RIFLE RANGE BOY

“For a vegetarian, you seem to have a lot of demands,” I told myself.   I am obviously out of sync with what being vegetarian means these days. At an age when everyone demands rights, I guess it is the same for vegetarians (and vegans, too). Rightly so too. Everyone deserves their place in the sun or rather on Earth, the rich, the economically challenged, the disabled bodies and pretty much everyone else.   From the things that I understood in my impressionable age, by sticking around erudite adults, I assumed that one needs to control his primal desires to be a better soul. By suppressing innate desires to attack, devour and consume fellow members of the animal kingdom, it is believed people would pick up more brownie karmic points in the repeating cycles of rebirth. Hurting the sentiments of their own kind with their uppity attitude does not count.   Of course, some have turned green for health reasons. Perhaps they had a pressing need to care for the environment or jus...

Chief, Doggy extraordinaire Credit: IMDB I watched an episode of the documentary 'Forensic Files' where a dog, when it failed to protects its masters, still managed to bring justice to the masters via its DNA to expose the identity of their murderers.  A group of gangsters had entered a couple's home mistakenly thinking that the stash cocaine that they were looking for was there. Chief, a pit bull-Labrador mix pet of the household, pounced at the intruders only to be subdued by a gunshot on its shoulder. The gangsters continued their harassment by shooting the wife dead and giving non-fatal shots at the husband. Despite his near-fatal wound, Chief pounced back on the shooter as he was aiming at his master's chest. The shooter turned and shot Chief right between the eyes. The couple and their pet succumbed to the injuries eventually. Despite all the extensive police investigations, the perpetrators could not be pinpointed. Finally, Chief's DNA and furs were instrumen...

Flowers (BBC4; 2016) Everyone starts life with so much of vigour and hope. They have certain expectations in life. They may have many aspirations and dreams that they may want of their family, their love ones and their offsprings. The dreams may just be sandcastles in the air, wishful thinking or a desire to satisfy their own unfilled dreams. The problem is everyone has their own ideas how these ambitions should be attained. And they make their wishes known. They also want others to follow the path that they feel is a sure way to success. The problem is there are many ways to Rome, and everyone has their pace at taking the journey, Some rush from point A to point B with blinkers; other smell the fresh air and enjoy the bloom! Herein arise the problem. The inability to keep us with each others' expectations draw parties farther and farther apart. To somehow maintain the divine sanctity of the family unit, people go to great lengths to prevent it from crumbling even at the expen...

Experimenter (2015) Now, how often have we seen seemingly good people doing incomprehensibly evil deeds which are atypical of their general behaviour and predisposition? Too many times, middle management officers had been cruel beyond comprehension just because they were given the authority to do so. Even though, these junior officials know it is wrong to do certain things, they still do it as long as somebody else is taking charge. This phenomenon of blind obedience to authority was a favourite subject of Dr Stanley Milgram, a Jewish psychologist whose relatives perished in Hitler's concentration camps. The question of the Holocaust and the justification for the acts of genocide by those accused at the Nuremberg trial must have been close to his heart. Around the time of Eichmann trial, in 1962, in Yale, Milgram performed an ingenious social experiment (see Youtube clip below) which was later condemned as unethical, for invoking emotional stress is some participants, to ...

The Golden Ball, a British game show is said to be able to show the conniving nature of humanity. In the last round of the show, the remaining two contestants face a face-off to win the jackpot money (lots of it). They are given two golden balls with either split or steal written on it. If both contestants choose split, the prize money would be split between them. If both choose steal, both go back with nothing. If one chose steal and the other chose split, the one who chose split will end up as the stupid fellow goes back empty-handed whilst the steal goes with the lion's share of the loot. So the rush is for the contestant not to be the stupid fellow who is slouched in the chair disappointed! In the previous shows, even the girl-next-door goody two shoes looking blue eyed dumb looking blondes had taken their opponents for a ride and mean looking tattooed and moustachioed dudes had failed. This guy, Nick had a final round face off with Ibrahim below. Nick's strategy was tha...

