RIFLE RANGE BOY

Seven Years in Tibet (1997) Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud (Based on Heinrich Harrer's book with the same name) Similar to the internment camps established in the USA for German and Japanese migrants during the First and Second World Wars, India had comparable camps. Numerous German workers and even alpine climbers from Austria were detained in various camps around Ahmedabad and Dehradun. One notable individual was Gustav Hermann Krimbiegel, an extraordinary gardener credited with creating royal gardens across India. Krimbiegel was a German botanist who migrated to Britain in 1888. He began his apprenticeship at Kew Gardens and was subsequently recommended to work in the garden of the Maharaja of Baroda. After witnessing his remarkable gardening skills, he was commissioned by other princely states. He is recognised for his development of Lalbagh in Bangalore, Brindavan in Mysore, and many others. In addition to his horticultural achievements, he is also known for introducing new see...

Nightmare Alley (2021) Nightmare Alley (1947) Based on the novel by William Lindsay Gresham (1946) In the spring of youth, we all think we are invincible. We believe we were sent to change the world. We go on a crusade to achieve these desires. Somewhere along with our lives and we should realise who we really are. We should know our capability, what role we play in the world. Only then can we set camp and grow laterally instead of reaching for the unattainable. The trouble is that this realisation may come early in some, at 20, 30 or some so much later in life. Some just roll down the cascade of their entire length of existence without realising it, ending it without collecting any moss. The original offering in 1947. Carl Jung is quoted to have said that until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate. Or karma. "Know thyself" - like it is inscribed at the courts of Temple of Apollo at Delphi. In 'The Art of War', Sun Tz...

Sarpatta Paramparai (சர்பட்ட பரம்பரை, Tamil, 2021) Written, Directed by Pa Ranjith One can learn a thing or two by watching films, i.e. if one is bothered to check the backstory. This is one rare full-length boxing film in Tamil, coming from a land that usually infuses familial masala to the storyline. In keeping with the timeline the story is set in, in the 1970s, there is ample sprinkling of Tamil Nadu politics to set the mood. For once, we see actors who really look their part as boxers. The make-up, boxing techniques and the make-believe props that cradles us back to the mid-1970s are convincing enough. Before watching this film, I did not know that boxing was a passionate sport in northern Madras even before the 1940s. Boxing came to India with the British. In Tamil Nadu, it was named 'kuttu chandei', and it came with its own set of rules. Boxers could not hit each others' faces, not the body. In the early 1940s, it seems there was a black British boxer (some say he is...