RIFLE RANGE BOY

The Etymologicon:  A Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language Author: Mark Forsyth (2011) This book will excite you if you were one of those, me included, who gets excited knowing things that add minimal value to your mundane day-to-day life. It gives you a false satiety that you are a bigger being for realising some worthless fact. In no imaginable way is it going to improve your life. Perhaps, a transient warm fuzzy feeling when you sigh and say, "Ha. I see, that's what!" Well, reading is not about passing examinations. Sometimes, it helps you pass that awkward moment in a boring or break the ice with a total stranger when mysteriously transplanted in the company of a haughty visitor that your wife conveniently pushed to you to entertain. These are moments when you find worthless information, a boon that could morph that awkward silence into lighter moments. The danger in this strategy is that your wife's unsavoury friends could change...

Heard that the word 'hunky' does not only refer to a buff guy with muscles. It could be a derogatory word for a white guy, specifically one from the East European block.  At the turn of the 19th century US, many Slavic and Hungarian economic and religious refugees from the ailing Austro-Hungarian Empire turned up at Pennsylvania and West Virginia coal mines. As per the norm, many immigrants were hardworking people who were there to earn and go back and lead a better life. A group of young blokes expressed their newly found freedom in the saloons and sin dens. Over time, their alcohol-filled emotions would spiral into street fights and general public nuisance. Many were Hungarians and Pollacks (Polish), collectively called Hunyaks or Honyaks.  Maybe because these manual labourers were defined with well-endowed physiques and using slur terms against any group became politically incorrect, the word hunky is now exclusively for a buffed person.   Curiously, the words' hongkie...

Love and Loss Author: Malachi Edwin Vethamani Maybe life has an innate plan to trap individuals. In the spring of youth, when hormones are raging high, we make hormonal-linked decisions that decide our futures. Somehow, hormones control rational thinking. The prefrontal cortex that controls analytical thinking is hijacked by impulses. We take the plunge dazed like a drunk monkey, like a prancing horse with blinkers, head on like sacrificial lambs, only to realise that we are in trouble deep when the dirt (or blood) hits the ceiling. The path into this journey called love stirs all the primal suppressed emotions. It lights up so many intoxicating feel-good emotions within us that we never knew existed. We are swept off our feet, the world is a utopia, and we only see goodness in everything. Maybe nature wants us to sow our seeds far and wide; perhaps it is just its way to improve the selection of traits. We lose interest. We get bored with the same routine and want freedom. We yearn to...

A Billion Colour Story (2016) History tells us that India used to be a welcoming land to any weary sojourner. It is proud of being the only country in the world where its people did not persecute anyone based on physical appearances or personal convictions. It stands proud of not harassing Jews. It ushered in visitors with such warmth, sharing their knowledge in the hope of finding meanings of life, so much so that they decided to overstay their welcome and so much as a rule over the roost. Did the last of the visitors leave such a scar of conquest that can never heal? To ease their administration, the British, initially a band of looters in the form of East India Company and then later for the Crown, divided and subdivided their subjects by breed, colour, occupation, religion, etc., drilled in the idea that they were different. They mastered the craft of 'divide and rule' to its finest. The divide became so pronounced that it carved out the limbs out of the tripartite sub-cont...

Omphaloskepsis! (Omphalo = umbilicus, skepsis = act of looking) Just how often have we seen people who appear almost in a stuporous state, unarousable by external stimuli? Viewed from this side of the table, it may look like he is self-absorbed or awestruck at the sight of his own genitalia. A clinician may diagnose him to have narcolepsy. In Western Africa, the doctor may give him the spot diagnosis of Trypanosomiasis @ Sleeping Sickness. A man of the clergy would assume that he is engaged in sincere prayers, engaging with a plea with his Maker bargaining so that everything will be alright.  Of course, the correct explanation is none of the above. He is merely immersed in his own digital devices. Being in an almost trance-like state, he insists that very much in touch with the present and that his generation excels in multitasking, something alien to my kind, he asserts. Navel-gazing? © Amethyst Aziezéé A few years ago, a series of pictures used to appear...

English Vinglish (2012) The story reminds me of one of Gandhi's prophetic words. Be the change you want the world to be. Rather than demanding for the respect that you think you deserve and being all uptight about it, it makes more sense to earn it the hard but formidable old-fashioned way - you develop it and let the world decide whether you deserve that admiration. Gone are the days when, by virtue of birth and social standing, one can garner unquestioned loyalty and esteem. In real life, the weaker ones in society are just trampled upon and ridiculed to falsely give the aggressors their own self-worth. I think this quintessentially Indian message is subtly inserted into the story of a timid Bombay housewife who gets the opportunity to visit the Big Apple for her niece's wedding. Doing all the chores that are expected of her as a mother, wife and a doting daughter-in-law, she ignores the abuses and ridicules hurled at her, in her face and behind her back, for her lack in p...

