RIFLE RANGE BOY

Lucky Baskhar (Telugu; 2024) Director:  Venky Atluri There are different rules for other players. The rich have it good. The system ensures that they stay wealthy. Money begets money. The law provides that the bulk of wealth remains within the confines of those with them. There are different rules for other players. The rich have it good. The system ensures that they stay wealthy. Money begets money. The law provides that the bulk of wealth remains within the confines of those who possess it. T he legal system makes justice swifter for all the money that can be bought. The middle class stays put in a self-imposed restrictive loop. The middle class is trapped in a cocoon by concocting rules of morality as well as divine and social justice. Grabbing an obscene wealth escapes them and can only be an unattainable dream.  The middle class is often used as a scapegoat to show society that the system is fair. By periodically using them as sacrificial lambs, society sets an example t...

Naanayam (நாணயம்,   Tamil; Integrity/Coin, 2005) It is ironic the very thing that makes one loses his integrity bears the very same name that gives confidence. In the Tamil language, நாணயம் (Naanayam - the title of the movie), could indicate either integrity or coins as well as currency. The root word tells it all; coin/currency works based on trust. Once someone loses his trust in the economy of a, say banana republic, its whole financial institution collapses. There is no problem that a little moolah cannot solve, they say. In a Tamil saying, it is mentioned that even a corpse would open its mouth at the mention of money. There is no stronger bond than the love for money. Even motherly love can be bought over. At the same time, money unleashes all the evil feelings that have been suppressed over the million years of our civilisation and the code of conduct that evolved from it. At the sight or suggestion of easy money, all integrity goes out of the window. When wealth is sma...

The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire (Documentary; 2017) Director, Producer: Michael Oswald I always wondered how Britain, after 200 years of ruling over almost half of the globe, survived after losing everything after the Second World War. It is a mystery how they continued their role in being one of the economic powerhouses of the world. It is no secret that WW2 marked the beginning of setting of the sun over the British Empire. Slowly, one by one, its colonies demanded to be cut off their attachments to the Crown. The coup de grâce must have come after their disastrous 1956 campaign over the nationalisation of the Suez Canal by President Nasser. The value of the pound-sterling plummeted. Foreign investors withdrew their investments. A special market was created to circumvent the control of the monetary bodies of the UK. Hence was born the London Euro-Dollar market to keep investors' interest in Britain. This was the precursor to the setting up...

The Creature from Jekyll Island (1994) Author: G. Edward Griffin No, this is not some kind of sci-fiction about a radioactive exposed and mutated creature that lurks in the vicinity of Jekyll Island. This book is, of the non-fiction variety, and it talks about our banking system. In fact, it tells of the devious manner that it operates. It was on this island that the monster called Federal Reserve System was created. Jekyll Island is a real island off the coast of Georgia. In 1910, a group of seven individuals of politicians and bankers gathered in a holiday resort to discuss the future of banking in America. Together, they possessed a quarter of the world's wealth then. Earlier, at the beginning of the century, Americans had become wary of their banking system and did not trust bankers to handle their money. The purpose of this extremely secret meeting was to create the blueprint of the Federal Reserve System. Note the absence of bank in its name and the authentic sound of ...

Credit: pbs.org We were told in our history lessons that the American Civil War stemmed from the noble intentions of the Union States to end slavery in North America whilst the Southern States opposed as they were of an agrarian society of which cotton and sugar plantations were labour intensive. Well, that is just part of the story. As in any back story to an event in history, there is always money involved. The Southern States traded cotton to Europe and the rest of the world. They got their other supplies from Europe and the Northern States. The South found imports from Europe to be cheaper than from their counterparts in the North. To protect the local industries, the Union, mostly comprising the Northern states, started imposing a levy on the European imports. This incurred the wrath of Europe who stopped purchasing American cotton. The South felt bullied. Resentment was brewing. Meanwhile, in the European continent, the French, the British and the Germans were apprehen...

Trance (2013) It is said that memory is a good thing. The memory of having the fingers' burnt, either by fire or the stock market, may act as a deterrent for one to repeatedly parboil his body parts. But then, the body also prunes its memories, to erase off some apparently too painful memories. Nature also becomes selfish by erasing the painful thoughts of childbearing just to continue progeny. If not for lactation and contraceptive measures, the business of baby making will never cease anytime soon. Are painful thoughts really detrimental to the development of a person? Franz Kafka would certainly say so. Almost throughout his short life, he could not come to terms with his father's abusive alpha male type of behaviour and helpless unhelpful mother. His unfulfilled career and failed marriages were attributed by him to the unresolved issues with his upbringing. Perhaps this chronically depressed state of mind must have made him susceptible to laryngeal tuberculosis. B...

The Big Short (2015) At the entrance to Aristotle’s Lyceum where intellectual discourses were in progress, a banner apparently read, 'Those who do not know geometry need not apply’! It only goes on to show how much mathematics was needed to grasp the finer aspects of human intellect. Intelligence and ability to articulate is of paramount importance to understand philosophy which in turn is the bedrock to comprehend the meaning of existence and purpose in life. On the whole, philosophers of the yesteryears, in unison agreed that our life on Earth is basically to appease the Agent Intellect. Some look at service to mankind as the way to reach divinity. In short, Mathematics were used to make life comfortable for everyone. And some things are pre-determined while others are malleable with free will. Fast forward to 1990s. The world has only one master to feed, greed. They use mathematics and the knowledge of chance and probability to hoodwink the general public to fulfil their o...

The Sea and the Hills  The Life of Hussain Najadi (An Autobiography; 2012) He survived the feared Bahraini intelligence who worked under the hawkish eyes of their British colonial masters as he stirred his leftist ideas after the Algiers uprising through his rebel movement at the age of 16. The Bedouin travellers took a special liking to his as he escaped to Beirut through the mirage inducing hostile environment of the Arabic desert and its scorching heat. Somehow he even escaped the infamous Iranian SAVAK police. The storm aboard the vessel along the Mediterranean Seas did not dampen his spirits. By twist of fate he missed an ill-fated Swiss flight which crashed soon after take-off. And he averted an invitation aboard a Filipino flight which later crashed. He even survived an automobile accident on the notorious Malaysian highways. To cap it all, he even endured 8 years of imprisonment in a Bahraini prison after incurring the wrath of its royalty. He raised the ladder of...