RIFLE RANGE BOY

Decision to leave (Korean; 2022) Director:  Park Chan-wook The ageing brain finds it difficult to learn new tricks. Hence, it compensates for its deficiencies by filling them with old remote thoughts. Whilst watching this Korean thriller noir, a conversation with an old friend, 20 years previously, resurfaced. P was an ambitious young man when he was posted as a secondary school teacher in a remote part of the country. His rumbling young heart knew then that he was made for bigger things in life, but teaching a bunch of uninitiated young kids in the periphery was a start. Being well versed in the Malay Language, he was quite a hit amongst the locals, particularly his young lady colleagues. These young lassies were all over him, eating out of his hand and at his beck and call. Bending over backwards to be in his company, there were unabashed invitations for intimacy. Such good chemistry, sensual without being sexual On further prodding by his nosey on more juicy details, P told them...

  Thithi ( ತಿಥಿ, Lunar day, Kannada; 2015) Our wants and needs vary as we grow older (and hopefully wiser). In the spring of our youth, we are brimming with raging hormones. Our biological needs somehow shut off our cognitive powers. The pudendal nerve and illusive higher centres control the more rational neuronal connexions. Unfortunately, the seeds and the ghosts of our action persist in haunting us in the later phase of our lives. Supposing we pass through youth unscathed, in the next phase of our lives, stuck with baggage of our past, we are expected to provide for our kin. Social hierarchy dictates we are responsible for the seeds that we sow. The emphasis of life is to provide for the living and to accumulate material wealth for an uncertain future. If we are 'cursed' with a long but unproductive life, we have to fend for ourselves. Conversely, a short affluent one will only benefit the dependants. After completing the deeds that we are assigned to do, to fulfil our karma...

Universiti Kedua (Kassim Ahmad; 2010) At a time when the government propaganda machinery managed to brainwash youngsters like myself to think that right is right and left is wrong, a man stood steadfast on his socialist belief. He was detained under the notorious Internal Security Act (ISA). Despite the agony of being away from his young family, deprived of seeing his children grow, especially at a crucial age and the constant torture in a cell, he stood his ground. He refused to give a 'false' confession to his captors. Despite his reluctance to be 'reformed', he was given an unconditional release after 5 years of spending time in Kamunting. This memoir narrates his experience of being arrested in the fateful early hours of 3rd November 1976 to his release on Hari Raya Day, 30th June 1981. It is a slow-moving write-up, as life in the prison is, narrating the frustrating time in Kamunting as the clock ticks on by. His interrogations go on till unearthly hours, tryi...

Loan shark ad at the back of cab The priorities of a society can be determined from the daily activities of its members. Jog through your memory of two telephone booths - one in KL and another in London. The one in KL would have been vandalized, the receiver would be missing or would be detached like a doll without an arm or you could be at the mercy of the machine which would be happy to gobble up all your money for nothing. But that is another story - you would also notice plastered all around the booth are numbers of generous people who are out there to finance your never-ending financial woes that have plaguing you at this while at practically a cost of a phone call. In contrast, in a similar setting in London, the booth would be decorated with multi-coloured 'stick-em-on' papers advertising a plethora of social services (escort, the companionship of sexual nature, of different ethnicity, age, gender, techniques or anything you fancy!) A typical scene at a Londo...