RIFLE RANGE BOY

Pistol ( Disney +, miniseries; 2022) Director: Danny Boyle Thanks to my English language in Form 1, my friends and I were exposed to this British punk band. That, I think, is the role of a teacher - to expose the young minds to the real world, not just what is in the syllabus. Most teachers just wanted to finish their teaching plan and ensure that students were prepared for the public exams; KSG (Kiss Some Girls, he boasts) went that extra mile. He would tell us quickly excitable 13 and 14-year-old pubescents about the birds and bees. Somewhere along the way came the story of 'The Sex Pistols'. That was my first exposure to the Pistols, but only in name. The fact it was banned by the British Broadcasting Corporation made it even more fascinating. The jester of class JL used to croak out 'God save the Queen' with an obvious sexual connotation, much to the annoyance of KSG. At that juncture, I wonder if KSG thought that he should have stuck on to the syllabus. To this and...

Ardh Satya (Half-truth, Hindi; 1983) Director:   Govind Nihalani This Indian movie is said to be a benchmark upon which other police dramas are compared. Acted beautifully by doyens of the silver screen of Bollywood then, Om Puri, Amrish Puri, Smita Patel, Naseeruddin Shah and Sadashiva Amrapurkar, it paints a multidimensional view of the job of a policeman.  Our social system is flawed. The very system that had been devised to be law and order is anything but orderly. Things that go under the guise of upholding the law are anything but by the book. There is an unholy alliance between law enforcers and law breakers. The political dogs who made the gangsters their running dogs have made a lapdog of the police. The police, it seems, under the pointers of the politicians and the umbrage of the baddies. In a world where money can right a wrong, the brunt of law enforcement is only felt by the poor. The rich can literally get away with murder. They can quash evidence or buy the bes...

The Lady of Heaven (2021) Directed by Eli King (pseudonym) When a controversial figure like Sheikh Yasser Al-Habib writes the script of a movie, one can be pretty sure that it will kick up some dirt. Just for the record, Al-Habib, a Kuwaiti Shia cleric, was imprisoned in Kuwait for 35 years when he insulted the companions of the Prophet back in the early 2000s. After obtaining a royal pardon from the Emir of Kuwait, he resided in the UK. He lost his Kuwaiti citizenship in 2004 when he stated in his speeches that the Prophet died not because of an ailment but after being poisoned by His wives! Al-Habib apparently has made a hobby out of insulting Sunnis. In the UK, he continues his controversial stance and has been accused of being a divisive figure and one-minded in creating a rift between the Shia and Sunni denominations of Islam. As a head of the Shia community, he regularly appears in the media for all the wrong reasons accentuating the Shia-Sunni divide. This movie is pregnant with...

Jexi (2019) Director:  Jon Lucas,  Scott Moore There is nothing groundbreaking about this movie. It reminds me of at least two films which dealt with the same theme. In 1984 'Electric Dreams', a desktop computer, Edgar, falls in love with the protagonist's crush. After successfully wooing his beau with the help of his computer, his life turns into a living hell. His computer controls most of his home devices and goes hyperdrive to sabotage the protagonist's work and love life. In 2013 'Her', the protagonist falls in love with an Operating System, AI. All three films show us how hooked we are to our digital devices. We avoid human interaction and feel most comfortable left to our devices. Furthermore, interaction with the same kind becomes increasingly more difficult. Even though we were told that we are social animals who thrive on human dealings, somehow, it becomes more and more an uphill battle. People demand. They want to be treated special. They demand the ...

Swayamvaram (On Own Will, Malayalam; 1972) Story, Direction: Adoor Gopalakrishnan When things happen in our lives, were they predetermined, or did they happen because of our actions, something we decided to choose out of our free will?  This story and debutante director, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, 1972, says that our fate is all our doing. We cannot blame anybody for anything. Everything is the result of our own will. Sita (Saradha) and Vishwam (Madhu) are both graduates. They probably are eloping from their families and decide to start life anew in another town. Both have big plans. Sita wants to spend happy times with her beau, and Vishwam is excited about his manuscript, hoping to be a fabulous writer. Soon reality sinks in. His story does not excite the publishers when employment is low and appreciating arts is the last thing on people's minds.  Their savings get smaller, and they progressively move from their hotel to the cheaper housing area and, finally, a squatter home. Vis...

