A problem many would like to have...

While scavenging around for the next topic to ponder, I came across a conundrum a friend of a friend was going through. Not many would find it a big problem. Many would not mind inheriting that problem. Others would say, "What problem?"

After working all their lives engaging with various businesses to pull themselves out of the shackles of poverty, they can say they have arrived. No, thanks to the governmental racially discriminatory policies, and despite this, they had managed to give their three children an overseas education. Again, the children had opted to settle overseas because of the national social re-engineering policies. The roots are so deeply embedded elsewhere that they find it pointless to return to the roost. Their occasional summer vacation and digital connections would suffice for family bonding.

The couples are left to fend for the coop and the empty nest. To complement that, there are multiple landed properties, real estate assets, various incomes, and a stash of moolah to lubricate their silver years.

None of the children are keen to take over the legacy the parents will soon leave. In the minds of the foreign-educated liberty thinking, socialistic minds of the offspring, they do not want anything with their capitalistic parents' money, which they would be thinking was earned through the blood and sweat toiled by the bodies of the working class. And they want none the part of it.

So, the elders are left with a dilemma. How will they will off their legacy when none of their kids want to inherit it. In a world where siblings and relatives clobber and murder each other to get a piece of the meat, here they have to deal with no one wanting their hard-earned.

Many individuals with apparently noble intentions (?really) have no dearth of suggestions and avenues on how to dispose of their wealth to the world. There is no shortage of NGOs willing to put their money to good use, more than a hundred orphanages and homes that are always short of contributions, the house of worship with their bottomless pit of donation kits and private entities that could set up trusts to aid the needy. Yet, they decided to spend it all with close friends, fine dining, rewarding their palate and seeing all the things that they could see in this lifetime. Who knows what holds for them in the future when this life is through? An abyss? A new beginning with no recollection of what transpired here and now? Or…

I attended a friend's 80th birthday recently. It was a celebration of a man's life who had every right to show and motivate others through his slow journey of rags to riches. After a fulfilling life in the civil service, corporate world, and academia, he is engrossed in spirituality. He took it his life's mission to pay back to society. He finances needy students and also engrossed himself in social activities. His secret to success and happiness is his outlook on life. He shields off every hurdle that comes his way with a smile.

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Nothing really matters!

Old (2021)
Director: M. Night Shyamalan

This may not be the best of his movies to watch. After The Sixth Sense (1999) and Unbreakable (2000), his films have been unremarkable. The dialogue is much to be desired, and the plot may have a few holes here and there. Nevertheless, it stays true to most of Shyamalan's movies that explore the paranormal. It even makes one think. In this offering, one is made aware of the dangers of freebies, the subversive nature of Big Pharma and the triviality of our holding of ill feelings and grudges. 

The main protagonists, Guy and Prisca Cappa, are going through a separation. To break the news to their two preteen children, they thought the family could have one final memorable outing together. Prisca is delighted to have found a fantastic bargain for a beach vacation online. Interestingly, as the movie involves Time and ageing, the couple has contrasting occupations - Prisca is a curator in a museum (purveyor of ancient relics), and Guy is an actuary (predictor of future events). 

Surprise, surprise. The whole beach resort is a front for Big Pharma to identify clients with specific medical conditions and put them up for human experimentation with new medications, without their consent, of course. That particular resort had access to a secluded beach with its unique rock formation markedly accelerated the ageing process. Thirty minutes of the passage of Time is equivalent to a year of ageing. Hence, Big Pharma could determine the efficacy and dangers of newfound drugs in record times. 

With or without the drugs experimented on them, the cruel effect shows their sad transformation from their springy gung-ho self, brimming with confidence, to one where minor skirmishes and shortcomings do not matter anymore. Somehow, all the minor dissatisfactions and disappointments in life do not matter. The brutal assault of Time on our ego is blatant. We reverse roles. From an all-knowing adult who juggles wearing multiple hats, our senses fail us miserably. We are clueless about what Time has in store for us - a tumour, mental disorder, debilitating illness or whatever.

In our desperate search for the elixir of youth and immortality, we have sold our souls to Big Pharma. In return for their uninhibited access to our medical information and other unspecified data, we have become sitting ducks to their snake oil and mumbo jumbos.

P.S. The idea that rock formations profoundly affect Man's growth reminds me of the concept behind constructing a Hindu temple. It could be built as and where lands are available. It had to be aligned to the magnetic pole of the Earth. The erection of the main structure is specific and involves the usage of various metals. The conditions needed to be followed for its intended use. A temple was meant to act as a cradle for charging the 'human battery'. People were expected to drop in to 'charge' themselves to meet their daily challenges. Over Time, as monotheistic religions became vogue, to stay relevant, their functions changed. They had to steer their believers away from Ahura Mazda and the desert gods. In essence, rocks, with their mineral contents, affect humans.

8 mysterious ancient temples which lie more or less on the exact geographic longitude of 79° E 41'54" and these famous temples are Kedarnath Temple (Uttarakhand), Kaleshwara Mukteeshwara Swamy Temple (Telangana), Srikalahasti Temple (Andhra Pradesh), Ekambareswarar Temple, Jambukeswara Temple, Annamalaiyar Temple, Nataraja Temple and finally Ramanathaswamy Temple (Tamil Nadu).

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Nature prefers the young...

Broker (South Korea; 2022)
Written, Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda

Maybe Nature has wired us that way. Whenever we see a baby, a stranger, for no reason, we start cooing and making strange noises or faces to entertain him. Put an adult in the baby's place; nobody will give it a second look. We may be wary of whether the adult would enter our safe zone. A baby, however, is no threat.

Nature knows it is not kind to the living. Violence and destruction are everyday day-to-day occurrences. Imagine being left out in the wild overnight; chances are one would be pounced on or stung by a predator. If not, mere exposure may chance hypothermia or pneumonia. Hence, Nature tries to give the offspring, the harbinger of an improved 2.0 genetic mashup, a dig at life. That is why we get emotionally attached to a miniature version of ourselves, minus all the negativities and the evil thoughts lurking within.

OK, it is OK that Nature wants to ensure the continuity of progeny, and this world is no place for the aged. But it makes procreation too enticing for its participants to resist. Nobody has the foresight to realise the wisdom they would have the morning after. Herein comes all the entanglement and maladies. Kingdoms have fallen, relationships have been ruined, and families have turned apart. Still, sex is the best-selling merchandise on the planet.

This complicated drama tells us how a baby can change one's life. The sight of a newborn makes most people go all jello. The longer we are attached to a baby, the more we are drawn together.

A young girl, So-young, leaves a newborn in the baby box of a church. Unbeknownst to all, the place of worship is under police surveillance. Within minutes of deposition, CCTV recordings are erased, and the baby is ferried away in view of selling it off in the black market.

So-young changes her mind and wants her baby back. She goes to the police when told that the church never received her baby. The baby nappers, Ha Sang-hyeon and his sidekick, Dong-soo, decide to abduct So-young too. All three go on a road trip trying to sell the baby to the highest bidder. 

The time spent on the road bonded them and revealed each other's backgrounds. So-young is a sex worker who had killed her partner after a tiff about not terminating her pregnancy and was on the run. Sang-hyeon and Dang-soo are disgruntled orphans who believe the whole adoption system is a waste of time and have no qualms about a bit of making money out of the unwanted babies.

In the meantime, the widow of the murdered partner has sent some thugs to lay her claim on the baby. The police also try to trap the kidnappers by setting up fake potential buyers. Meanwhile, a couple who recently had a stillbirth desperately seek to adopt a baby.

Is it not ironic that something unwanted suddenly becomes so much sort after?

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