Play the game that people play?

Lucky Baskhar (Telugu; 2024)

Director: Venky Atluri

There are different rules for other players. The rich have it good. The system ensures that they stay wealthy. Money begets money. The law provides that the bulk of wealth remains within the confines of those with them. There are different rules for other players. The rich have it good. The system ensures that they stay wealthy. Money begets money. The law provides that the bulk of wealth remains within the confines of those who possess it. The legal system makes justice swifter for all the money that can be bought. The middle class stays put in a self-imposed restrictive loop. The middle class is trapped in a cocoon by concocting rules of morality as well as divine and social justice. Grabbing an obscene wealth escapes them and can only be an unattainable dream. 

The middle class is often used as a scapegoat to show society that the system is fair. By periodically using them as sacrificial lambs, society sets an example to others of what can happen if they flaunt the law.

The word scapegoat has an interesting origin. It comes from the Book of Leviticus. In the Jewish ritual of Yom Kippur, a goat is symbolically burdened with the people's sins and released into the wilderness. This was a practice of atonement. In modern life, the poor are left high and dry to sanitise the wrongdoings of the community's upper echelon. 

Gone are the days when people are judged by their virtues. Currently, man is assessed by the amount of wealth he amasses. It does not matter the means it was acquired. Once money jiggles in one's pocket, everything and anything can be sanitised. A middle-class person is no longer middle-class. He springboards to a different level and acquires a new set of rules. He is viewed as a success story. Society, hellbent on punishing him earlier, will now bend backwards to protect him. Anything friends in higher places cannot help; money will do that.

Lucky Baskhar is an interesting movie with twists at every corner. It is a make-believe story that shows how one can beat the system once one learns the trade of the game. Baskhar is a low-ranking bank teller who is springboarded to the post of Assistant General Manager after a minor scandal in the bank. 

Little does he realise he is a pawn in the big boys' game of interbank loans, middleman brokers, share market rigging, and swindling the Reserve Bank of India. Baskhar cannot be a hero and expose everyone as his good name is also dragged into the muck. Baskhar, too, has his own economic woes and pressures from his family, father, siblings and in-laws. So, how does he kill two birds with one stone? Baskhar devises a complicated web of deceit that beats the big boys at their own game, solves his financial woes and gives everyone a run for their money.

The viewers always like to watch the little men whip up the powerful man at his own trade. This is it. The audience will leave feeling satisfied as if they had watched 'Catch Me If You Can'!

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Blurred line between fact and fiction!

Inventing Anna (Miniseries, 2021)

Netflix

Believe it or not, this miniseries is based on actual events. Between 2013 and 2017, a young German heiress of Russian descent by the name of Anna Delvey was seen in the social circles of New York. She was moving around the company of who's who in the art scene and the rich and famous. Everybody was excited about her ambitious plan to create an ultra-exclusive club where the exceptionally wealthy clientele could partake. Soon every banker, lawyer, designer and leeches was dying to be in her company. The only perennial problem is that his apparently flamboyant young lady has problems mobilising her money from Germany. Her strict father is insistent that Anna earns her every single penny herself. 

People soon realise that Anna was spending way too much than she actually managed to show. Not wanting to be embarrassed, her many famous socialites and supporters of Anna's plan to build a foundation instead stay anonymous and would not like to be associated with her. This was discovered by a problematic journalist who decided to investigate Anna. She has to finish her investigations in record time as she is due to deliver her baby anytime now.

The story of Anna Delvey @ Anna Sorokin peels open the problems with modern living. Money begets money, and affluence pulls influence. Creating a persona is so important these days, and the ultimate tool to create a fake narrative is social media. It paints an illusion of prosperity and contentment when it is just a smokescreen for the ugly backdrop that lurks in the background. It is the gratifying playground of narcissists. The story is so hyperreal that it alters reality which is not so rosy.

Outstanding achievements are achieved from dreaming, but building sandcastles in the air does not hold water. One lie to cover another only gets one entangled in a web of deceit that will only reveal itself on its own finally.

Are parents really responsible for the mess that their offspring create? Can they be blamed if their children create mayhem in society? Do children come from parents or merely go through their parents? At a time when parenting is outsourced so much to nannies, schools and cyberspace, who knows who creates their personality and values? Nobody listens to their parents anymore. The children have a legitimate excuse for all their follies and failures - overbearing parenting!

