RIFLE RANGE BOY

Silence is golden, they say. Sometimes all that you needed to do was to do nothing. Precious time can be used to ponder, meander and introspect. These things are necessary to take stock of our performances in our duties as parents, siblings, offspring, employers, employees, pet owners or just as a mere person. Libraries, parks, open spaces, temples of worship and wilderness once were freely available for this purpose. On the one hand, we say that resting is part of training and that still water runs deep or that only the empty makes the loudest noise. In the same breath, we also say that an idle mind is the devil's workshop, as if our brain must always be doing something at all times. Perhaps, it was a ploy by the people in power so as not to make his subjects a thinking lot. The modus operandi  is to keep their minds occupied only with their almighty bosses' rhetorics - no place for the lowly minions to start using the brains to start a revolut...

We have all been told that we are all irrational beings and we do things on impulses, much to regret later on. This is crux upon which the advertising business is based on. Their modus operandi is simple, create an illusion of attaining happiness with their product when the truth of the matter is that nothing like that exists - a painter gets an inspiration after smoking a particular brand of cigarette, an entrepreneur is successful because he drinks a particular liquor and life is so easy when they use a particular brand of mobile device! What a pity, man is still not happy. In the running circle, there is forever literature put forward on new studies which revealed such a new product is better than the one before, how everyone had got it wrong all the while and so on... In the 70s sports footwear underwent major transformation with much science and technology input. After that, everybody pretty agreed on the need for footwear to run. Fast forward 3 decades later, suddenly all...

The Century of Self (2002) #1. Happiness machines "This series is about how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy."  —Adam Curtis' Yet another documentary, in fact, it is his famous one, from the disillusioned Oxford academia who traded his robe and mortarboard for a place behind the camera. This time around, he tackled something quite unique and it is quite mind-boggling, actually. It shows how the mind of the general public was and is still being manipulated by people in power for their own vested interest. Irrational suppressed minds The story starts in the late third of the 20th century in Vienna with Sigmund Freud. He postulated that human beings all have suppressed aggressive and sexual feelings. Civilization in essence, put a lid for them to demonstrate this primitive feelings and law and order prevailed. And that people in power were using this to control people in the name of ma...

After completing two full marathons, looks like there is nothing more to achieve. Everything else seems pale compared to the joy being a finisher in the 42.195km race. Still, life has to go on and the joints have to be spared to last to the dying days - like doing a Fauja Singh at a ripe age. After the KL Marathon, our group of similar minded running junkies seem to find content in our weekly Sunday Bkt Aman runs followed by the thosai breakfast at Brickfields. To break the monotony, a few runs have been lined up for the future over the next few months. First on the list is 'Adidas King of the Road' on 9.9.2012.  Predictably, seeing the name Adidas, one can imagine many members of the brand centric Y-generation coming in droves. Sure enough they landed there all geared up with sports paraphernalia up the brim that would put any every warm blooded marathon running Kenyan to shame. You name it, they have it - head sweat band, arm band for I-phone, head phones for music, compr...

When I first started viewing this series after somebody's recommendation, I thought it would be about the people in the dog eat dog world of advertising. True the setting is in the office of a famous advertising firm in New York City set in the end 50s era. From the office, the series moves into the executives' bedrooms and their private lives. Actually, it takes a nostalgic look at the bygone era when men were kings and the fairer sex were second class citizens. Cigarette smoking was a socially acceptable norm, done by men and women - pregnant or otherwise. Every frame and every room is filled with someone smoking and is hazy with cigarette fumes.  The general public is still u nconvinced that smoking is detrimental to health and practically everybody is a chain smoker. Men are held up on a pedestal as the hardworking head of the family who brings the bacon whilst the women finds great joy and self imposed themselves the divine duty of staying pretty at home and cooking fre...

Now that the dust has settled over yet another racially controversial ad over the telly, soon it will be yet another issue for everyone to ponder. Actually if you ask me, (nobody will), if you want to fast, fast by all means. Just do not expect everyone else to fast with you. In fact, in my books, the basic tenet in doing penance is to control our inner desires against worldly pleasures all around us and to feel for those who are not lucky enough as us to have all pleasures in front of them. This act itself is supposed to humble mankind and to remind us that we are so fragile and weak as compared to powers of the universe (a.k.a. God). This recent brouhaha just reminds me of a Tamil song in the late 70s where this guy goes on scolding everyone for hogging the road and blocking his path as he is learning to ride a bicycle! It is nonsensical for him to be so selfish and deny others from using the road for his convenience when it is public property. Just like that you cannot expect oth...