Guilty by default?

Emergency (2022)

Director: Carey William

Sikhism is professed by 25 to 30 million worldwide and is the fifth-largest religion in the world. Even though Sikhs constitute only 1.72% of India's population and 1.02% of the world's population, they are instantaneously recognised, not only by their unique appearance but also by their industriousness and successes. In India and the rest of the world, wherever they migrate, their proportion of poverty, as compared to other groups, remains the lowest. Outside Punjab, some minorities still excel without political assistance. Reaching foreign shores as economic migrants, they generally prosper and outperform other immigrants. They blend well into society and have the tongue to learn to speak the local lingo swiftly. Pretty soon, they will be sitting in professional bodies.

The Sikhs are often seen by community leaders as a shining example of how societies should progress. Someone toyed with the idea that lack of political representation and state assistance are the very things that help them propel forward.

Hence, in Malaysia, the recently perceived 'lack of Indian representation' in the Malaysian Cabinet is a non-issue. There is no need to depend on handouts from the top. The community itself should pull itself with its own bootstrap. As the Senior Economist Thomas Sowell advised, when people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems discriminatory. He also concluded that affirmative is ineffective. He likened it to a wrong medical diagnosis and prescription. His research had repeatedly shown that blacks in America were better off in many social parameters before the Civil Rights Law was passed in the USA. As he is often quoted to have said, "When people are poor, they want communism or socialism, but when they are rich, they think capitalism is best!"

All that is fine at a macro level, but day-to-day human interaction does not work that way at the ground level. Power dynamics and racial stereotyping are a mainstay. The presence of little Napoleons and power brokers is everywhere. The decree from the top gets lost in translation, purposefully or like the game of 'Chinese whispers'. 

If George Floyd has taught us anything, dealing with the enforcement unit is more complex. Split decisions made in an encounter are anything but easy. The police see the other as a potential criminal who would harm him or escape. If he made a wrong call, he would be negligent or, worse, lose his life. 

The person on the end of the police baton would be apprehensive that he would be pigeonholed based on his ethnicity or appearance. In his mind, he is assumed to be guilty by default. Any wrong move, and he is a cadaver.

These thoughts go through the minds of three friends who aspire to go places as they almost complete college. The three friends, two blacks (Kumle and Sean) and a Hispanic (Carlos) find an apparently stoned white teenager in their home. Like black South Africans in the apartheid era, they panicked. They decide to take the kid to the hospital in their SUV. Kumle, the studious one, has his life all mapped out. He is going to Princeton come fall. Sean has had a previous bad encounter with the cops, and Carlos has consumed intoxicants and is flying high like a kite.

While cruising en route to the hospital, they encounter a police roadblock. Suddenly, it dawned upon them how they might look to the cops- three coloured people kidnapping a drugged white teenager! Then begins the cascade of confusion as they avoid police custody, escape the victim's sister and friends, but most of all, not in any way jeopardise their future. The last thing they want is to be just another statistic in the ever-expanding number of victims of police brutality. 

This film is supposed to be a comedy, but the subject matter deems anything but funny!

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Which is more newsworthy?

Sometime last week, a submersible (a titanium-carbon fibre-made mini-submarine, christened Titan) commissioned to investigate the remains of the Titanic went into trouble. A catastrophic implosion is said to have instantaneously killed the five aboard. Each had sent about $250 000 to get 40,000 ft below sea level to catch a glimpse of the ill-fated ship. The dead ranged from wealthy businessmen to adventure explorers. A few days later, a Greek boat carrying hundreds of refugees from Pakistan, Syria, Egypt and Palestine submerged off the coast of Libya. 

The papers went agape with moving stories of economic refugees picking up the pieces and risking their lives for a better life in Europe. At the same time, the mass media has also been accused of paying more attention to the five victims of the Titanic sub rather than the refugee boat accident that swallowed more than a hundred lives. 

Critics assert that life is precious, whether the victim is rich or poor, educated or otherwise. Unfortunately, life does not work like that. It is pretty naive to insist that a homeless vagabond should be accorded the same level of treatment as the CEO of a multinational company. At the risk of sounding unkind, the reality is that the latter will contribute back to society, whereas the former will just sponge its resources. But hey, he could have a veteran, a professional who had fallen from grace or whatnot. But such is life. 

The communists and the religious will insist that all men are created equal, but in reality, some animals are more equal than others. When the shove comes to the push, hierarchy does exist. 

For example, when a destitute in Saint Theresa’s sanatorium has chest pain, she is offered prayers and paracetamol. When Mother Theresa herself has chest discomfort, an appointment at Harley Street Cardiology Clinic is made for her immediately. 