Echoes of Silence (1994) Author: Chuah Guat Eng It is long overdue, but it is never late than never. For many years, Malaysians have been writing novels in the English Language. Sadly, their following is few and far between. Through my association with a group of up and coming writers and with the power of social media, it has come to light on the treasure troves of writings of Malaysian writers in the lingua franca left by our colonial masters. I am not just referring to authors to the likes of Tan Twan Eng, Rani Manicka and K.S. Maniam. Do you know that periodically Malaysians do hit the headlines for the right reasons, literary awards being one? Guat Eng is hailed in the local literary circle as a 'Godmother' of sorts. She has been an active participant in the writing scene and was in the advertising field. In this story, which is set around the early years of Malaya, though the World War Two, we are ushered into a fictional world of how Malaya used to be and a peculi...

So you go around with a chip on your shoulder, with the nose so high up in the air as if you walk inhaling imported air. You straddle around like you are on Yudhistira's chariot, always two feet above the ground, quite full of air. You speak with such confidence convinced that your listeners are impressed with your command of the language. You think you produced a masterpiece that everybody would sing only praises of it. That is until you send it for proofreading. That is when your bubble bursts, your ego gets deflated, and you get down from your mighty horse and is brought down to the ground. You soon realise that the things which you had taken for granted mean more than what meets the eyes. You get an extra 'e' when you are a lady engaged to a man. A fiancée is to a female just what a fiancé is to a man. Everything seems watertight as if you have a foolproof system but your friends tell you that he has full proof that 'fullproof' is not even a word! I gu...

Grantchester (TV series, Season 1, 2; 2014) An interesting depiction of a Man of God who seems more like a sceptic. He realises that every action that one does has two ways of looking at it. There are no clear-cut answers to all the queries of life. He sometimes even wonders  whether he could just give a straight answer to anything. At times, his belief is also shaken. Reverend Sidney Chalmers is a vicar of a small church in a town adjacent to Cambridge. The young clergyman teams up with a policeman in this town to solve many of the murders that seem to be popping up very so often. Between solving crimes and handling the church matters, Rev Chalmers has to deal with many of his inner demons. There is an unending saga of unrequited love between him and an old flame who is soon to be and later marries off to a man of her family’s choice. The widow of the murdered that he solves in the first episode is romantically linked to the hero. Even this does not work out after he...

(...Cont. from Oh deer, my dear! ) I swear I had seen that surname somewhere. But the name Indie? Surely it must be a shortened version of the name Indiana. Indiana for a British? Strange. Anyway, I never understood why someone who name a child after a state. Saying that, Malaysia was the most popular newborn girl’s name in the USA last year among the black community. The only association between England and Indiana that I remember was the riddle when I heard as a young adult about where Prince Charles spent his honeymoon! Go figure. In the modern age, when in doubt, what does a sane person usually do? Google of course. Within a fraction of a second upon typing the surname, the whole anthroponymy of the said name appeared in full glory. Now, it made sense. I could not have guessed. When she offered vegetarian food for the dinner as she thought we did not consume beef as she thought venison and beef were from same cattle of fish (pardon the pun), I was wondering why she said ‘de...

........as I was passing... Like the Sword of Damocles, it hung over his head. There was a constant nagging heaviness over his temples. He knew it was bad, really bad. He had certain arbitrary lines but this one had crossed it all, imaginary or otherwise. But still, life had to go on. And the show too. He knew it was a bad idea. With all these problems plaguing him, he thought it was inappropriate for him to partake in this event. But then, it was also a lifetime achievement. A success hailed upon by his kinsmen as the epitome of his checkered life. Akin to a water lily, growing wild amongst the filth of marsh, stench and reptiles honoured to glorify the lotus feet of Buddha, an achievement enviable to some but yearned by all, privileged to a few! Anyway, the problem is not an overnight one. Like a crystal, the lattice had developed over the years slowly but surely to its full wrathful glory. How could he have been so dumb? Or was it beyond his control and was decided by the con...

Ms. Marple: Murder at the Gallop (1963) They say murder is no laughing matter, but this Agatha Christie based movie makers decided to give a light-hearted comedic feel to this one. Even the original title from the story is based on is quite sombre, 'After the Funeral'. Ms Marple, Agatha Christie's loveable freelance detective, is acted by Margaret Rutherford who looks like someone's eavesdropping granny rather than a window climbing, torch-light armed crime buster. She, however, does a marvellous job in this murder mystery based in a stable in the English countryside. As Ms Marple goes around asking for donations, she and her side-kick bumps into a dying rich man in his usual secluded mansion. Even though the police suspect it to be a death caused by natural causes, a heart attack, Ms Marple is adamant that it is anything but a natural death. She is further convinced when she sneaks in to overhear the reading of the old man's will. With the backdrop of a...

