RIFLE RANGE BOY

In the late 1970s, as my future laid bare before me, I found no time in anything but my books. I looked  at watching movies as three hours of wasted time that could otherwise be spent on something more worthwhile, so I thought. At that age, everything was either black or white, factual and goal orientated. Watching the then Tamil movie which showcased hirsute stars in unkempt hair and their un-touched up face narrating mind-stupefying cheesy village stories was a turn-off. Its songs, despite be blared incessantly by my neighbours on their music devices, were just white noise.  Actually, it was an annoyance, as something I had to run away from to find solace at the quiet corner of the cemetery or empty classroom in the school to jam-pack precious information into my grey cells. That was the time when SP Bala and Illayaraja were churning out hits after hit that just passed me by. Occasionally a song or two would come to my attention clamouring from my father rickety radio. I did...

Cuties (Mignonnes, French; 2020) Back in secondary school, my friend AK, and I were engaged in an in-depth discussion on the topic of American situational comedies which later became to be  abbreviated as sitcoms. AK was adamant that the depictions of teenagers, then in family dramas, were detrimental to the behaviours of people. The fighting back, the rudeness, the promiscuity of teenagers, the docile nature of parents were bound to have change on the local society. This would happen even though the storyline would indicate poetic justice at the end. Even though good virtues would prevail over bad, viewers tend to remember the bank heist rather than how the robbers suffered for their feat - their unsettling life whilst being on the run and the incarceration later on. The same thing happened in this film. Even though the movie's storyline is genuine in highlighting the current societal obsession in adultification of preteens, the cinematography and wardrobe departm...

Maha Mrityunjaya Mantra - - from Rig Veda 7.59.12 (1500-1200 BCE) https://greenmesg.org/stotras/shiva/mahamrityunjaya_mantra.php Om Try-Ambakam Yajaamahe Sugandhim Pusstti-Vardhanam Urvaarukam-Iva Bandhanaan Mrtyor-Mukssiiya Maa- [A] mrtaat || Meaning: 1:  Om,  We Worship  the  Tryambaka  (the  Three-Eyed  One), 2:  Who is  Fragrant  (as the Spiritual Essence),  Increasing  the  Nourishment  (of our Spiritual Core); 3:   From  these many  Bondages  (of Samsara)  similar to Cucumbers  (tied to their Creepers), 4:   May I be Liberated from Death  (Attachment to Perishable Things), So that I am  not  separated  from  the perception of  Immortality  (Immortal Essence pervading everywhere). http://mk.skycoded.com/watch/DIrvM1gcnPU# Squirting of cucumber seeds Ecballium elaterium We have been reciting this mantra since young without ac...

Tenet (2020) This is another movie in which one may go in and come out of the theatre asking, "what was that all about?" It is about time travel and would make sense if one has a little background about time, space and bending time. Viewers of Interstellar should be at a better place understanding the flow and the plot of the story. They would not find it too confusing. Time and space have fascinated man since the beginning from the Hindu tradition to the Greeks right down to modern thinkers. Time is just an arbitrary human construct to keep track of earth's rotation around the sun as to plan seasonal preparation of agricultural activities. It went on to permeate all over our day to day activities. Our mass occupies space and seems to move together with time. Somewhere interspersed in all these is life. And it is all moving forward in an ever-expanding universe, or is it? In an alternative universe, time could be moving backwards as seen here in Tenet, the movie....

Untouchables (2019) The start of the fall of something big is always the same. The journey to the top must have been an arduous and an honest one. It would have been avant-garde or revolutionary then. Everyone would have liked it. Given the herd mentality that we all subscribe to, the response would have been palpably obvious with praises and felicitations that would rocket them to high heavens. The fame would have gone to the head of the progenitors. They would think that they are God-sent avatars beamed on Earth to change Mankind. They could do no wrong.  Those suppressed demons suddenly spring out. The rapacious appetite which was instrumental previously in launching their earlier fledgeling career now seems to have been diverted to satisfying their own primal decadent desires. The unabated admiration showered to them now is used paradoxically against the very people who put them up on a pedestal. Everyone can see their nefarious activities but are fearful of ...

