RIFLE RANGE BOY

Yeats, Keats and TS Elliot all wrote fantastic poems. Rumi did the same but at a different level. To connoisseurs of Tamil poems, they transcend all boundaries. A poet can describe his loved ones in so many words, compare her to the lush of Mother Nature or the beauty of a full moon but a Tamil poet tells her at a divine level. Something as mundane as feeling frisky on a wet evening is pictured by Vairamuthu beautifully in a single stanza. (From the 1980s movie 'Raja Parvai' where ironically a blind man describes his feeling to his non-blind companion) "அந்தி மழை பொழிகிறது, ஒவொவரு தூளியிலும் உன் முகம் தெரிகிறது" 'Evening rain is pouring, In its every droplet, I see your face.   Some may call these lyrics cheesy, but it works perfectly well for admirers of Tamil literature. We have heard songs that induce suicide. The Hungarian composer Rezsö Seress is given the dubious honour of composing  Gloomy Sunday  in 1932, connected to more suicides than any son...

Avengers: Endgame (2019) We always associate destruction with negativity. Erection and construction, on the other hand, is hailed as the epitome of prosperity. Hence, annihilation, collision and termination are scorned upon. Unfortunately, life is not so simple.  There can never be peace without prior anarchy; no construction without demolition and no shanthi without ashanti. Life, with its ups and down, are aplenty with cyclical loss and gains. That was the same dilemma when I came to discover about Lord Shiva, one of the main component of the Trinity in the post-Vedic Hinduism. The trident-bearing Lord is revered for his greatness and ferocious power to destroy and is invoked for peace on Earth. It baffled me how damage can lead to prosperity. Herein lies the profound philosophy of life. Someone or something who jolts the equilibrium, the status quo, has to or to be destroyed before life can proceed in a just manner. The evils do not necessarily come from without to spew ...

Us (2019) Written and Directed: Jordan Peele We think that we deserve the life we are leading, that everybody else there is to serve us, that the Universe owes us a living. We live under a false assumption that we merit the comforts and luxuries that are showered upon us. We demand that the little people be subservient to us. "You know who I am?" we tell them. It only takes a single catastrophe to turn the tables. When the balance is tipped, when equilibrium is tilted because of man-made or natural catastrophe, pandemonium would rule. There would be no niceties. The hierarchical order of the societies would crumble. The Master-Servant role would be reversed. For survival, one has fight tooth and nail. In my opinion, the above message is subtly conveyed in Jordan Peele's latest blockbuster 'Us'. At the word go, it is staring right at our face. The symbolism in this movie can only be rivalled by Dan Brown's 'Da Vinci Code'. 'Us' may impl...

There was a heated discussion recently about attending weddings and the appropriate gifts to be presented to the newlyweds.  Many questions were floating around and were argued but without reaching any consensus. For every point supporting attendance at weddings, there many against it.   Are the attendees considered privileged to have been invited in the first place? Is it an honour to attend? Is the invitation a hindrance or a nuisance to one's smooth sailing of daily routines?  Do relatives get offended if they were non-attendees to someone's most important day in their lives? It is the lovebirds' declaration, so they should be in gratitude. There used to be a time when weddings were announced widespread as a form of approval and legitimisation. It also was a diversion from their otherwise mundane lives. Social interaction between relatives was far and between. Humans, being social animals, were leading an agrarian way of living that was so unful...

The Mitrokhin Archive II (2005) It all sounds like a plot of an espionage paperback set in the Cold War era. The only thing that makes it interesting is that it is said to have happened in the real world - that a KGB employee, disillusioned with the direction that Communist Russia was taking, should decide to painstakingly make short notes, via his handwriting, of secret documents as the KGB headquarters was relocated and the archives, in the pre-internet days, were transferred. Vasili Mitrokhin, the low-level official, after the collapse of Soviet Union, in 1992, decided to take his 10 years worth of handwritten documents and to defect to the West. He had apparently shown up at the American Embassy in Latvia with his papers but was turned down. At the British Embassy, however, he was cordially offered a cup of tea and the rest, as they say, is history.     The papers were a damning account of the clandestine activities of Soviet Russia in many countries of the world....

