Wage war against God?

Prisoners (2013)

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Sometimes, bad things happen to good people; conversely, good things happen to bad people. "Who are we to judge?" we ask ourselves. When things get too complicated, we end the conversation by saying, "God knows best!"

When an adult dies after living a fun-filled life with booze, drugs and flesh, we rationalise his demise by uttering words like 'he should have seen it coming' or 'he lived his life to the fullest'. When no vices are detected, the spot diagnosis would be 'God loved him more'. If the deceased is an infant, toddler or newborn, the standard answer is 'God, in his wisdom, had bigger plans.' We are too perplexed to think of a reasonable explanation. Invoking the name of God somehow seems acceptable. Washing hands the responsibility and passing the buck to an invisible force that does not justify His moves is legitimate. Nobody gets angry with God. Nobody can derail God's plans anyway.

This is what happens when people try to settle a score with God after losing their loved ones. A motherly lady, after losing her son to cancer, decides to wage war against God. To create demons out of parents, she abducts other people's children. The lady was on a mission to make God lose his followers. 

An intense movie narrating the tale of families whose young girls go missing. The parents, after finding that the police were not doing enough, decide to take the law into their own hands, acting on a hunch only.

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Jury on Trial?

Juror #2
Director: Clint Eastwood

Yet another big one from Clint Eastwood. This 94-year-old may have directed his last movie, but one can never say never. This one makes us think, as did his previous offerings, like 'Letters from Iwo Jima', 'Flags of Our Fathers', and 'Gran Torino'.

It is a courtroom drama along the lines of '12 Angry Men', where the moral decision of convicting a person of a serious crime is the mainstay. This film, however, goes one step further. One of the jurors, Juror #2, may have committed the murder in the case he is judging. On the day of the incident, the Juror witnessed the tussle between the accused and his girlfriend at a bar. The girlfriend was found dead later that night by a creek beside a road. The accused was seen following his girlfriend in his car. With his destructive anger management issues, he was naturally accused of having mortally wounded his girlfriend. 

The trouble is Juror #2 is a recovering alcoholic and was nursing the pain of losing a pair of twins a year previously. He was fighting his inner demons to resist the bottle again. Self-restraint allegedly won the day. As he left the bar, he drove the same country road as the other two. Just as the Juror bent to pick up his phone to answer a call from his wife, he felt a thud. He looked up and saw nothing except for a deer crossing sign. He checked his car for damage and moved on, assuming he had hit a running deer. 

Juror #2 slowly realises, as he sits through the case, and with sudden flashes of his accident from the same night in his mind, that he could be the killer instead of the accused. What was he to do? Resign from his post, which may turn investigations towards him. At a time when he is looking forward to being sober for so long and ushering in his soon-to-be-born child, the last thing he needs is to go to prison.

With all the evidence stacked against the accused, argued by a DA with political ambitions, the accused is sure to be incarcerated for the crime he did not commit. A moral dilemma ensues within the Juror. Should he ensure that the jury delivers a unanimous decision of guilty so he (the Juror) is off the hook? If a mistrial is declared when the jury cannot convict him, the police may have to investigate again, and the Juror's name may crop up.

Does the truth reveal itself in the end? If the truth is so powerful and can maintain balance, why must we defend it? Is it everyone's moral duty to protect the truth no matter what it may do to them and the people around them? In the same breath, we insist that many versions of the truth exist. Who determines which is true, anyway? Many versions of it seem right from their perspective. Have they not heard of the Rashomon effect? Sometimes, truth is watered down to preserve peace.

Still, we insist on a fair hearing and that everyone deserves to be adequately represented. And we realise that many guilty criminals, with the power of the best legal minds that money can buy behind them, get away scot-free through technicalities. The innocent, too, can be punished with overwhelming circumstantial evidence. When a notoriously bad person who had escaped convictions before is penalised for a crime he did not commit, we say that his crimes have finally caught up with him. We justify the wrongful conviction akin to a person who lives by the sword and dies by it. Are the lawyers less enthusiastic about defending such criminals, or is wealth the determinant?