Looking at the two maritime mishaps above, one refers to the failure of mankind’s engineering marvel. All the years of research, experimentation and trial runs have led to this. The Titanic, another engineering, supposed proof of an unsinkable oceanliner, went down tamely on its maiden voyage. Just when the researchers thought they could have a peek into what could have gone wrong, now this. Naturally, a post-mortem of the failure of human endeavours excites many. 

Conversely, the refugee crisis denotes political failure. We deserve the government we choose. If millions of people within a vicinity cannot agree on how they want the country to be, they should not be playing victimhood. Politics is what people decide for themselves. Others cannot meddle. The rest of the world has enough problems, and now, the refugee crisis. The experience of many developed countries with the waves of immigrants over the last twenty years could have been anything but pleasing. Refugees, upon acceptance, have abused the system. Many of their siblings have yet to really integrate into the system. Some are hellbent on biting the hands that fed them. The host countries have never been the same since.

It is understandable why one news presides over the other in importance. 

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Behind the gentrification...

Kakka Muttai (Crow's Egg, 2015)

Story, Direction: M. Manikandan. 

Thanks to JT for the recommendation.

All they wanted was to eat pizza. All the advertisements convinced them that it indeed tasted heavenly. It must be valid since even their favourite movie star endorsed it. All the graphic images of fillings of the pizza and sticky cheesy must be an experience to behold, they thought. And they made it their once-a-lifetime achievement to savour one of those. For these two boys from the Chennai slums, paying ₹ 299 for a box of pizza is abominable. After all, for these slum boys, whose father is in jail and mother is at wit's end trying to get him out, it is just a flitting dream. The boys, nicknamed Kakka Muttai, cannot afford to go to school and scrap a living selling coal that drops off a moving train. On a good day, they manage to earn ₹15. 

They see their favourite playing ground slowly being cordoned off and transforming into a shop lot and a happening pizza parlour. They are intrigued by all the hype surrounding the place. Even their favourite movie star, Simbu, is seen dining there. And they keep watching the pizza advertisement repeatedly flashing on the telly. The boys resolve to save money, bit by bit, to lay their fingers into the coveted divine meal. 

In the meantime, slum boys are shooed from the pizza parlour. A security guard is placed there. It seems their presence is not welcomed. 

After getting a windfall, they managed to save ₹ 300. But when they arrived to buy pizza, they were chased away. They were not dressed up to patronise the place. The guard went as far as to assault the boys. A passer-by took a video of the event and viralled it. 

A comedy of errors ensued. A local goon, on being aware of the incriminating video, tries to make a quick buck extorting to sell the video to TV channels. A local politically connected man from the slum tries to earn brownie points when local dwellers plan a demonstration. The goon's sidekick tries to outsmart his boss by breaking a 'better' deal with a TV channel when in fact, his boss was trying to fleece him. 

In the meantime, when the pizza owner realises the bluff, they send their own people to apprehend the boy to do damage control… 

We see gentrification happening around us. We feel proud seeing the backwater backyard that we once lived, undergoing beautification, look whitewashed and refined. Suddenly we find our parents, if they owned the properties, boasting about their prized million-dollar property. Unfortunately, the whole exercise comes with a cost. 

A segment of the population would be left out in this rat race. If life is an F1 race, they would forever be the minion Minaldi, just to make the race, not win it! 

The displaced segment will be pushed more and more to the periphery. This group is the target of politicians and matters most for mass decisions. Their concerns are often highlighted to smokescreen the leaders' true intentions. 

The marginalised will stay marginalised. Wealth is a zero-sum game. It cannot be created from thin air. To make money, somebody has to lose. The same usual suspects repeatedly appear on both ends of the spectrum. The peep show may vary, but the stage remains the same.

(PS. When the brothers finally dug into the pizza, they realised it was all a letdown. The gooey feel and bland taste were a turnoff. They learned the experience was not worth their effort. That is marketing in modern times, turning unassuming humans, i.e. (m)asses, into ravaging zombies oblivious to what they actually need.) 

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Like bees drawn to nectar!

Jatt vs IELTS (Punjabi; 2018)
Director: Devi Dutt

It is a problem in most developing countries. The generation around the country's independence bent over backwards to provide for the family. They felt contented to be self-sufficient and to ensure their offspring were not deprived of the things they missed. With the advent of widespread dissemination of information and systemic glorification of modern living, the youngsters just turned out pompous and sluggards.

