RIFLE RANGE BOY

Swatantrya Veer Savarkar (Hindi, 2024) Director: Randeep Hooda It is funny how names like Savarkar, Bhagat Singh and Subash Chandra Bose escaped our consciousness when we were taught Indian history in school. We were only told of Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian Congress Party and their brand of civil disobedience. Gandhi's passive demeanour, recurrent fasting, and imprisonment eventually won India's Independence. Oh, right! Savarkar and the gang were branded as terrorists and troublemakers, destroying the order, culture and modernity the highly evolved superior race brought to the lost natives.  Now, we are told of alternative narratives of events that may have happened during the 200 years of the Raj's rule in India. The victors control the narratives, but entertaining the other side of the story is worthwhile. Let us not forget that the immediate reason for the British's sudden exodus from Bharat was not just the bludgeoning British debt to India incurred during WW2 but th...

President Thomas Jefferson, left, and his predecessor, President John Adams. (Feuding Fathers) Getty Images At this time of one's life (stepping into the seventh decade of existence), one often wonders about all the people who made their appearances all along my life. Some of theirs were short and sweet. Some left with a sour aftertaste. Some got lost in the annals of times. Occasionally, I had people who took everything wrongly and left anything but amicably. One did not like the sight of me and had nothing nice to say about me. Well, what can I say but that the feeling was mutual. Recently, I read about the friendship between the two Founding Fathers of the United States of America. They were not really best friends. They had a big job to do for a greater cause. They looked at things from different perspectives; both felt compelled to defend their conviction until the end. Towards that end, they argued ferociously and wrote stinging letters to each other but all the time, acquiri...

Old enough! (Japanese, since 1991) Reality Show For a long time, people in Japan have been in stitches periodically, seeing toddlers who are barely able to walk going off on a journey to perform their first chore. Children between two (yes, as early as two) to five are assigned by their parents, as planned by the documentary makers, to go out of their houses, out in the street to run a list of errands.  It is thunderous to see these easily distractable cuties wobbling around with bags strapped over their shoulders, out in the streets, looking at buildings around them, reminding themselves how to get to their destinations. The camera crew who accompany them are not allowed to help them out. They act out as mere passers-by. Invariably, the children will end up completing their tasks. Besides seeing the kid's antics, viewers will also have a picturesque panoramic view of the landscape of different small towns in Japan. To market, to market, to buy a fat pig, Home again, Home again, ji...

Churchill's Secret Wars (2010) (The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during WW2) Author: Madhusree Mukerjee In 1952, Nehru appeared on BBC TV in his first ever TV appearance. He was invited to the UK to partake in the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. As the head of a former colony of the Crown, Nehru was there, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Winston Churchill, gracing the event. By that time, Churchill had descended from his intense contempt for all races except whites. Churchill must have been brimming from ear to ear as India and many other former colonies had consented to stay under the umbrage of the Crown under the title of the Commonwealth. If two hundred years of looting of wealth from India was insufficient, now their subjects have agreed to make their wealth common!  It is ironic that Nehru and the bulk of the Congress leaders spent crouched in jail all through the most pivotal years before Indian independence, during World War 2. It was the time all the wheel...

The RSS: Roadmaps 21st Century Sunil Ambekar Imagine a time 20 years ago. We were all fed with a single narrative. The government-controlled media or media barons churned out cable news will tell us 'the truth'. There was no counter-narrative to argue this. The world accepted this one version. The fringe publishment that aired an alternative perspective of the event is labelled a rabble-rouser and scorned. Now with the availability of all the information at our disposal, we are still unsure of many things. For every piece of news churned, there is an immediate contradictory explanation just to shoot it down at its inception, making us none the wiser. I have always been given the impression that RSS is terrible news. My brother-in-law, who spent much of his formative years in India, and his wife, an Indian citizen who gave up her citizenship for her newfound love and land, Malaysia, have no qualms that RSS is synonymous with bigotry and fanaticism. Any piece of news from RSS ( R...

Sardar Udham (Hindi; 2021) Director: Shoojit Sircar One always wonders how a cult started by a group of semi-literate fishermen at the fringe of the Roman Empire by the Sea of Galilee could eventually grow up to impress the whole of the Empire, including its rulers. This rebel's rhetorics soon triggered justified wars and legitimised usurping of lands to claim their hegemony. The belief system garnered potential believers because it targeted the oppressed or the persecuted. The marginalised and the dying were given the dignity to exist with others on Earth. In return, the converts were willing to trade in their lives (or, in their words, sell their soul) for the religion. Yes, martyrdom played an essential role in recruiting more new members.  As India goes on a spree to rewrite its national history, more and more heroes of yesteryears come to the fore. Sardar Udham Singh (@ Sher Singh @ Ram Mohammad Singh Azad) is one such example. He had been conferred the title Shaheed-i-Azam Sa...

RRR (Telugu; 2022) Director: S.S. Rajamouli Week after week, this film seems to be roaring to greater heights at the box office. And the reviewers are going gaga over the offering from Tollywood and giving the Bollywood mafia and their chamchas  a run for their money. The recent spate of blockbusters from the South cinema has evoked has started a Twitter war that may be related to the rekindling of the national language debate. RRR also reaffirmed the fact that the Baahubali duology was no flash in the pan. In keeping with Baahubali's drift, RRR also threads along with big bucks on CGI and historical slunt. In RRR, the storytellers decided to create a fictional account loosely based on the lives and times of two freedom fighters from India. Alluri Sita Rama Raju Alluri Sitaram Raju (1897-1924) opposed the 1882 British Forest Act, which restricted movement in forests. It interfered with the tribals' practice of the 'slash and burn' style of farming ( podu ). The reason f...

Bose or Gandhi - Who Got Her Freedom? Author: Maj Gen (Dr) GD Bakshi SM, VSM (Rtd) (2019) Viewers who have seen the good Major General in action during his interviews agree that he is pretty passionate about war. Hailing from a Pashtun Hindu family with a strong tradition in the military, there is no denying that he is a nationalist by every means.  This book results from detailed research of recently declassified sensitive correspondence documents of the British Foreign Office. Many of the communications happened between the local British officers and their superiors in London. The critical decision-makers involved here are Field Marshall Sir Claude Auchinleck (Commander-in-Chief in India), Field Marshall Archibald Percival (Viceroy of India), Lord Pethick-Lawrence (Secretary of State of India) and Lord Clement Attlee (Prime Minister). Included in the analysis were the many field reports from Provincial Governors to their bosses on their assessment of ...