Are you being dishonest by putting your self-interest above doing the right thing? After all, no man is an island. On the other hand, no innocent man should be punished for something he did not do. Some feel pressured to mete out instant justice. We take shortcuts and cut down on paperwork. We don blinkers to confirm our biases and refuse to see beyond our scope of vision.

When a miscarriage of justice happens right in front of your eyes, just how far would you go to right the wrong, especially when it involves an admission of guilt? With the admission of error, you must bear the brunt of losing face and position. 

There are no answers, only questions. The film ends on a cliffhanger, probably on purpose, so viewers can ponder it and draw conclusions. It brings viewers into serious discussions on truth, justice, morality, and guilt.

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Even the Universe does not bother!

The New Indian Lady Justice
Note the saree, absence of blindfold and sword.
(knowledge replaces brutal force)

I have been naive all through my formative and even adult life. I had thought that Truth or the Universe would put everything in order. In the end, Dharma will rule. No matter how deviant, conniving, or evil humans may be, Nature has a way of tipping things back to equilibrium. 

Little things convinced me of this. When Man thought pests needed to be eradicated to increase their harvest yield, he introduced DDT. Little did he know it disrupted the food chain, from insects to birds and pollination of flowers and back to less yield. The spring of 1962 fell silent. When environmentalists were screaming, 'Save the Tigers on Sundarbans', little did they know that they had later to give protection to the people of that region when the tiger population doubled.

People equate the Courts with holding the balance of Justice. The courts are supposed to be independent, not swayed by emotion or power. We were convinced that everyone is equal in the eyes of the Law.

Increasingly, I think the Law has squinted eyes. One may argue that squinting does not equal altered vision. Neither does it refer to poverty of thought or vision. To the observer, however, it will always appear skewed to a particular side. After all, perception is vital in Law. Justice must be seen to be done.

It is apparent to my lay mind that the verdict of court cases, especially involving senior political leaders, go whichever way the current political wind blows. At the discretion of the learned justices, cases can go into cold storage, be fast-tracked or simply acquitted. When the evidence is too compelling, the accused may be off the hook awaiting temporarily, their cases seeing daylight at a later date (discharged not amounting to acquittal; DNAA), the wisdom of which is only known to the learned justices and the sycophants of the accused.

It is evident that the legal and judiciary systems pander to the might of those in power and bow to the general public's sentiments. The take-home message is that there is no right or wrong. Everything is contextual, including the direction of the public sentiments. Like a flower dependent on the elements of Nature to be pollinated, mere mortals get shoved and pushed around. 

Read the fascinating history of the coming of power of China's first Empress, Wu Zeitan. Her ascent to the throne was spectacularly bizarre. Starting off as a concubine, not even the favourite but sixth in line, she wrangled her way to be the Empress by killing her own daughter and blaming it on the reigning Emperor's consort. Her melodrama paid off. Even as the Empress, she called the shots of how the kingdom must be ruled. Her assertiveness and charisma made all the officials follow her line. She even paraded herself as a reincarnation of one of Buddha's female disciples. That regularised her demigod status and spread Buddhism to sell the religion to justify her maleficences. All the checks and balances were under her thumb. The learned court officers just toed the line in unison. The government machinery followed her tailcoat (or regal royal attire). The economy prospered, and peace was palpable. 

Maybe prosperity and peace of mind are all that matter at the end of the day, not righting all wrongs. One has to see the bigger picture, perhaps.) It is the economy, stupid, as uttered by a fornicator who went on to be the President and got away scot-free. In his mind, he did not have a sexual relationship with Lewinsky as, unlike others, he did think oral sex was sex. He was acquitted of impeachment charges by the US Senate. He is a respected speaker who earns millions around the world. The world no longer expects a leader to be virtuous. As long there is money. In Clinton's immortal words, 'It is the economy stupid!'

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Danger of swift justice!

We Want Justice!

