RIFLE RANGE BOY

The Yellow Bird (Singapore, 2016) Director: K Rajendran How does one make a genuinely Singaporean (or Malaysian) movie? What language does he use to make it look authentic? Just look at the ground level. Stand in the marketplace in the heart of town and listen to the murmur. One hears a potpourri of languages spoken by different tongues and in different accents. It must be a treasure trove for a person like Professor Higgins (of 'My Fair Lady') to do his fieldwork. Hence, quite rightly so, the filmmakers decided to utilise a hodgepodge of common languages spoken amongst the characters in the film to make it look believable. One can say this is a Singaporean Tamil film as the protagonist is Tamil-speaking. Still, otherwise, there are Mandarin, English, Singlish and Hokkien spoken laced with a liberal dose of profanity in keeping with the company of the crowd that the main character is associating. When Singapore is shown in any setting, the views that often pop up are the Merlio...

Is love enough? Sir (Hindi; 2018) Netflix The question is this. What draws two souls together in a romantic bond and possibly in the union of matrimony? Is it physical attraction or the ability to see things through the same lens, have the same madness or perhaps share the same dream of how life ought to be? There used to be a time, perhaps even now in certain circles, of these types of unions being arranged by elders. There are no unique qualities looked for by the involved parties. There is minimal interaction between involved parties, and the marriage is more of a contract to continue the circle of life. One takes what one gets and tries against all odds to hold the fort against time's uncertainties. Come what may, the union of the Gods stand the test of time; only to revoked by death. Now, is it necessary for the uniting couple to be compatible? After all, it is a biological union for continuity of species of which Nature can make the natural selection. Society determines every...

Sorry We Missed You (2019) During the infancy of my career, many a time, being the most junior of the team, I usually ended up having to see poor patients who just made it to the clinic at closing time. I soon came to know that they were living far from civilisation, deep in rubber or palm oil estate. Coming to the hospital meant getting up at four in the morning, preparing breakfast for the school-going children and being able to get on the first 6 o'clock morning bus to town. Invariably, they would be delayed. The transport out to the main road would not turn up. Perhaps, the feeder bus would break down or the bus that they had to change left earlier. They would eventually reach the hospital close to noon. After getting an earful for not keeping to their time, they would have to seen by the junior most doctor of the team. The senior ones would have left the clinic for more pressing needs. Unable to make a definitive plan of medical treatment for them, these patients who woul...

Dr Rama Subbiah Scholarship Fund Golden Jubilee Celebration (1967-2017) Most of us who studied in the local universities are quite familiar with Dr Rama Subbiah Scholarship Fund which had been a boon to many underprivileged varsity students of Indian descent. Not many of us, however, know much about Dr Rama Subbiah and the genesis of this fund. Dr Rama Subbiah (1933-1969) is first Malaysian Ph D holder in the field of Linguistics. Working as a lecturer in University Malaya and Chairman of NUPW-PPN Hostel Management Committee, he financed, out of his pocket, accommodation for TAR College Indian students who had to commute long distances on a bus from out of town to study their A-levels. That started in 1967. From then on, the hostel students contributed their hostel security deposit money to start a scholarship fund. Many individuals later pledged small but regular contributions to this embryonic scholarship endowment which was initially named 'The Indian Students Scholars...

Two things that happened recently made my mind go a-wandering, yet again. Credit: SCMP #1. A friend, whom I have not met for some time now, appeared in my life during the course of my career. About twelve years previously, he became a widower after his thirty-something wife succumbed to the menace of the crab. Left to care for three young girls, ranging from ages of eight to twelve, he took it upon himself to be the sole provider of maternal and paternal love, all lumped to one. With his meagre income and a lot of helping hand from his extended family members, he forewent female intimacy and sacrificed simple pleasures of life to make parenting his sole purpose of existence. Fast forward twelve years later, the girls have managed to attain academic excellence. Each of them is pursuing careers by their own merit in local institutions respectively in medicine. Law and accountancy. It seems like poverty and melancholy never dragged them ...