Our world has become one which is ruled by mobs. We thought we had cancelled mob behaviours when we started engaging in intellectual discourses and discarded our weapo ns for civilised dialogues. We were made to believe so. The muffled undertones of passive- aggressiveness were always there in the background. It never really disappeared. In those days, the dominant ruling forces called it resistance, reformation or revolution. We learnt that numbers matter and recruiting the masses worked best to overthrow a seemingly impregnable and cruel regime. Most new religions came about through these ways - show the unthinking inebriated public the virtues and purpose of existence, riled their emotions to unite them against a particular cause, sometimes a self-serving one. The major Abrahamic religions began thus, creating a sense of fear, perpetually assuming that they would be besieged. Fast forward to the present time. We thought that in modern times, with the ease of information at our ...

Paromitar Ek Din ( A day of Paromitar, Bengali; 2000) Direction: Aparna Sen Society has defined what is normal and what is not. It has decided social mores on how to behave and what is appropriate. It has set arbitrary levels of what is expected of a family. It determines how it should be portrayed to the world. It is all a facade, a smokescreen, the foundation that is laid on unfinished brickwork to give a final smooth concealing the imperfections beneath.  The community expects a family to be of certain expectations and to behave in a specific manner to be one of them. Human beings, being social animals, clamour to belong to a group of certain similarities that they go to great extents to showcase what the rest accepts as normality.  So, despite being trapped in a loveless marriage, we are expected to labour it through, hoping that love will conquer it all. We want to be proud of offspring, immerse in their joys and growing old, aspiring to have brought them ...

C U Soon (Malayalam; 2020) The human imagination has no boundaries. Even at a time when all of the movie-making industry has come to a grinding halt, storytellers still managed to squeeze out a full-length feature film. Who cares if there is a lockdown or a need for social distancing? There are smartphones and all the drama online in social media. Why look far? Necessity is the mother of all inventions and desperate times spur innovations. This Malayalam offering was made utilising the i-phone and screens of the computer. The whole film was shot in two rooms and with minimal human contact. The storytelling involves a lot of reading off WhatsApp messages, Facebook posts and emails as well as eavesdropping on video calls. Kudos to the director who managed to keep the attention of the audience. At the same time, they maintained the suspense of the story. Jimmy, a bank executive in Dubai, hooks with Anu on Tinder. They get along quite well and even contemplate marriage in such a...

One thing I have noticed over the years is that there are some of our activities that reaffirm our propensity towards herd mentality. One is our appreciation of haute culture. Just because a movie star is seen wearing a transparent tunic which does not leave anything to the imagination of lies beneath (her undergarment or therein lack of), everyone wants a piece of the action.  Some people take great pleasure in their vintage wines and spirits. It has become a fashion statement of sorts amongst the high societies to serve single malt whisky of a particular age which boasts of a specific amount of character and complexity from the cask. Guests would all nod in unison after the first sip. I wonder if they would still be able to discern the difference if the liquor was unceremonious replaced with a younger whisky or for that matter a blended one, after their third or fourth drink. In 1976, Steven Spurrier,  a British merchant who sold only French wine,  had a...

Shakuntala Devi (Hindi; 2020) A joke that my friend once told me comes to mind. A child, aged 5, will think that his father is some kind of a superman. He is strong and invincible. At 10, he is still looked up upon. In the teenage years, the relationship sours. By 20, son and father do not see eye-to-eye. Father tries to pave the path with his wisdom, but the son thinks his ways are passé. He soon refers to his father as 'your husband' when talking to his mother about him. He only communicates with his mother and does not engage in any form of conversation with his father. Things just happen in a ritualistic manner. Son gets married, has a child, slowly enjoys parenthood. He soon realises the intricacies of parenting. By 45, he is impressed by his father's ability to juggle work, family life and skill to educate his siblings with his meagre income. By 50 or 55, the son tries to make up for lost times. When the son is 60, the father has passed on, and the son starts prais...