Captain Marvel (2019) The ancient Greeks believed in re-births. They used to think that before birth, the memory of the yet-to-be-born infant is erased clean. All old thoughts of their last birth are wiped out, like a white sheet of cloth. After birth, the young mind observes, learns and re-'minds' itself of 'new' things. In a way, nothing is new but are old tricks, packaged to be re-programmed.  This is what that went through my mind as Carol Danvers struggle to find herself. With so many recurring thoughts, dreams and nightmares tormenting her all the time, the search for self-discovery proved to be a Herculean task. It is made worse with the multitude of contradictory inputs that are channelled through her senses. For Carol Danvers to come to terms that she is indeed Captain Marvel, it must be pretty confusing. For ardent followers of Marvel comics, they must surely be knowing that before this, many other characters have been trying to claim their stakes on bein...

We say a lot of things that we do not mean and do many things that we do not say. What we say may not be relevant in just two years, what more a lifetime. It is ironic that since most of the human interaction is based on verbal communications, we still cannot trust what we say. Are they just smokescreens for us to achieve our desires at all cost? Do we promise the moon and the stars, without mentioning the fine prints, just to get things our way? The direction of society and our lives is guided by our art of persuasion in debates and speech, but yet verbal communications are just fillers to decorate our lives; an exercise in creative writing to trigger the limbic system to immerse the brain in euphoria. One wonders if speech is relevant anymore. Maybe it is time for us to periodically reassess our promises. Like at the end of a rotation duty of a security officer who plays back the closed-circuit recordings of the night before, perhaps we should be doing the sa...

Period. End of a Sentence (Documentary; 2018) Arunachalam Muruganantham was seen in a TedTalk a few years ago with his low-cost locally made sanitary napkins and how he tried to make a change in the life of the average Indian woman. This is some kind of a showcase of what actually happens at the ground level - getting the ladies to express their issues about this social taboo, making them feel comfortable discussing this physiological phenomenon, to remove the stigma associated with its discussion, discussing the health risks related to their current unsanitary menstrual practices and promoting their homegrown self-generating pad making simple machine with local produce.  At the end of this 20-minute documentary, the women are happy. The promoters are satisfied to have infiltrated into the sanitary business, creating a demand for something not there before. The users feel empowered for being able to control their body, to avoid embarrassment associated with menstruation. F...

Freakonomics (2005) Steven D Levitt & Stephen J Dubner A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden Side of Everything The conventional thinking is that economists are nerds who fancy numbers, statistics and balancing GDPs and expenditures. Now, we have come to realise that economics is more than statistics. Statistics are the greatest lies invented by mankind. It can be made to work for either side of the fence if you know how. The same numbers can be used to assert both sides of the argument if you know how. That is the reason for the frenzy of data in the 21st century. Information is knowledge. The authors try to freak us out with numbers that baffle us with information that actually questions whether our supposedly scientific approach to solving our day to day problem is indeed appropriate. For a starter, they suggest that the reason for the reduction in crime in the 1990s is not because of great policing, increasing prisons or use of resources to curb crime but instea...

Phantom (2015) Of late, if one were to notice, Bollywood seems to be churning out movies which are patriotic in nature. At a time when nationalism spirit in all countries is at a record high, and when India-Pakistan border tensions are equally high, this genre of movies appear to be topping the box office. The conventional wisdom is to love one other, embrace your brother, love thy name and do unto others as you would do unto them. And that 'an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind'. Unfortunately, the world is not a kind place. Experiences in 1962, lethargic after fighting two world wars, Nehru, in his great wisdom, must have thought hard about his country's relationship with China. With his 'Chini Chini Bhai Bhai' slogan, he probably told China, "let's all be together and feel alright!" Unfortunately, China construed this holding hands and singing kumbayah gesture as a weakness. They cooly walked in and occupied Tibet. India, with that h...