A thing or two came up on my radar recently. Firstly, yet again, the unending saga of 1MDB took another court postponement. The deposed Malaysian PM has not finished disposing of his cases. This time, he has excruciating knee pain that needs hospitalisation. When told to be wheeled into the courtroom, the defence lawyers quipped that since he would be on opioid painkillers, he would not be in the correct frame of mind to follow the proceeding. They said their client must be seen to be given a fair trial. So be it, said the judges. 

Across the Straits of Malacca and Bay of Bengal, over in Kalkota, demonstrators are screaming that new legislation must be passed to expedite trials on rapists and impose the death penalty on them. The West Bengal Legislative Assembly even stipulated that investigations into sexual assault and rape must be concluded in 21 days.

Are we overdoing it in the haste to right the wrong, punish the wrongdoers, and set an example to potential offenders? 

The story of Kannagi, which was written by Illango in Silapathikaram in the Sangam epoch, probably in the 2nd century CE, comes to mind. Even though it is generally accepted as a literary work, some insist the likes of Kannagi walked as flesh and blood in the lands of Madurai. There is evidence that a big fire actually engulfed Madurai around that time. There is even a temple commemorating Kanagi as a symbol of chastity. To this day, people in Northern Sri Lanka still have a commemorative celebration on a particular day of her ascension to the heavens. Kannagi is said to have arrived in Sri Lanka after leaving Madurai and stopping at Kerala.

What does Kannagi's story have to do with dispensing justice? Everything!

Kannagi, a wealthy merchant's daughter, married Kovalan, a trader. During his business trips, Kovalan met a dancer, Madhavi. Kovalan started an affair with Madhavi, spending way too much time and money on her. When he realised his coffers were dry, Kovalan finally came to his senses and returned to his faithful wife. 

Kannagi and Kovalan decide to start all over again. They left their hometown, Perompahar, to settle in Madurai. For money, Kovalan left to sell Kannagi's anklet. 

Coincidentally, the news was that the Queen had lost her anklet. The royal goldsmith, who had stolen the anklet, accused Kovalan of being the thief. Kovalan was apprehended, given a half-hearted trial, and beheaded for being caught red-handed with the anklet.

Chera-Chola-Pandya kingdoms
300BCE - 300 CE

Kannagi charged into the royal court after hearing what had befallen her husband. She demanded justice from the King who had erred. She threw in her other anklet, similar to the confiscated one. It had rubies implanted into it, unlike the Queen's, which had pearls. Pandya King Nedilcharan had a heart attack and died on the spot. The Queen followed suit. The raged Kannagi started burning the curtains, and fires spread rapidly. She is said to have sliced off her breast in a fit of rage and fled the town. Fable has it that Meenachi, the city's guardian Goddess, had to come down to pacify her.

The event highlighted the trouble with hasty trials without proper detailed investigations and adequate representations. One innocent life lost is one life too many.

No matter how enraged society is, due process of the law must continue. Striking the iron when it is hot may burn one's fingers.

Silapathigaram is one of the five great epics said to have come from South India in the Sangam era, the golden era of Tamil literature. The epics of the Sangam period, which lasted between 300 BCE and 300 CE, are Seevaka-Kintamani, Silappathigaram, Manimegalai, Kundalakesi and Valayapathi. Tolkappiam is said to be the oldest scripture available from this era. In this period, different parts of this region were ruled by three major Empires, Chera, Chola and Pandya, with Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism with various popularity over time. Some staunch Tamil literary figures insist that scriptures of the Sangam period are of higher literary value than even epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata. It is less cluttered and gives a vivid description of life and culture in ancient Tamil lands without involving too many characters. Works emanating from this era gave valuable South religious, sociopolitical and economic conditions. They were written in poetry and sometimes prose form in Tamil script.

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Only when you need!

Indian 2(Tamil, 2024)

Director: S. Shankar

Even though his movie did not live up to its predecessor, which came out in 1996, there are a few instances in the film that make the Indian diaspora pause and reevaluate their behaviours.