This is a universal problem experienced by societies in upcoming post-independent Asian nations. The younger generation cannot wait to buzz off from their birth country. They feel they can only find their true potential away from the toxic environments enveloping their nations. The West, it seems, gave them the validation and liberation they needed. 

Modern education provides equal opportunities for all. The end result of this is women performing way better in all academic indices. 

About twenty years ago, it seems the state of Punjab was the most prominent food supplier to the rest of the country. It also used to be the biggest revenue earner in terms of taxes. All over the years, its position has undergone a significant slide. Social problems have grown. Alcoholism and drug addiction amongst the young has skyrocketed. Punjab blames Pakistan for the maleficent dropping of dope over the border via air balloons and drones.

Komatagaru Maru

Reports of young Punjabis smuggled across the European borders are no secret. News of them being made to work in slave-like conditions in Italian vineyards and Portugal is nothing new. Canada has been a hotbed for Punjabi immigration since the late 1800s, amidst much hostility. Canadian hostile stance against Asian migration of the 20th century and The Komagata Maru incident in 1914 when Punjabis were refused disembarkation and were turned away still stays fresh in everyone's mind. 

These days, with the friendly attitude shown by Trudeau and his government, it seems that every Punjabi harbours a secret dream to be a Canadian citizen. For that, applicants need to score well on an English proficiency test named International English Language Testing System (IELTS).

This movie combines all of the above to depict the sad state of affairs in a light comedy. The main character, Jassi, is a wealthy farmer's 'good for nothing' son who spends all his time gallivanting here and there on his motorbike. He abhors the idea of continuing his father's occupation. Much to the chagrin of his father, Jaggi wants to complete his IELTS exams and migrate to Canada. The problem is that he is not the sharpest tool in the box. He learns of the idea of marrying a girl who had got a visa to Canada and joining her later with a spousal visa. The plan backfires when the wife remarries in Canada.

One would expect the film to end with the protagonist having a realisation to stay back in Punjab, develop some kind of patriotism and resolve to be a farmer. But, no. He still manages to go to Canada, albeit by other means! 

(P.S. On a side note, Trudeau's government tried to win the Punjabi hearts by apologising for the Komatgaru Maru debacle, having many Sikh ministers in key cabinet positions and expressing their undivided support in the recent farmers protest. Now the tables are turned around. Truck drivers, many of whom were of Punjabi descent, have started protesting against the country's Covid mandate and brought Ottawa to a standstill. Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, is said to have been taken away for protective custody!)

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Poverty amongst the seniors!

The Bacchus Lady (2016)
Director: E J-Yong

Bacchus was a new word to me. It actually refers to the Greek god of wine, sometimes associated with Dionysus. Following the 1997 Asian financial crisis, many elderly people found themselves needing to fend themselves. The Miracle at Han River, following years of economic boom following the Korean War, left a country so entwined in the material chase that the traditional Confucian values had lost their appeal. Many young Koreans had emigrated, leaving their elders at home. South Korea is said to be having one of the worst social safety nets amongst OECD countries for its senior citizens. OECD (Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development) countries comprise intergovernmental economic organisations with 38 nations founded in 1961 to stimulate world trade and stimulate economic progress. Its precursor, OEEC, was started in 1948 following the implementation of the Marshall Plan to develop post-WW2 Europe.

The poverty rate of elderly people in South Korea
is the highest among the OECD countries

In 2015, the local police arrested 33 ladies, including an 84-year-old woman, in a park in Jongno district in Seoul for soliciting customers for prostitution. Sociologists determined that the poor retirement benefits put the elderly, especially single ladies, below the poverty line and fend for themselves. Many turn to prostitution to survive. These ladies make a living by selling bottles of Bacchus-F, a popular energy drink, hence their nickname 'Bacchus Ladies'. The packaging suggests that it is sold as 'Livita' here in Malaysia. The Bacchus ladies' clientele is usually lonely old men. Transitioning to sexual services is optional.

The film starts with a postmenopausal lady, So-Young (sic), getting treatment for gonorrhoea. Just she exits the doctor's room, a ruckus begins. A Filipino lady barges in to demand from the doctor paternity support for their kid. In confusion, the kid left outside scoots off only to miss a major accident and be saved by So-Young. 

Slowly the movie shifts to the day-to-day of So-Young. She lives in a house with a transgender lady and a leg-amputee artiste. Like So-Young, these people are considered fringes of society, scorned for not conforming to the perfect mould to make money. We follow her through her clientele seeking exercise, the fights for customers, the bad-mouthing colleagues, the escape from police busts, and meeting old friends/clients.

So-Young discovers that an old acquaintance, called Saville Row Song for his immaculate haberdashery perfection, is now unwell with stroke. A visit to his nursing home revealed a dispirited Song, all ashamed for his condition, incontinence, immobility and all, begging to die. After a few visits, she actually helps him to die. 

All through, she introspects on the appropriateness of her action. She once sees a cardboard collecting lady by the roadside and ponders who had sunken lower in society - the lady dealing with dirty discards or herself for prostituting?

A good movie with a positive social message. A good watch.

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The robe and the abacus...

Never trust a man in a suit and tie.

He may hide his evil intentions behind

his haberdashery perfection. In the

same vein, a female who reveals much

more than is needed to hide the 

necessaries may be masking the real 

thing she is hiding. 

It is said that the mark of the fall of an economy or, to go as far as a civilisation, is the disproportionate increase in the numbers of accountants and lawyers in society. Disproportionate to what, one may ask. For a community to propel to higher heights, we desperately need educators, engineers, scientists and health care workers. Educators to teach the young minds, engineers to push the boundary of the mind to explore new frontiers, scientists to discover ways to ease living and health professionals to ensure healthy bodies and minds for continual progress. As society becomes complicated, or the piece of the economic pie gets smaller, there would arise the need to protect or usurp material as much as possible, the legal way. After all, good times do not last forever.

Furthermore, the generation next would not be so resilient or antifragile to handle things given to them on a platter. Still, prosperity has to be continued down generations. Hence, there is an innate compulsion for good times to continue rolling within the family. Finances need to be fixed.

The significant jump in the numbers of lawyers and accountants may also mark the decline of morality. Whether the downfall of society is because of their increase or as a response to the fall, it is a matter of conjecture. When one sees things that used to be settled with a gentleman’s handshake amongst close-knitted friends or relatives now mandates legally signed documents to seal the deal, we know we are going down the rabbit hole of mutual distrust.

Washing dirty linen in public and broadcasting intimate detail to shame the other party is in vogue these days. The accusers think that they could play the victim card by putting all lewd pieces in the open. Little do they know, the public says a free daytime soap opera.

Trustfulness is now a forgotten virtue. When a person used to be entrusted with our monies, we did that not because he could give a beautiful account of our income and expenditure. We knew that there was no doubt about his trustworthiness as he would guard his assigned duty with his life. Now, we want a nicely executed (maybe concocted) Excel sheet with all the 't's well crossed and the 'i's meticulously dotted. Creativity and documentation supersede honesty and hard work.

Honest toiling and passion do not count in this material. All one needs to be successful and marketable in a colourful resumé with skills of articulation Lawyers and accountants help us towards that end. Teachers and medical personnel do not serve to broadcast their deeds. There do it because it is a service to mankind. At least, that is how it used to be.

[P.S. Writers and literary figures are still needed for they need to stir emotion and push boundaries, for we only know our limits when we push them to the brim.]

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Money is never enough!

Money Explained (5 episodes, Documentary, 2021)

Netflix

Looks like the old adage 'there is no such thing as a free lunch' still holds true. The system is there so that the well-heeled is always at the top of the food chain at the expense of the poor. Whichever way one looks, the little man will always stay poor, and the rich man will always the last laugh. 

Money, wealth, luxurious lifestyle and aesthetically pleasing environment are dangled in front of those who can ill afford to own or even anywhere around it. Everyone wants to be rich as that is our measure of success.

The first carrot that is dangled upon us is the get rich quick scheme. Even as early as the time of the expeditions to South America, the designs have been going around. Gregor MacGregor, a professional trickster, managed to sell land and bonds of a supposedly heaven-on-earth kind of a paradise territory in Central America after their discoveries. The trouble is that such a place was non-existent. Gullible people wanting to be rich bought the story and bought stocks and got burnt. Such frauds never stopped and continue as we speak. Suckers are born every day. There are Ponzi schemes, Multi-level Marketing, info-commercial, pyramid schemes, and the list goes on.

Another way to entice people to spend and spend is via credit cards. Credit companies give the illusion, via their creative advertisements, that by possessing their cards, life will be so pleasant, leisurely and stress-free. They conveniently forget to tell that, unless the client is a serial transactor who does not bring forward any balance forward to the following month, the customer would be subjected to compound interest. This interest is high, and in the olden days, it would be termed usury.

It is said that the American government encouraged its citizens to attend college and delve into science and technology as the Soviets were making leaps and bounds in the space race in the late 50s. Private enterprises also joined the education race. College fees started escalating. School loans were becoming the best way to pay back after graduation. But then, the whole arrangement came to a tumble when the 90s crash came about. They had no jobs, and the students had to defer their repayments. Not only they had to pay compound interest to their outstanding balance, but they also had to pay interest to the interest. If it used to be that those who entered the labour force without attending college would be higher wages in the early stage of their lives, it is not so anymore. The low skill workers actually earn less now. 

