RIFLE RANGE BOY

P rofessor Thomas Sowell, the 90-year-old veteran economist and social theorist from Hoover Institute of Stanford University, is still active on social media. He is quick to give his opinion, backed by statistics and historical events, to run down ongoing national policies. He is an opinionated person and at one time was drawn to the idea of communism. His rationalisation for gravitating toward the left is that it is just human nature. He wants to share when one has nothing; conversely, he does not share when he tends to lose his 'hard-earned' possession. Sowell hails from Harlem, working as a postal worker as a young man and pulling himself up by his bootstrap to his current stature. He often campaigns against affirmative action and minimum wage. He asserts that the Black American community had a better quality of life when the aforementioned policies were pinned upon them. Another recurrent theme in his rhetorics is the importance of the family unit in the upliftment of socie...

  Joji (Malayalam, 2021) We always complain about the conundrum that we are stuck in. We brood, curse and swear at the people who brought about all these. Then we stop and go about doing our own things.  When someone takes the trouble to push the boundary and actually try to change the course of their lives, nobody wants to be part of it. The rest do not want to be seen as complicit as it would tarnish their image of it but secretly, deep inside, they are happy that something is being done.  When the plot hits a snag and the perpetrator is exposed, nobody wants to have any link to it. Conversely, they condemn the whole exercise and start talking about morality. They claim ignorance and assert that natural justice or the rule of law should prevail. Generally, people are unthinking sheep, quite happy following the shepherd like what the herd is doing. Little do they realise that the shepherd only has one sole purpose in life - to fatten his flock and march them to the slaug...

Gauri There it was, another family celebration and another tête-à-tête with my favourite uncle. Whilst the rest were immersed in their revelry, we were pretty engaged in our own private discourse - with him looking for someone to impart his 85-year old life experiences, and I, just listening and sometimes trying to tease more out of him. This time around, we discussed the role of the significant other in the family, among many things. This post is what transpired out of that. They say that behind every man's success, there is a woman. Many are quick to quip that behind their every fall, there is another, the other woman. Women have the uncanny ability to create as well as to destroy. With the biological assets that they are endowed with, they can create, nurture and sustain life with their tenacity and ever-embracing progestogenic demeanour, like a mother hen, able to hide her chicklings under my wings away from the prancing eagle. And they will protect their little ones with the ...

Zindagi inShorts (Hindi, 2020) Netflix This is a collection of seven short stories, just nice for light viewing and those with a short attention span. It covers a myriad of topics, with women empowerment taking centre stage. In the first episode titled 'Pinni', a housewife with exceptional culinary expertise is only appreciated for her cooking skills but not for anything else. She is just viewed as a doormat - it is there to serve a purpose, but there is no need to go fancy about it. She strikes back when her husband got no time to remember her birthday. 'Sleeping partner' narrates how a woman's role is miniaturised in a family. She rebels by expressing her sexual freedom. See how she hits back when her lover starts blackmailing her. The story touches on marital rape. 'Sunnyside Upar' cajoles us to live out the only life given to us to its fullest via the experience of a young doctor in a cancer ward. Bad things happen to good people. Just deal with it. ...

Devil All the Time (2020) A t one look, it seems that the story is going all over the place. At one time, you think that one particular character is the protagonist, but wham! she is killed off. Then another also killed off, and another yet again. There are plenty of killings and dying on the whole, but then, it all builds up to make sense at the end. There are many cryptic messages embedded within the storyline that questions the perception of what evil really is. Our divinity and evil part and parcel of the same continuum, not in contradiction but a mere extension of a spectrum?  One complements the other. Just like how light is appreciated in darkness, evil is necessary for us to appreciate goodness. Like how it is a necessity that Tom never catches Jerry for the excitement to continue. Will E Coyote will never have the Road Runner for dinner for Coyote may become mad if, one day, he gets up in the morning to realise that he has nothing to do. Satan can never lose if Goodness we...