Forget what is happening in India. It would be irrelevant for a person residing in India to assess and enumerate the changes in India since the original Indian movie came out 28 years ago. Let a Malaysian of the Indian diaspora look at what has changed since.

The theme of Indian 1 was to highlight how the system was broken because of rampant corruption and the lack of willpower of civil servants and public figures to change the status quo. It took a pre-independence freedom fighter to re-don his combat gear to highlight the rot to the public consciousness. In his own psychotic ways, Indian Tata (grandpa) brought the people in charge to task, even killing his own son approving the permit of an unroadworthy school bus, which killed many school kids.

That is when the sequel fits in. Corruption never really went anywhere. The police, who were supposed to be the last bastion to uphold law and order, are blatantly on the take and kowtowing shamelessly to thugs and politicians. Court cases are progressing nowhere. Dishonesty and untruths rule the day. The general public is getting hot under their collars. A group of vloggers who fight for social justice reminisce about the time when Indian Tata was around to save the day. As he was never caught, the public suspects he is still alive but had gone underground. They pleaded for Indian Tata to return via social media, of course.

It seems that Indian Tata is all well and hearty in Taiwan, living incognito and minding his own business. He is cajoled to return to India.

After returning to what he does best with ancient Indian martial arts, Varma Kalai, he soon realises that the table has turned. When an apparently wrong person is arrested, Indian Tata becomes India's most hated person. People start chanting, "Go back, Indian! "

The film hits you at two levels. You soon realise that the world and all its affairs are too intertwined. No one saviour can come and save the day. A slash-hammer approach to right the wrong is too simplistic. It is naive to think people do not want to be good and do the correct thing. They simply cannot. Like a Jenga structure, the whole system is maintained in position by complicated ad-hoc, haphazardly placed Jenga sticks. It stays intact as long as the sticks are well placed. Forget about getting it in symmetry or making it aesthetically pleasing. It is what it is.

The phrase 'go back to India' or its Malay translation 'oi, balik India!' has a familiar ring to those who grew up in Malaysia. Quite often in our childhood, we have hurled abuses like these from mobs or groups of young Malay boys all riled up in the spirit of, say, football or hockey games. Even though no one who is non-Indian would tell it on the face of a fellow Malaysian Indian, offensives like these are tolerated.

It is also a lesson that I learned in life that people will hold you in high esteem only if it suits them and would not have a second thought to drop you like a hot potato when your services are not needed anymore. So do not gloat in the praises of others. The same mouth that uttered niceties, in no time, will be cussing you, maybe spitting at you too!

[P.S. An episode in the Mahabharata comes to mind. While travelling from Dwarka to Indrapura, Krishna and Arjuna overheard a fellow traveller singing praises of Karna, Arjuna's arch-enemy. The traveller was talking about Karna's philanthropy. An incensed Arjuna told Krishna that his statement was unfair. After all, Karna's wealth was not his as he had inherited them. He did not earn them. People should be praised for what they have earned or worked hard for. Arjuna had worked to be the great warrior he was. People should be praising Arjuna, not Karna. 

In his great wisdom, Krishna put Arjuna to the test. Arjuna was shown a mountain of gold to be distributed to the needy. He was given a whole day to complete the task. Getting meticulous in the task, Arjuna tried to divide the gold according to people's needs. He gave halfway as none of the recipients were happy. Those who got less, whom Arjuna thought deserved less, wanted more. Those who got more wanted even more. 

Soon, Krishna assigned the same job to Karna. Karna completed the task in a jiffy, and everyone was happy. What Karna did was to get someone who was already in the charity business to finance him to continue doing his good job with Karna's assistance. The moral of the story is that there are people assigned to do certain jobs. Let them handle it. Do not think you have to solve everybody's problem. Not everyone is cut for the job. You will end up unhappy, and so will others.]

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Escaping the glance of Lady Justice?