A NASA telescope called NuSTAR for short, which is roaming around approximately  324 million  light-years from Earth,   happened to be  in the perfect position  to see a black hole's powerful  gravity tugging on X-ray light emitted from a  nearby Corona. The discourse started over an article about a poor Hindu man who tried to advise a Muslim man against urinating in the open in a public space. The ego-dented Muslim called his friends to give the Hindu a nice bashing that he would never forget. Well, he never had the chance to remember. He was beaten up in the plain view of the public who, sadly, not one person came to his help or did call the police. The poor man succumbed to his injuries. The incident escalated to a racial clash when the real issue is public apathy and the curse of being born poor. From that angle, the debate went on to whether being poor is one's own fault or it is due to a composite of factors. My friend insi...

Cathy Come Home (1964) This is the story of many societies. The urban dwellers, unable to keep up in the rat race, get left behind. Initially occupying the centre of the city, as their earning capacity declines or the opportunity dwindles, they get displaced. Slowly they abandon their urban dwelling to sojourn for something modest at its fringes. With further obstacles, they go further to the suburbs. In the best of times, they form the backbone of the workforce. As the economic pie gets smaller and the profit to the bosses takes a dip, they are replaced by economic migrants who would work for a song. And the original urban dwellers would show their resentment to the migrants and the system they plunge further into hopelessness. The bourgeoisie blames the poor for taking it easy, for their decadence and not saving for a rainy day. The poor feels that it is their birthright to be cared for, after all, they contributed immensely to the progress of the country. The politicia...

Just the other day, I watched a youtube presentation of a discussion on the affairs of world economics, mainly European economics, between two world icons, Yanis Varoufakis, an academician with a short-lived political stint in Greek Cabinet and Professor Noam Chomsky, the renowned political activist, linguist and philosopher at MIT. The gist that I gathered from the discussion is that the world is made for the affluent. Nobody gives a damn about social justice, equality, liberty and those standard phrases that go with freedom. It is all a charade. The idea of politics is just to fatten the selected few. The rich get richer, and the poor become poorer as time goes on and the rich squeeze more from the poor. In a press conference recently in 2014, an executive from a multinational company unabashedly told the pressmen that his firm made medicine for the wealthy Western patients who could afford it, not poor Indians, justifying his company's inflated prices of products....

Happy Days here to stay? They say it is the latest happening place in town. With the U.S. 1950s rock and roll theme, flashy photos of automobiles of yesteryear and matinee idols of that era plastered on the wall and equally striking paint work, it gave the impression of a bugle call for the hipsters, the young, the nouve riche and the like. Welcome to the love child of capitalism, unabated vulgar consumerism. Sure, they like the calories filled cholesterol laden jumbo sized servings, they also like the personalised wishes that we cheerily call out as they enter or leave the premises. Some say that our frequent breaking into songs and dance routines is annoyance but I do not see anyone complaining! They even seem to swing about, sing along and even dance a step or two with us in tandem. Given a choice, I would like to have that mandatory dance performance struck off my numerous lists of duties. The old injury that I inherited enroute to the maternity shed back home in Cebu is ac...

Thulabaram (Sacrifice, Tamil; 1968) I do not know why but I keep watching this movie over and over again over the years. Maybe because it draws me back to the time of RRF and the time that steamed with hopelessness and helplessness. At the same time, I do not agree with the melodrama and the self pity that is exhibited in full glory in this flick. So, psychoanalyse me! This was one of the first movies that Amma took me to watch back in the days. Perhaps, she needed to reminisce her trying times of early adulthood. Even after all these years, its songs, especially 'Kaathrinile Perum Kaathrinile' sang beautifully by K.J. Yesudass, still makes my hairs at the back of my neck stand. This movie skyrocketed in popularity in the South that remakes were made in Tamil, Telegu and Hindi using the same main actress, Sharadha. The original film was made in Malayalam based on stage show. Sharadha went on to receive the National Film Award for that year. Sharadha Coming from a s...