No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka (2013, Documentary) Director: Callum Macrae One of our lecturers (RS) back in university told us that the more we tried to hide something, the more people would want to see. And at that time, he was referring to the then sudden urge to preserve modesty or at least put a show of, by university students after 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution. Once it is bare open, people would lose interest. Words of wisdom, come to think of it! I decided to watch this award winning documentary which was aired last before the CHOGM meeting and Sri Lanka was to head the association that carries no real power but to remind (haunt) Britain of their glorious past! It only came to my attention after reading about its ban in Malaysia and the ongoing court case where the organiser of a public screening is charged.  Just when you thought there was hope in humanity, comes this graphically disturbing images of people systematically eliminating a certain...

The Living Dead (1995) Written and Produced by Adam Curtis #1. On the Desperate Edge of Now. This episode takes through the victors attempt of suppressing history. The victorious Allied Forces successfully rewrote the history of the Germans. The Germans were portrayed as the pinnacle of all evil through the doctored Nazi propaganda films, conveniently blanking out their sufferings and deeds. Hermann Goering's testimony at the Nuremberg trial was sped through without listening to the justification of Nazi party's path of life. Goering's justification of why Germany took the path of Fascism over democracy to steamroll the country into modernity after WW1 when democracy had failed was just pushed aside. Instead, testimony from low ranking Nazi officers were given credence. In a single trial, the Allied Forces justified to the world their march into an evil war to ward off an evil regime. The suffering Germans were too traumatized to fight the altere...

"Daily Mail" True Crime: Classic, Rare and Unseen(2009) By Tim Hill Sometimes, we wonder why is it that, human beings have a fascination towards murder and other heinous crimes. Just have a look at almost all prime time TV shows. They all feature killings and evil as their central pillar. Anyway, with the blurring of what used to be prime time and since now TV is on 24/7 and is cheap and is available all rooms of the house (include the toilet), the concept of prime time where the whole family would sit together after their dinner is not existent. That propagated mini-series and soap operas that also include the above sins as well as other vices like infidelity, cheating and lying for good measure! In the old days when one has to wait a full week for his dose of crime, with the advent of cable TV, he is on a perpetual chronic overdose! In spite of the society's abhorrence to violence, the world we live in, animal or human kingdoms, is full of violence. In the ani...

Laddu anyone? Something to sweeten your day! This is the picture that greeted readers of the international news today (Nov 22nd). A group of people distributing sweets to the public and in some places having street dances and lighting firecrackers because the law of the country had the courage to hang the Bombay bomber of 2008, 26th November, railway station massacre, Ajmal Kasab of Pakistan. Sure, his and his accomplices' actions have been the cause of many a teardrop and devastation to befall on the nation. This is not, however, the end of the 'tit for tat' action and reaction but just a trigger that would eventually leave the whole world blind. Ajmal Kasab The grieving siblings of the jihadist and the parents who had so much hope on this young man are bound to call for blood. On a short-term, the hanging could seem to pacify the widow of the constable who was killed in the tour of duty in apprehending Kasab and the family of the grieving victims. On a humanit...

There are many websites talking about plethora of subjects leaving us all spoilt for choice. The readers should develop the maturity to critically evaluate its content and to take things with a pinch of salt and not to gulp it whole like what a python would do. There is this blog on Hinduism which crossed my path as one often does when they float across the cyberspace. I thought it was interesting as it explained the relevance of various Hindu festivals, the significance of certain Hindu practices and such. Through it I came to realise that almost everyday has its auspiciousness. Some of the explanations were pseudo-scientific (looking from my nimble minded lens) in nature. For instance, one of the reasons why one should frequent the temple is that it would help to transmit positive energies to its devotees. The offered rationalization is that the direction of the construction of temples along N-S magnetic lines and the placement of copper under the deity generates positive vibes. ...

Papa Roach! The law of Nature as described by Charles Darwin is that the world is for the fittest. Over time, to allow the survival of the not-so-fit (the sick, handicapped and weak) and to allow them to share the wealth of Nature and co-habitat on Earth, man created the concept of God and putting the fear (of God) of a super Being watching your move and deciphering your every thought with the promise of 72 virgins in the after world and possibilities of moving up the ladder of karma with every divine deed must have been introduced. 65 million years ago, the last the roaming dinosaurs were wiped off the surface of Mother Earth probably due to adverse planet conditions or attack by giant meteors. Apparently certain die-hard never-say-die survivors survived this catastrophe and have managed to cling on to their style of living amongst us even as we speak. I am of course referring to our not so friendly home grown roaches (have been around for more than 300 million years) and members ...