Murder She Said (1961) Come to think of it, she is a bit like some of the slightly older people in our lives that we know. (Hush, hush). All inquisitive and nosy at times. Poking their heads into unnecessary businesses and insisting what they saw was right and usually is. It sometimes can be annoying to the affected parties and invades into their something quite private called privacy. To the nosy-pokers, the older generations usually, this concept may be something quite alien! However, there are some who, under the cloak of privacy, do secretive transactions and pass it off as national security and insist that it cannot be questioned. That is another topic for another day! Margaret Rutherford Across the Atlantic, in a year's time, Ursula Andres would emerge from the waves draped in what was hardly accepted as garment appropriate for general consumption. Their British cousins were quite contended with casting a 70-year-old Margaret Rutherford, hardly a sex symbol, in a mur...

Brideshead Revisited (1981) Miniseries In spite of my attempts to refrain from nosediving into the lure of being sucked into another miniseries, I cracked upon pressure. The joy of enjoying beautifully crafted dialogue spoken to the tune of upper crust society of the 1920s British society proved too alluring. It starts with a disillusioned officer in the World War 2 British Army (Capt Charles Ryder acted by Jeremy Irons) who stumbles upon a certain estate in his tour of duty that opens the floodgate of memories and essentially recollects his whole life story. Over the next 11 episodes he reminisce his relationship with the heir of the estate, Sebastian Flyte and subsequently with his whole Marchmain clan. Along the way, Ryder discovers the meaning of life, God and the purpose of belief with the Divine being. His liaison with the Flytes starts during his carefree days in Cambridge. He develops a liking to Sebastian Flyte, a spoilt rich man's kid who spends most times drinking ...

A paraprosdokian / p ær ə p r ɒ s ˈ d oʊ k i ə n / is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence, phrase, or larger discourse is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to re-frame or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax . For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians and satirists. Some paraprosdokians not only change the meaning of an early phrase, but they also play on the double meaning of a particular word, creating a form of syllepsis Thanks CG.  

Rumpole of the Bailey (1978-1992) I do not remember this show to be shown over the Malaysian airwaves when I was young. Perhaps, it was too cerebral to my liking then. With all the witty tongue in the cheek cynic speak and verbosity, I do not think any normal youngster from the Malaysian schooling system eating rice and sambar  from the culturally challenged neighbourhood of Rifle Range Flats would appreciate this kind of English court drama. After reading John Mortimer's biography, I decided to give his creation a try. 'Rumpole of The Bailey' kind of of British presentation is the reason why the British TV shows used to be something of a hit amongst the literate circles of the yesteryear. Now, with age and the intelligence to appreciate the finer nuances of the language, I find this offering totally absorbing. It tells the courtroom escapades of an eccentric aged barrister, Horace Rumple who works in courts, The Bailey as it is referred to (after the street it is loca...

Game of Thrones (Seasons 1-4, 2011-2014) Even though I kept telling myself not to plunge into another miniseries, the power of persuasion seem too overpowering. Or perhaps I was just too weak! The bombardment from the media, social media and friends seem overwhelming. They make it sound like it is the best thing that happened to mankind since sliced bread. They even made a game which suggested the most likely 'Games of Thrones' characters you are paired to based on a series of simple questions. (I got Tyrion Lannister, an achondroplastic dwarf who compensates his lack of stature with witty wise cracks, sarcasm and shrewdness, I wonder why.) You see one, you had seen them all, the miniseries and soap operas. They all capture the minds of its viewers by rekindling the primal desires of man. Almost every one of them glorify, if not make it no big deal, to engage in unsanctioned union of the sexes, clandestine, extra-, pre-, or anything but marital. Everybody's action is ...

The Householder (English, Made in India; 1963) Ivory-Merchant Collaboration This must be the greatest nightmare that many a goody two shoe Indian new husband must feel early in their matrimonial life. Two women demanding more attention than the other from the husband who is trying his best to be in everybody's good books. Prem Sagar is a lowly paid lecturer in a private college. He is newly married to a girl whom he cannot stand. He is unhappy with his students whom he cannot control and his principal who refuses to give him a raise, or rather he cannot raise the courage to ask for one! He has a landlord who is not too busy or drunk to listen to his pleas to reduce the rent. And he does not like his new wife's cooking. In midst of all these uncertainties, his wife, Indu becomes pregnant. A desperate Prem thought getting his mother to stay with him would reduce his burden. On the contrary, his mother becomes a domineering attention seeking female who likes to run do...