Affirmative action will always fail.

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 mid-1920s. Ceylon became independent Sri Lanka in 1947. In the early 1950s, he entered politics at a time when Singhalese consciousness was escalating. The push for the Singhalese language was at its heights.

Solomon started donning Buddhist robes and fought for the Singhalese course. He won the 1956 elections with a landslide and became Prime Minister. Now, as the head of the country, he tried to mend bridges with the Tamil minorities. Unfortunately, his supporters looked at it as a turncoat, and the Buddhist monks got him assassinated. The affirmative action, which was set up to improve the Singhalese representation in the Sri Lankan society, only created brain drain and loathing of the Tamils against the ruling majority. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Tamil professionals from the Jaffna district seek greener pastures elsewhere.

Those Jaffnese Tamil left behind had to fight for a place in the sun. Soon came militant resistance groups in the 70s and 80s to defend their homeland in the form of LTTE.

This movie, 'Madras Café', starts a few years before Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated during his election rally in Tamil Nadu. Indian intelligence had warned the entourage about attempts on the leader's life, but protocols were breached by both the local administration and the politicians. Perhaps, there was collaboration at the State levels, as alleged by certain quarters. The Tamil Tigers perfected the art of suicide bombing and RDX plastic bombs, which escape metal detectors during routine inspections.

At the outset, the filmmakers insist that the story is a work of fiction based on intense research. However, it is as clear as day that it clearly describes the intricacies surrounding the upheaval in Sri Lanka, the political ploy of the Sri Lankan leaders, the Tamil moles, and the double-crossings by Indian intel officers. Moreover, it narrates a close to reality the events behind the scene as espionage, power wrangling, and negotiations.

The Indian Government wants a peaceful distribution of power in Sri Lanka. They want to weaken the Tamil Tigers by instigating leaders within LTTE to fight each other. Tamil Nadu government and its people are sympathetic to the Jaffna Tamils because of their common language. Hence, there are attempts of sabotage at Delhi's efforts. On top of all that, there are foreign powers who benefit from the region's continued instability.

Thirty years have gone, and the seven convicted of planning Rajiv's assassination are pleading clemency to be released after time served. Their appeal is supported by the current CM of Tamil Nadu, Mr MK Stalin.

It is a bitter lesson for nations who opt for affirmative action to modulate social engineering. In the final, the intended target group will be too laid back. The already advantaged group will fly away, and the nation will be a basket case, ruled by despot and sycophants over a broken society.

This clip is from another movie.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Everyone has his story

The Rice Mother (2004)
Author: Rani Manicka

History is written by victors said Walter Benjamin. History is a set of lies that people have agreed upon according to Napoleon Bonaparte. History will be kind to me as I intend to write it, asserted Winston Churchill. These statements just show us how the real narration, the truth can and will be manipulated by the people in power to set forth their personal agendas.

Of late, in Malaysia, there is a concerted effort to erase the contributions of particular communities in the development of the country. History is altered and churned out as they like as if it is a fictional writing to bring out a happy ending that suits the flavour of the month. Like the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's 1984, they churn out lies after lies to suit their game plan. They know well that one who controls the past controls the future and he who controls the present controls the past.

Talk to any Malaysian family. They all have a tale to tell about the predicaments that their forefathers had to endure to protect their piece of space which they called home. They have stories of pain, tears, sweat, blood, heartaches, deaths and disappointments as they toiled the sun to see their produce. Learn how they forwent happiness and comfort to chase invaders from the land they looked up as home, not purely as the piece of land where they would squander its wealth to syphon off to lands far away. Stories like 'Rice Mother' are far too many but remain closed in the eternal vault of their family bygones and hidden in memory banks as kindred treasures.

The novel narrates the tale of a young girl who was plucked from the tranquil land of Ceylon to be married off to a wealthy man from Malaya in the 1930s. Only after reaching Malaya did she realise that the whole arrangement was a facade. There was no rich husband and life was far from perfect. Being a subservient wife, in keeping with the times, she carried on. Life was never a bed of roses. The unhappy marriage did produce a succession of heirs. The seeming quiet country went through some tumultuous times, fighting foreign invaders and surviving the world war.

The book goes on to tell the life and times of Lakshmi, the protagonist, who later metamorphosed into a fierce matriarch; the husband and his meek ways of handling adversities; their children and their escapades and idiosyncrasies all though to Lakshmi's grandchildren as the country, Malaysia, transforms to meet the challenges of the new world.