Taxi Driver (Miniseries, S1E1-16; Korean; 2021)

With the wisdom proffered by age and experiences learned from the School of Hard Knocks, I am convinced that life is convoluted. Nothing one does is 100% right or good; conversely, not doing is not always wrong. If one can justify his actions and give convincing rhetoric, he can be considered a do-gooder. 

The miniseries is about this in sixteen episodes and more than 16 hours altogether. In the crooks-filled metropolitan city of Seoul, there is no shortage of murderers and serial killers. After the tedious process of investigating, collecting evidence and prosecuting, the victims and their relatives find that the courts are pretty docile. More often than not, the accused go scot-free. Sometimes, they get away with a slap on the wrist or technical issues. The feeling is that the perpetrators never feel the pain that the victims and their families endured. To add injury to insult, the wrongdoers mock the system, police and the accusers and carry on the things they do best with impunity. 

With increasingly intelligent lawyers with crooked minds to catch the obscure loophole in the law, more wrongdoers escape the glance of Lady Justice (because she is blindfolded?). Because law practitioners find better remuneration defending the accused than prosecuting them, the best ones bend over backwards to get them off the hook. Forensic sciences have improved by leaps and bounds, and so have the ways to create the element of doubt. The fear of punishing a single innocent person over letting a guilty person for free is always there. The need to convict someone beyond a reasonable doubt is always the mantra.

Victims of serial killers get together to apprehend to mete their own brand of punishment under the guise of running a taxi company. To help out in their endeavour, they get the help of a local mafia lady boss. Hot on their trail is a young prosecutor who senses something fishy going on under the hood of the taxi company.

The season tackles many societal issues that often go unnoticed. A mentally challenged lady is abused at a factory that was supposedly set up for the specially-abled. The culture of workplace bullying to achieve better sales hits the roof when someone is beaten up. A high school boy is bullied because he is poor. The protagonist of the show, an ex-army, had his mother killed by a mad killer and has set his life mission to save victims of the evil elements of society. He passes his name card to the person he thinks needs his help. In this vigilante group are the CEO of an NGO, a hacker and two mechanics.

In the later episodes, the vigilante group realise that they have been cheated by the Mafia, who opt to monetise the prisoners by harvesting their organs! A three-cornered pursuit starts, with the police and public prosecutor's office on one side, the other being the Mafia and the vigilante group.

Playing by the book may not be the best; neither is taking the law into your own hands. What if the situation and circumstances squarely put the wrong person as guilty? It happened in this miniseries. A man was wrongly jailed for 20 years only to be released later after the real killer confessed. Who will return the 20 years of loss of respect, job, love, family life, seeing the world change, and living the one life he had been sent to Earth for?

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Because the clairvoyant said so?

Zulfarhan Osman

A news report piqued my interest recently. The parents of a murdered college student prostrated in prayer right after the verdict was announced by the court of appeal that six accused would be hanged. Later, they told reporters they were showing their appreciation to the Almighty as justice was done. 

These types of news often leave me more perplexed than I already am. An overseeing Almighty who was cognisant of all the things going on with their loved one but procrastinated would typically get a cold shoulder. If He were a mere mortal, He would get a notice of professional negligence for napping on the job. His nemesis, the horned and tailed one, through His proxies in robes, would have a field day trying to act smart and reenact all the fraction of seconds when danger could have been averted. But deep inside, these Satan's representatives on Earth thrive on maladies like these. 

On one hand, we are products of the Original Sin, imperfect in every way and prone to being tempted to wrongdoings. However, we are still expected to bear the effects of our misdeeds. 

We are expected to forgive and forget like He forgives us every time we commit a sin. And we claim that the justice He metes is just. Yet we investigate, leave nothing unturned, exhume, and do a forensic investigation to the last foxhole to pin down the perpetrator and hurl the whole might of the law against him. We gain joy in seeing the accused squirm and hide in shame. We call this justice prevailed. 

On the other hand, we have an abundance of examples of the victims' families forgiving their aggressors. I covered this in another post. (See here.)