It should be pretty apparent that it is a priority to save big conglomerates whenever there is an economic downturn. The justification for this is that the collapse of a large corporation has a spill down effect on the small people and the country's economy at large. The push is there to ensure their continuity at the expense of the rest of the country. The same things happen in the legal system. The average man-in-the-street will never be able to afford to appoint the shrewd legal eagles to seek justice arising from the inhumane and unscrupulous criminal antics of business concerns. The current turns of events in many high-profile cases are indeed proof that there is an invisible hand from above (definitely NOT the Hand of God!) that is controlling the narrative. By no means, beyond a shadow of a doubt, one can confidently assume that there are two sets of rules of law (not justice); one for the corporations and another for the little men (and women).

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The art of not giving a rat's behind!

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 offspring of these unions be accounted for and the responsibility of caring for them is cast in stone. Biology encourages the male species to sow their wild oats but the female to be stringent with gametes' choice in a competitive selection of the fittest. Unlike their counterparts in the animal kingdom, Man is expected to provide for his partner and kind. 

Man has also put in another criterion to be locked in matrimony, compatibility.

The romantics in you want to believe that the highly acclaimed movie characters will have a happy ending. The logical mind, however, drills upon you this association is doomed from the word go. A barely educated young widow from a remote village coming to town to work as domestic help is no compatible match in hand for a US-educated architect/writer who has been cradled in luxury throughout his life. The widow may have a chest full of zest and big dreams to lift herself out of poverty with her bootstraps, in reality, unicorns cannot be pink and invisible at the same time.

Ashwin returns to his apartment, heartbroken, after leaving his bride at the altar after finding to be adulterous. Ratna, his helper, over time, tries to cheer him up by telling her miserable life as a curse with early widowhood and being the breadwinner for her family, even though they look at her as a burden. 

The acting is so nuanced, filled with subtle body languages and unspoken dialogue. Despite being a simple story with an ending which is anybody's guess, it managed to maintain its viewers' attention till the end.

The ghost of one's social past will haunt him until and unless one uproots and starts life afresh away from the encumbrances of the web of societal mores and pressures. Alternatively, one can live a reclusive life, giving two hoots to people around him, come hell or high water!

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The higher you fly, the harder the fall!

Bad Boy Billionaires: India (Documentary, 2020; Netflix)

This is another one of Netflix's productions that hit a snag in India, this time it spurned court cases demanding against its release. Three out of the four episodes in the series were released recently. The fourth episode, a documentary narrating the rise and fall of Ramalinga Raju of Satyam Computers, was successfully stopped at the courts for its damaging portrayal of the man.  

The remaining episodes tell about the escapades of the three Indian icons.

Vijay Mallya, a fugitive currently residing in the UK, is also known as the King of Good Times. Born to a beer brewer father, despite the Prohibition of liquor in many states of India, managed to glamourise beer drinking during the dot com bubble heydays of the '90s. From there he went on to the world centre stage through his involvement in the 'no frills' airline business and the F1 races. He made a few shady loans, and soon he was hot on the heels of the authority. He fleed to London and is fighting extradition efforts to India.  

Diamondtaire, Nirav Modi, was born into a family that delved in the jewellery business for generations. He was the one who singlehanded showcased the master craftsmanship of the Indian jewellers to the world stage via his international brand that carried his name. He allegedly inflated the value of his own merchandise through sales of his jewellery to different shell companies. His shady loans with Punjab National Bank, however, alerted the lawmen to investigate his dealings. Modi is now seeking asylum in the UK.

We are familiar with the brand Sahara which use to be displayed proudly on the Indian cricket and hockey team jerseys. Sahara (Saviour) is the name of a financier group created by a rags-to-riches individual named Subrata Roy. At one time, the Sahara group of companies was the biggest employer in India after the Indian Railways. Its primary business was chit fund, a type of savings for the poor. It later ventured into real estate, hospitality, airline industry, healthcare, education and many more. His problems started when he decided to public list two of his companies. This spurred the Market Regulators to look into his company accounts. Despite the repeated accusations and huge fines imposed on the conglomerate, the company's fundamentals are still intact.

The story of fame and fortune always excites the deprived or those dreaming for the unattainable. Perhaps, the safest way to gather wealth is to do in the sly without kicking much pomp and splendour. Splashing obscene amount of cash for private events always open the eyes of the regulators who had been entrusted with upholding the law, has the Hobson's choice of needing to investigate. No system is leak-proof; it is easy to find a discrepancy. One thing leading to another, years of labour will come tumbling down. The middle ground seems prudent but then how do create something earth-shattering without a thud?

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Deprival Devours?

A thought flew past me as I was sitting through a lavish wedding dinner in a posh establishment recently. A doctor in the infant years of his career was proudly showcasing his catch to the world to ogle. Set with the high-brow society setting and the ambience to match, we, the mortals were given a sneak peek into the lives and times of the groom and bride through a montage of a roll of photos that was rolling during the function. We gathered that the respective families went through thick and thin, scaling the waves of obstacles to attain the comfort that they had acquired in life. 

Well and dandy, all these...

But how is a measly paid medical officer in the notoriously underpaid system of Malaysian civil service going to sustain the same type of lifestyle? Is he still going to be that dedicated doctor who will weather all kinds of resistance to put wellbeing above everything else as he chose the profession, not for the glamour but the calling? Is he going through grind those hard times dealing with difficult cases in the wee hours of the morning? Is he going to pacify his anger nerves as he treats drunks with avoidable wounds? Is he going to tell himself that it is a calling to be a physician as he slogs through the long New Year weekend as the rest of the city embroil in stuporous revelry of the Season? Will he think that his good deeds would earn plus points for his afterlife or that the divine forces throw him a bone to lead a comfortable family life? As the demands for modern living becomes more expensive, is he going to sacrifice the comforts of his early life for an epicurean one?

At a Klinik Desa, the reality.

Bordering on stereotyping and over-generalisation, it is probably going to be a ‘no-no’ to the above. Living in comfortable times deprived of the valuable lessons from the School of Hard Knocks of Life and acquisition of a degree through the back door means would hamper his tenacity to face the realm of the unknown. 

Now, whose fault is this? Are poverty and deprivation the only way to strengthen the mettle of Man? Will the comforts of life only create snowflakes much like how a sterile environment lowers one’s immunity guard?

Should medical vocation be reserved for those with aptitude only or to those with undying zest to serve despite adversities? Are these mere statements of assumptions?

I envisage the groom, ten years down the line, abandoning the real call of the profession to serve the needy of medical attention who are invariably the ones least deep-pocketed, to venture to something less demanding with better remunerations, like rubbing shoulders with bankers and financiers. At least their clients do not come with tales of melancholia and hopelessness but with tall stories of the impossible of pots of golds and pink unicorns. 

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Towards Communism? One World Order?

Credit: biography.com

Louis XVI’s policy of not raising taxes and taking
out international loans, including to fund the 
American Revolution, increased France’s debt, 
setting in motion the French Revolution. By the 
mid-1780s the country was near bankruptcy, 
which forced the king to support radical fiscal

reforms not favourable with the nobles or 
the people. [Smells like 1MDB]

As in many of our meaningless banters, this one too had no simplistic answers.

One of my friends proudly announced how he managed to identify a nagging problem on his car dashboard that none of the mechanics in town could correctly identify. An indicator kept on flashing implying that there could be a minor issue with the mixture of fuel and oxygen. With the help of his ever-inquisitive mind and resourcefulness, he got it fixed. With his self-taught knowledge of automobiles and the aid of Youtube, he diagnosed the fault. To source the sensor that needed to change, there was the net to search and Lazada to ensure that the merchandise arrived at your doorstep in no time. 

Only because he did not possess the tools to fix the part, he had to get the assistance of a local mechanic. That too, an apprentice came to his rescue. And voila, problem solved.

The friend was naturally jubilant on his achievement and of course had all rights to brag. 

Just to play devil advocate, I told him that he had just become an accomplice to the great evil capitalist empire whose intention is to gobble up the small time little men's livelihood. Like in the film 'You've got m@il', since the 90s, these big concerns have been trying, successfully, usurping SMEs. The biggest losers seem to be the common man. With the advent of DIY and ease of transborder mail order, their roles (the average man) seem superfluous. Try searching for anything online. There is a conspiracy to highlight specific predetermined options. Big tech companies own so many companies these days that almost every search engine and the companies that sell many products belong to these conglomerates. Payment portals and logistics companies too only profit the already super-rich multinational companies. At the end of the day, the small shops around town can just wind down. 

Just like the vegetable sellers in wet markets who have lost out to hypermarkets in selling greens, every entrepreneur in town will eventually just become salaryman to these MNCs. The already cash-strapped mammoth cartels whose assets already supercede that of a third world country will rule the world. That will lead to a New World Order where the divide between the haves and have-nots will be so vast, reminiscing of a time not so long in the distant past; when the peasants were wailing in hunger while the nobility could not understand why they could not be content with the leftover cakes! By then we would have made a full 360° turn and back to where we started. The French and Russian Revolutions that attempted to correct the disparity between the 1% rich and 99% poor would have been proved futile. 

 https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

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