N.B. Rice Mother refers to the scarecrow who stands steadfast unflinching against the elements of Nature to safeguard the dependent she is assigned to care. In the same vein, the matriarchal figure in the story stands firm to be a pillar to the family to ensure that everyone in the family, the father and the children, come ashore the journey of life safe and sound. The Rice Mother, slowly but surely, in the background, looks like hawk, stinges like an ant and brings the gifts like Santa Claus when the time is ripe or it demands!

It is a jungle out there!

Dheepan (Bilingual; Yaalpaanam Tamil and French; 2015)

When refugees are given space to stay in a vicinity, it is not just physical space they need. They would need social and psychological support to carry on life. After all the push factors that drove them from their comfort zone, the devastations that they had endured, the love ones that they had lost, PTSD is a real problem which needs to be handled tactfully. They do not come alone. With them come the baggage of young ones who need to be paved for a future where they can fend for themselves. There are bound to be people who are non-conformists and natural fighter-cocks who would just  rebel without a cause. Bad apples are everywhere. Crime and social disharmony amongst themselves and with other communities may strain the policing duties.

Refugees and immigrants, who are usually in the prime of the lives, will have dreams and desires, be it for the future or for carnal gratifications. Hence, sexual and reproductive concerns need to be addressed. In other words, receiving refugees is not simply processing people, quarantining them and repatriating them to other shores. It is the whole package, sometimes to grave and from cradle...

This Palme d'Or (Highest award in Cannes festival) winner the plight of three Sri Lankan Tamil refugees who try to start life afresh in France, without much success. Dheepan is a Tamil Tiger freedom fighter who lost his wife and kids in the bombing. When an international relief team comes ashore in war-torn Sri Lanka, total strangers teamed up to pose as family members to qualify for repatriation. Yalini picks up a 9 year old orphan from the street to act as her daughter while she herself lies to be Dheepan's 'wife' to get a passport to freedom. Dheepan uses a dead man's passport as his new identity!

The 'family' soon realises that the residential complex that they are placed in is no different than the war-torn zone that they escaped. Dheepan works as a janitor in a complex that houses refugees from North Africa as well. Gangs terrorise and guns are used frequently. The vibes that the environment gave was anything but safe. The 'daughter' Illayal, learns to blend with her schoolmates with a little difficulty.

Meanwhile, Dheepan and Yalini starts developing feelings. Memories of their turmoils in their hometown keep rearing the ugly head. In the course of their duties, (Yalini works as a helper to a demented Algerian man whose son is a big time thug), they get embroilled in the crossfire of a territorial feud between gangs. Things turn ugly. It is reminiscent of the clash of LTTE and the Government forces once again! The war never left them.

It is a deeply engaging movie. Characters are not so two dimensional. Even the meanest of the people have their gentle sides. 

Correct gauge of happiness?

Dambulla Golden Temple

They say they had great powers and wisdom. Legend has it that one of their kings, Ravana, had literally brought Lord Shiva to his knees when the king had conquered the Indian subcontinent all the way to what they thought was edge of heaven - Mount Kailash. Only when the mighty Lord thumbed his big guy did he plead for clemency and hence was born the Shiva Thandava stotram which is still muttered by His devotees till today.

The island has so much of history and feats in engineering and architecture but what has it become? A third world country with chaotic traffic system filled by traffic etiquette wanting horn blaring drivers and three wheeler 'tut-tut' taxis who treat the road as a war zone where only the fittest and lion hearted survives!

A nation with such a long high culture is now wallowed in poverty and has to
play dance monkey to the tunes of tourists from supposedly developed nation to conjure out foreign exchange for their livelihood.

King of the Road?

Perhaps we are all looking at contentment of life all wrong. Their meaning and purpose of life which sustained their existence all these while took a turn at turn of the late 19th century with the new world order in global economics. Suddenly all their social equilibrium crumpled and could not keep up with the demand of the new world needs. Maybe their definition of bliss is far different from the 'modern' world.
Of course every now and then, a dynamic leader would spring from nowhere and take the nation to great heights and Sri Lanka too had their time in the limelight.

Even though Sri Lanka got a free hand to run their own affairs from their colonial masters almost a decade before Malaysia, the economic distribution seem patchy. Even tourists spots with drones of visitors with tourists dollars fail to show proportionate aesthestic change. In this religious land which encourages moderation in daily life, this kind of encouragement is just nice but what happens to the coffers is another question! You do not want too much of commercialisation, do you?
If you had a nation brimming with money worshipping individuals, they would monetise anything and everything worth or not worth showcasing to the world to propagate more economic activity.

Joy to fishes in the sea

     

    Negambo Hindu Temple;    Sigiriya Lion Cave;        Massive monolith;             Dutch canal