RIFLE RANGE BOY

Perjuangan Politik Komuniti India dan Kempimpinan Malaysia Indian Congress 1946-2020 (Indian Community Political Struggle and the Leadership of Malaysian Indian Congress 1946-2020) (Malaysian Language; 2023) Author: Periasamy Muthan, M.A. The story of Indians sojourning in the Malayan peninsula goes way back to a time before any form of Malay influence was seen here. Traces of its Swarnabhumi history, which is really the root of the cultural civilisation of this region, were systemically hushed by the ruling class to put their version of Malaya where it sprung out of nothing to be civilised by Muslim traders and thinkers. After the first wave of Indian settlers, who came in around the time of the Malacca sultanate, the second wave arrived at the end of the nineteenth century with the British clerical team. The bulk of Indians, however, were brought in to work in the sugarcane, coffee, and later rubber plantations in the early 20th century. Working under slave-like conditions, the natur...

Kidugu (Cover, Tamil, 2023) Director: V Veera Murugan This is an all-out political bashing movie. In a state where the silver screen and political stage are closely intertwined, the ruling parties have used cinema to spread their brand of politics for years. The story goes back to the pre-independence era. The Justice Party (JP), the biggest party representing a large chunk of South India, parted ways from the Indian Congress Party (INC). JP felt INC was too Hindu in its outlook. JP claimed to be the sole representative of the downtrodden, and INC needed to do more. At the same time, JP was selling the idea that Hinduism and Lord Rama were just Northern India's subtle way of subjugating the Southerners. In a bizarre twist of events, JP's leaders, at one time, did not want to join the Union of India but rather become part of Pakistan. Its founder, EV Ramasamy, lamented that the 15th of August 1947 was a day of mourning, not a celebration. In 1972, Ramasamy was accused of disresp...

This weekend would see meaningless parties and stupifying merrymaking in the name of a monarch who is synonymous with opulence and redundancy. There cannot be a worse time to glorify a family when the rest of the world looks at entitlement as a bad word. The idea of a person, by his birth, being feted up to high heavens despite all the scandals that have linked with the royal family does not make any sense. It is worse when the ruling monarch takes the helm as the head of the Church of England. Nothing looks pretty when we talk about their predecessors' curriculum vitae or past glory. Her laurels include legitimisation of robbing non-British merchant ships of their gold and silver, giving a royal seal to pirates to loot the Spanish royal armada of their wealth,  allowing famine deaths in their subjects (just because they are brown) to feed their soldiers and brutally murdering millions in the name of civilising the natives. Yes, the Platinum Jubilee of the longest-reigning British ...

Party (Hindi; 1984) Director:  Govind Nihalani This film remains relevant even when we have ventured into the 21st century. The issues highlighted in this movie are not only confined to Indian society but can be applicable the world over. In fact, if activism and washing of dirty linen used to be restricted to exclusive cocktail parties those days, now it is party-time anytime. At the tip of the finger, with the clattering of keyboards, people can broadcast their views to the world. Many things are going on in the lives of the attendees of this private party. The party was held to fete a celebrated playwright, Diwakar, who was recently conferred a national award. The host, Damayanthi, a widow, is rumoured to have an illicit relationship with Diwakar. Divakar's wife, Mohini, is a much younger person than him, an actor who stopped acting after marriage is a frustrated woman. Away from the limelight, she yearns for and reminisces about the centre of attraction she used to be. Others t...

The Mitrokhin Archive II (2005) It all sounds like a plot of an espionage paperback set in the Cold War era. The only thing that makes it interesting is that it is said to have happened in the real world - that a KGB employee, disillusioned with the direction that Communist Russia was taking, should decide to painstakingly make short notes, via his handwriting, of secret documents as the KGB headquarters was relocated and the archives, in the pre-internet days, were transferred. Vasili Mitrokhin, the low-level official, after the collapse of Soviet Union, in 1992, decided to take his 10 years worth of handwritten documents and to defect to the West. He had apparently shown up at the American Embassy in Latvia with his papers but was turned down. At the British Embassy, however, he was cordially offered a cup of tea and the rest, as they say, is history.     The papers were a damning account of the clandestine activities of Soviet Russia in many countries of the world....

