RIFLE RANGE BOY

Three of Us (2022) Director: Avinash Arun Dhaware Memory changes with time, but time is independent of memory. Time, a construct of man, moves on as our Universe expands toward entropy, with or without our existence. The memory we hold so dear to our hearts has become our badge of honour as we traverse through life. Our memories of life are our crowning glory. In our minds, as far as our life is concerned, time fits into the concept of Sasa and Zamani as described by JS Mbiti as an African concept of time.  Sasa covers a time already experienced and an extremely brief future. Our Sasa, the memory of the past, becomes more significant as we spend more time on Earth. It goes on as long as we, as an individual or a community, can remember an event or someone. After that, Sasa goes into Zamani, the graveyard of time where everything ends. The memory of loved ones and ancestors lives on in Sasa as they are reminded of them through regular rituals and anniversaries. Hence, in African phi...

Mumbai Police (Malayalam, 2013) When one thinks of a commercial Indian police drama or a police procedural film, the first thing that comes to mind is the gravity-defying stunts. Thankfully, this movie does not have any of those, but there is the blatant abuse of power and the idea of one man singlehandedly manning the whole is still there, nevertheless. A police officer, Anthony Moses, is seen informing his superior, Farhan Aman, over the phone that he had solved the case they were working on and on his way to discuss it. A freak accident happens and he has selective retrograde amnesia. He does not remember his investigation but Farhan pushes him to finish what he had begun. The problem is that he does not remember even things about himself, his subordinates or who his siblings are. He learns many things slowly just by observing.  Anthony realises that his previous self must have been quite a nasty character. His co-tenants had it enough with his previous antics and want hi...

Radiopetti (Radio Box, Tamil; 2015) I used to wonder why the humming of the radio was the constant background of my home as I was growing up. At the first break of dawn, if Appa had the choice and not for Amma's nagging, it would start with the early morning chanting of Subrapaatham and just breeze through the day and night until transmissions ended. Yes, there used to be a time when even broadcasters called it a day,  mostly at the stroke of midnight. At that time, the radio announcers' songs and rants sounded more like a nuisance, as my sisters and I were busily cramping our cranial vaults with facts and notes to regurgitate in the next tests. Nobody could understand Appa's fixation with his cranky radio box, which he later graduated to a transistor radio. It was not that the devices were manufacturing Top 40 hits. Sometimes, only white noise or high-pitched zapping sounds emanate when he tunes in to the short-wave bands from Kuala Lumpur or Singapore.  But he cont...

Credit: topdocumentaryfilms.com We all know the drill - that up to 70% of our body is filled with water; that 70% of the Third Rock from the Sun is covered by water and that it is the elixir of life. We also accept oxygen and hydrogen molecules could be alien visitors who landed on Earth via meteorites that reached here. Scientists agree that water is indeed a strange chemical. With its composition, it should be in a gaseous state, not liquid as it is. Unlike other solids, water in a solid state is less dense, encouraging lifeforms to live and prosper under an iceberg. Capillary action ensures that water reaches the highest leaf of the giant redwood and the minuscule of the body organs. I will not do justice to the WhatsApp that my childhood friends and I share if I do not divulge some of the new things that were brought to my attention through them. Water has memory. Having been around for so long on this planet, it only makes sense. The same water molecule that was drunk by a...

Shirkers (2018) Producer and Director: Sandi Tan Imagine our life is like a giant boulder rolling down slowly the street without stopping. All along its path, it would be collecting grime and shedding filth at the same time. Some of the dirt that it picks up sticks for a good while others may leave as quickly as it is get attached. In our passage of life, every encounter is an event. Some contacts stay to build an everlasting bond and others may just be mere passing memories. Sometimes, we cling on to these flitting moments. We yearn to relive those moments as we feel we could have achieved more if we had followed a different trajectory or at least gasped to that speckle a little longer. That must be the reason why old photographs and footages evoke the kind of emotion that questions our existence. Spiralling our memories to a specific time and space could stir the avalanche of sensation that could make us wonder if our lives would have different if we had taken a ...

Thanks KC for the contribution. Cheerio. https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson   This work is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .