersFest was organized by Malaysian Writers Society founders, Gina Yap and Tina Isaacs. There are meet & greet, writer appearances and book sales & autographs in the month of October so do check them out at the venu...

Hava Aney Dey (Let the Wind Blow; Hindi; 2004) This Franco-German of a Hindi film co-production had too much on its plate. No doubt, it had won many global independent awards the world over but the fact remains that its storyline is too ambitious to cover in one and half hour of screening. It tries to deal with so many things without going deep into any of the issues it tries to invoke. The protagonist, Arjun, is an 18year old youth, is at the crossroads of his life. On one hand, he sees his widowed mother working day and night trying to put food on the table after his gambling father died early. The mother is putting all her hopes on her only son to make it to university. In her eyes, that would be the panacea for all the poverty woes. Arjun is disillusioned by all these. He sees his blue collared friends struggling so hard with no hope ever hitting it big in life. He also sees the rich just loafing around enjoying life and spending (wasting) their money without a care. The linge...

Life is but a cycle,  a circle,  And a circle,  has no beginning  and no end.  So, when does life really start? Isn't it a continuum? No beginning, no end? Just to flower, to wither, to willow, to fade, to germinate, to bloom. Yet again.

Killer hung, let the victim's soul rest in peace! Justice prevails! I was aghast by these captions found on many sane people's FB statuses. Maybe I am the insane one. People who were displaced from countries have forgiven their tormentors and planted their roots and had gone on with their lives. Victims of attempted genocides have recovered from their shock, thanked their lucky stars and are smelling the flowers now. The abuse victims have taken a grasp of themselves and tried to erase the past, albeit with great difficulty, and moved forward. Orphans have forgiven God for their predicament and thank the general public for giving them a helping hand. People affected by MH370 have come to terms that their loved ones are gone for good. Theories were creative speculations of self-proclaimed experts with halos, inflated egos and empty vessels with mere thoughts. Given a choice, if a genie were to appear granting three wishes, one of them would be to know what actually happ...

Inventing South East Asia (Documentary; 2016) Written and Presented by Dr Farish Noor It is always interesting to listen to or read Dr Farish Noor's rendition of history as we were never taught.  In this documentary series, he dons khakis and ventures deep into the heart of South East Asia. He tells us how the colonialist masters carved out boundaries amongst the borderless Malay archipelago to invent race, identity, cause destruction and pillage, all in the name of bringing 'modernisation' to the 'primitive' natives. What they did not realise or refuse to admit is that the area that they thought were doing a great humanity service, already had a stable civilisation and were already cultured in their own way. They created a smokescreen to do their job, to pilfer enormous wealth and precious natural resources. #1 . Conquerors and Merchants We are seldom told of the British invasion of Indonesia. In fact, they had interfered in Indonesia's affairs twice, al...

How often we hear of individuals who squarely blame their maladies and under achievements to their upbringing and specifically their parents? We hear of their lack of confidence to an overbearing mother who is always just around the corner to cushion his next fall. His inability to concentrate is because the parents failed to provide a memorable childhood. They cannot sustain a relationship because their parents had marital issues. They cannot keep time because the parents were deep sleepers. Honesty is an alien word because the father cheated on the mother. He lacks self-discipline because his father was a rolling stone. You have a reason for all the unfavourable traits that you possess, everybody else except the man in the mirror whom you do not wish to blame.  Could your parents be such worthless creatures that the forces of nature decided to go through the sieve of natural selection and survive the swim of the survival race of the fittest? Would they not be purged ou...