Nobody becomes rich by gambling. Period. Despite knowing this, the enticement to give a go at gambling is becoming more difficult than ever to shake off. With flashes of advertisements flashing right in front of our faces ever so often and the ease of installing gambling devices apps, the one-arm bandit is literally at our fingertips. The system is rigged in such a way that the house never loses, no matter what the experts say.

In the modern world, every individual works for the nation and in return, the country will provide for its people, including those in the twilight of their lives. The retirement fund is set for that and never meddled with even at the worse of crisis. Slowly we realise that the money set aside for the sunset era is gradually becoming insufficient. The elders, it seems, have to continue working even at their post-retirement age. The cost of living has increased exponentially, and people are just living longer. The cost of keeping a person healthy is just too expensive. The returns that they hoping for from their retirement saving just did not materialise. 

This short presentation of five 20-minutes episodes shows in simple terms some of the problems with managing money.

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Wake up to a living nightmare!

Professor Thomas Sowell, the 90-year-old veteran economist and social theorist from Hoover Institute of Stanford University, is still active on social media. He is quick to give his opinion, backed by statistics and historical events, to run down ongoing national policies. He is an opinionated person and at one time was drawn to the idea of communism. His rationalisation for gravitating toward the left is that it is just human nature. He wants to share when one has nothing; conversely, he does not share when he tends to lose his 'hard-earned' possession. Sowell hails from Harlem, working as a postal worker as a young man and pulling himself up by his bootstrap to his current stature.

He often campaigns against affirmative action and minimum wage. He asserts that the Black American community had a better quality of life when the aforementioned policies were pinned upon them. Another recurrent theme in his rhetorics is the importance of the family unit in the upliftment of society. He does not justify the 'Black Life Matters' movement. Instead of blaming mistreatment of the blacks in the hands of a white-centred government, he puts the blame of disparity of the community on the 67% black families that have a single parent to manage their home. Between making ends meet and fulfilling personal needs, the parent has no choice but to leave their kids to the unsupervised influence of members of the neighbourhood. 

On the future of America, he sees a very bleak future. He pinpoints a decline in values like honesty and a sense of entitlement towards this end. To illustrate his point, he compared the black-outs in New York in 1965 and 1977.

During the 1965 power outage,  the incidence of crime was the lowest, whereas, in 1977, it saw plenty of looting and arson. Sowell posits that the 1965 society was one that saw the destruction of WW2 and the hard times that followed. Hence, they had some common decency to protect property and practised traditional morality. The later generation feels that by their existence, they feel entitled. Everybody owes them a living. If they fail, they quickly recoil to blame history, ancestry, and how the earlier society had oppressed them and continue to do so.

That is the mantra of the woke generation - every moment awake is a living nightmare.

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Equality, an unachievable dream?

City Of God (Malayalam, 2011)
Director: Lilo Jose Pullissery 

This film may mean different things to different people. Some may look at characters from four stories getting intertwined in the course of their lives. The storyteller tells the story in flashbacks and hyperlinks that finally paint a composite picture.

Basically, it can be divided into two main stories; one involving an immigrant Tamil unskilled workers in Kochin and their daily dealings, the other related to a group of rich and famous concerning an up and coming actress, her entourage and a tiff with a particular developer over a piece of land.  When we look closely, both parties are no different from each other; they consume alcohol, indulge in carnal pleasures putting aside social mores, and are involved in criminal activities.

The affluent side somehow can do their unkosher pursuits without invoking too much fanfare with their affluence. Somehow the wheel of justice and enforcement can be wrapped around their fingers with their wealth and influence. They can literally get away with murder. They are no paragons of virtue, not much different from their economically-challenged counterpart.

However, the whole might of the enforcement befalls upon the non-wealthy. To top it up, their social behaviours are closely scrutinised by the community itself. Morality restrictions are clamped upon them. The name of God and ancestral traditions are used towards this end. It seems that chastity laws only apply to the disadvantaged, not the well-heeled. 

(P.S. Not to be confused with the Brazilian 2002 movie 'City of God' about brutal gang wars in Rio de Janeiro's poor neighbourhoods. It seems everyone thinks their country is chosen by God. Keralites refer to their state as God's own country whilst Rio de Janeiro has the mammoth soapstone structure of Christ the Redeemer overlooking its city.)

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