(P.S. For the curious, the abovementioned case happened in a military college in Kuala Lumpur. In 2017, six students, then 21, accused a 17-year-old junior of stealing a laptop computer. A seer had earlier identified the 17-year-old as the thief. The six students, together with 12 other friends, try to beat and torture the young boy to confess. They burnt his body and privates with hot iron. The perpetrators concealed him from the hostel warden, and delaying medical attention, the 17-year-old succumbed to his injuries two weeks later. The six accused were found guilty and sentenced to 18 years of jail. The accomplices were jailed for three years. The six were given sentences to hang at the Court of Appeal.)

(P.P.S. Alfred Hitchcock's 'Rope', based on an actual event, comes to mind. How two students of Chicago University in 1924 thought it was cool to snap the neck of a 14-year-old boy!)

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google.com, pub-8936739298367050, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0

You are not what you eat!

No disrespect is intended for the believers, but these could be cautionary tales for others.

Recently, a close relative told me that he had made an appointment to meet a holy man at the unusual hour of 3 a.m. It may appear unearthly to some, but to others, it is referred to as 'Brahmamuhurtham'*, one of the most auspicious times of the day. The holy man wanted to dispel him of some negative energies.

Quickly, my mind wandered to the story of P. Rajagopal, the founder of the world-famous chain of South Indian vegetarian restaurants, Saravana Bhava. A classic tale of how capitalism breeds entrepreneurship and how trickle-down economics works is his life story. Starting off as the son of a poor onion farmer, he ran away from home to work as a chaiwala. He later became a sundry shop owner but was restless. Being the pious person he was (he named his shop after Lord Muruga), he consulted a priest-astrologer about his future. By then, he was married to Vani, his first wife.

The astrologer predicted that his horoscope predicted that Rajagopal could be someone world-famous if he dealt with fire. At about that time, a restaurant was on sale. Taking that as a sign from the Universe, he started his first restaurant in 1981. Rajagopal and Vani worked extremely hard. In rolled in cash, the opening of branches and the expanding workforce. Rajagopal was a kind employer, and his workers were extremely loyal to him. He provided them with accommodation, medical benefits, and even holiday packages. In return, he demanded high-quality work (cleanliness and service) and loyalty.

Rajagopal and Vani's married life lost their lustre soon afterwards. In came Rajagopal's second wife, the daughter of one of his staff.

The astrologer was always behind the scenes, periodically advising on how to improve his already successful business in the future. His chain of restaurants had gone global, and Rajagopal was known as a philanthropist who donated to temples and the needy.

By then, Rajagopal was already eyeing another young lassy, the daughter of another employee. The astrologer encouraged Rajagopal, convincing him he would reach greater heights by marrying her. Trying to escape his advances, the girl, Jeevajothi, went on to marry her boyfriend. One thing led to another, and in 2001, Jeevajothi's husband was killed by Rajagopal's henchmen.

With his influence and enormous wealth, Rajagopal managed to keep bail and stay away from prison till his case went up to the Supreme Court in 2019. By then, Rajagopal was quite ill and died at 71 before he could commence his life sentence.

It has been over 15 years since I last patronised a Saravana Bhava outlet. The last time I savoured their thosai and all their vegetarian cuisine, I could not help but imagine all the blood, sweat, lust and murder that went into preparing the dish. It is perplexing that a person who painstakingly ensured his vegetarian (sattvik) preparations were of high quality had no qualms about exhibiting so much violence and went to the extent of murder to achieve his desires. He is not a good poster boy to sell the idea that we are what we eat. Above all, the brain must function, and periodic self-appraisal is mandatory.

The next time someone claims to have accurately analysed your future through horoscopic facial recognition science, palmistry, and chart analysis of your birthdate, be wary. Remember, the higher your climb, the harder the fall and the more painful it will be on your posterior. 

*Brahmamuhurta is a 48-minute period that begins one hour and 36 minutes before sunrise and ends 48 minutes before sunrise.

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