Bandit Saints of Java:  How Java's eccentric saints are challenging fundamentalist Islam in modern Indonesia. Author: George Quinn A famous message asserts that Sukarno's father was an avid reader of the Hindu scripture, Mahabaratha. He was so fascinated with the character Karna that he named his son after his hero. Karna was a good man in the father's eyes but on the wrong side of the war. So, the father added the prefix 'Su' to his son's name. Su in Sanskrit, it seems, indicated goodness. Hence, his son was named Sukarno -the good Karna. Sukarno went on to name his daughter Sukarnoputri - daughter of the good Karna. This shows the extent of the influence Hinduism had on the psyche of people in Indonesia. After all, the name 'Indonesia' in all its glory would imply the land of Hindus. Despite boasting of being the country with the largest Muslim population on the planet, I do not think they are in any hurry to change their country's name anytime soo...

My wife is on a donation drive. A small Hindu temple in our neighbourhood is on the verge of morphing into something big. Initially starting as zinc shed with a few deities, with ever-increasing congregating believers, its presence came to be felt by the surrounding occupants. They did not mind the occasional minor inconveniences caused by its presence as they thought the divine power that it represents would, in turn, protect them.   Soon the temple coffers grew bigger, and the pressure to flaunt their presence became necessary. Architects were summoned in, and a grand design was put forth. But then, if only they had a few hundred thousand ringgits more… That was when the drive started.   The general public was not so forthcoming to part with their hard-earned moolah. They have had enough of schemes that never got off the ground. And the number of holy men in sheep's clothing is just too numerous to be enumerated. They would like to see money spent on education and social cau...

Sardar Udham (Hindi; 2021) Director: Shoojit Sircar One always wonders how a cult started by a group of semi-literate fishermen at the fringe of the Roman Empire by the Sea of Galilee could eventually grow up to impress the whole of the Empire, including its rulers. This rebel's rhetorics soon triggered justified wars and legitimised usurping of lands to claim their hegemony. The belief system garnered potential believers because it targeted the oppressed or the persecuted. The marginalised and the dying were given the dignity to exist with others on Earth. In return, the converts were willing to trade in their lives (or, in their words, sell their soul) for the religion. Yes, martyrdom played an essential role in recruiting more new members.  As India goes on a spree to rewrite its national history, more and more heroes of yesteryears come to the fore. Sardar Udham Singh (@ Sher Singh @ Ram Mohammad Singh Azad) is one such example. He had been conferred the title Shaheed-i-Azam Sa...

Doctor Strange (2022) Director: Sam Raimi The people in the Marvel Cinematic Universe must be thinking that their diehard fans must be nuts. Still riding on the idea of the existence of multiple universes, MCU came out with their 28th instalment through this film. It is a simple story of a woman scorned by losing two young sons. As we saw in Wandavision in a make-believe happy family, Scarlet Witch is livid as she tries desperately to get back to her Universe. For that, she needs power, and she tries to sap the energy of a newbie superhero (who does not even recognise her superpower), American Chavez. The need for inclusivity brought in a Latina-flavoured character. American Chavez and Wong, on their run, between Universes, land in Doctor Strange's Universe and the good doctor is sucked is in into the duel. After witnessing multiple eye-popping displays of CGI and destruction, we are told that there is another evil Dr Strange with a 'third eye' later seen in the post-credit...

This weekend would see meaningless parties and stupifying merrymaking in the name of a monarch who is synonymous with opulence and redundancy. There cannot be a worse time to glorify a family when the rest of the world looks at entitlement as a bad word. The idea of a person, by his birth, being feted up to high heavens despite all the scandals that have linked with the royal family does not make any sense. It is worse when the ruling monarch takes the helm as the head of the Church of England. Nothing looks pretty when we talk about their predecessors' curriculum vitae or past glory. Her laurels include legitimisation of robbing non-British merchant ships of their gold and silver, giving a royal seal to pirates to loot the Spanish royal armada of their wealth,  allowing famine deaths in their subjects (just because they are brown) to feed their soldiers and brutally murdering millions in the name of civilising the natives. Yes, the Platinum Jubilee of the longest-reigning British ...