Heard an interview with Malaysia's premier cartoonist, Lat, recently. I was fascinated with the part of the interview when he was doing a cartoon strip in a national daily many years ago. He was doing a strip which ran daily on weekdays, and it was a continuing story. One Friday, he was stuck. He did not know how to continue with his narration, and he had until Sunday evening to submit his work. He had a kind of writer's block, not knowing how to proceed. Rather than staring blankly at his wall, he thought a little unwinding would help. Downing one or two of his favourite beverages and whipping up a conversation with a couple of his occasional acquaintances, it suddenly dawned upon him. Inspiration sprang from everywhere, and he went on to complete his story to become everybody's satirist. That is what my friends in the creative field tell me. Whenever they hit a brick wall, ideas come sprawling down when they go out and mingle with people. It seems people-gazing o...

I remember long ago when Penang was still very colonial in its outlook. Celebrations which were considered Western in nature were still much in vogue as late as late 60s and early 70s - street celebratory parades, chingay, flower arrangements, processions with local beauties and firework display during New Year. Appa has taken the whole family for such celebrations many times when I was a kid, before RRF days and life was happy. I vividly remember watching the fire works from the streets along Duke Streets back in 1970. Of course, as in our dreams, memories of fireworks are in monochromatic hues. I do not remember any other colour appearing in that pitch black sky except for white but in various shapes and patterns. After the show, the crowd, all watching from the streets slowly sauntered towards the bus stop to head home. Some, obviously dissatisfied with wasting the night away which was just beginning, would instead start their stuporous march towards their favourite hideout...

In the Malay lingo, the phrase 'ajak-ajak ayam' refers to an insincere invitation. Of course, many of us invite for courtesy's sake, but then the invitee may think that the invitation is for real! How does anyone know? Inviters and invitees must be smart enough to take the cue that one party may have gatecrashed with ulterior motives, or the other may not want him to join in the first place! Easily twenty years ago, my family was invited to a toddler's birthday party. As my children were toddlers, too, we were requested to come early so that my kids could run around and play in their big compound. And that the host said she would arrange a series of games for them to enjoy. So there we were in the early evening at a house that resembled very little of one immersed in joy and celebration. Instead, we were greeted by a house devoid of activities and no guests. The host was still out shopping her last-minute list, and her helper was knee-deep in her preparations to ...

Suckling piglet, anyone? Just the other day, yours truly happened to gate crash into my cousin's friends' farewell party. The crowd had known each other for, like forever, ever since they were siphoned to a foreign land at an impressionable age to do good with their future. Just out of the confusing age of teenage years, shuffled into the turmoil era of the twenties, they had the scary sight of their whole future laid bare for them to mold. With the grace of the divine powers and help from some friends of the same boat, they sailed the rough seas. Amid the choppy waters and howling winds, they got across in one piece, shaken but not beaten. And boy, did they have heap of tall tales to tell of the journey. I came to understand that that is what apparently happened every time they meet up. All their university days' stories will be told and re-told and they would have a good laugh at it as if they are hearing it for the first time. And the free flow of booze helped in t...

14.3.2010 It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to... What a stupid blog! That’s what Danny said when I coaxed him at gunpoint to peruse this blog. I do not profess to know it all. I do not proclaim to be a guru or someone who has been enlightened by hiding in some caves in Kashmir or the desert. I have not found the elixir of youth or crystal ball to the answers of mankind’s problems. I am neither a religious nor a charismatic person oozing with charm. I am just your plain Joe with a wee bit of inferior complex and a perpetual whiner! We all get a little philosophical with age and I am just jotting my two cents worth (if it is worth at all) of experiences to the junior citizen as history has the uncanny habit of repeating its ugly self. As they say in various cultures and civilizations, one who does not know where he came from will not reach where he is heading to. This is not a literary exercise, hence do not expect high flowery bombastic standard of Shakespearean poetic English. It ...