Some stories I have told and some that I haven't Author: VC George (2021) T he powers that be wants us to believe their narrative. They assert that their concocted tale of how history happened keeps true to the natural chain of events. They create a smokescreen to justify the turn of events to explain social strata's current status and how social justice should be.  O ur history likes to paint Indian immigration to the peninsula as a single wave of settlement. With a single stroke of ink, they put all Indian in the same basket. That they were brought in the colonial masters as indentured labour (a milder wording for bonded slaves) to milk out not only the juices of rubber trees but also the milk the wealth of the nation. It was no coincidence that the Malay Peninsular was referred to as "Swarnabhumi" (Land of Gold). In the same breath, these keepers of Nation history declare that the British never really colonised us. They were just administrators .  S orry to burst y...

Drishyam 2, The Resumption (Malayalam; 2021) Movie buffs would generally agree that sequels of hit movies rarely do well in the box office, more so with Indian movies—the sequels of 'Koi Mil Gaye', 'Dhoom' and 'Munna Bhai'comes to mind. Somehow, the magic of the original film is lost.  Six years previously, Drishyam , a murder thriller, was released. It was then something of a revolutionary in storytelling where all the loopholes which are usually overlooked were patched and viewed had a chance to appreciate expert movie making at its best. Poetic justice was served when a peeping Tom, son of a high ranking police officer, meets his end at the hands of an outraged mother. The crime is concealed, and the victim was never found, leaving the deceased's parents with no closure. Georgekutty, then, had buried the victim in the place least suspected by the police - under a newly constructed police station! Meanwhile, Georgekutty is now an owner of a movie theatre a...

Idiocracy (2006) This science-fiction film is no masterpiece, but it portrays a pretty close prediction to what Nietzsche predicted the future would be like. He envisaged a dystopian tomorrow where mediocrity is held in high esteem. Emphasis is on triviality and popularism. Evidence of this already gaining traction. Just look around us. People are frequently numbed by visual gratifications. Nobody thinks anymore. Intellectual discourse is just too energy-consuming; blind acceptance is becoming the norm. Astronomical science is centuries old, but many still swear the Earth is flat. Sowing wild oats without a care about the offspring that springs out of such an unholy union is defended as one's right to empowerment.  Investing a wealth of time in something as ludicrous as catching 'Pokemon Go' is a legitimately approved pastime for a modern full-grown adult. Intellectual achievement is un-cool (and is becoming increasingly expensive for the average Joe). The people who least ...

Queen (Web series, S1, E1-11, Tamil; 2019) MX Player It is no secret. Even though there is a declaration at the beginning of each episode that its story is a work of fiction and that any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental, it is as plain as day. There is no doubt that this web series is a fictionalised version of the former Chief Minister's life and times and a one-time highest-grossing actress in the Southern cinema, J Jayalalitha. The give away signs are the characteristic vermilion pottu with a vertical extension, the similarity in the protagonist's familial and educational backgrounds, the fact that the 'Queen' aka Shakthi Sheshadri was a state top scorer like Jayalalitha and that both were of Brahmin ancestry. It does not take much imagination to realise that GM Ravichandran (GMR) is a plagiarisation of MG Ramachandran (MGR). The story is told as flashbacks from an interview which is reminiscent of the classic bare-it-all interaction betwee...

The Stranger (Novella by Albert Camus, 1942) Feature Film (Italian; 1967) Director: Marcello Mastroianni The last few years of his existence were not particularly pleasant. It started with diabetes which progressively affected his night vision. His occasional falls off his motorcycle, and a fracture shook his confidence. Progressively, the Penang roads appeared too hostile to his liking. He lost his independence when his children did not allow him to renew his driving and bike licences. From then on, things only went south. Two episodes of strokes later and a urinary bladder's tumour afterwards with the ensuing therapy made life more miserable. If that was not enough, the accidental falls, lacerations and worsening eyesight added to his misery and the people living around him. Many unsavoury words were hurled out of frustrations.  So, when the day of reckoning finally came, it was a relief of sorts. At least, that is how I looked at it. Released from the distresses of the mortal li...