RIFLE RANGE BOY

The Family Man (Miniseries, Season 1,2; 2019-21) Amazon Prime I would not have given a damn to this web series if not for the adverse publicity it garnered after the release of its trailer for the second season. Many people and leaders from the ruling party from the state of Tamil Nadu were up in arms and wanted the show to be banned. But, as they say in showbiz lingo, any news is good news. All that hoopla just piqued the interest of even those remotely interested in the turmoil perpetrated on India by its neighbours. Suddenly everybody took an interest and have become experts on India's strategic defence. Its detractors, however, say that it is India's uninvited meddling of their affairs that is at fault. But, perhaps, it is not so straightforward.  India, much like Israel, is surrounded by neighbours who try to correct their cognitive dissonance by shoving down their narrow and destructive ideologies across their borders. However, practising passive resistance or turning the...

Madras Café (Hindi, 2013) Director: Shoojit Sircar It all started with the British and the Christian missionaries. The colonial masters decided to modernise their colonies. The British evangelists took charge of the South of Ceylon while the Americans built schools in the northern half. The American preachers, who were assigned a predominantly Tamil population, emphasised Science and Mathematics teaching. The schism started there. The people from the North were more well prepared to meet the challenges of the new world. After independence, the ruling majority from the South imposed affirmative actions to balance the scale. In came Solomon Bandaranaike, a Singhalese with an illustrious family background which even included a knighted father and a British godfather. Solomon, an Anglophile, an Oxford graduate, was more white than Snow White. He could not speak the local lingo and did not practice Buddhism. He served in the Ceylon legal administration after his return from the UK in the m...