RIFLE RANGE BOY

When I was young, Amma thought I was a disappointment. In her mind, she felt that children had to be loud, commanding and cocksure about everything - not, like her son, passive, agreeing to most everything and giving too much space for the benefit of the doubt. She would often quote that this neighbour's son is brilliant and speaks well, that the neighbour's kid is doing well in school, and that I should pick a cue or two from them to succeed in life. Actually, she was more colourful in expressing her disappointment. The truth of the matter is, in my opinion, most domineering mothers give rise to submissive children. It is not so much that it is genetically coded; it is a case of conditioned nurturing. Amma's mantra is that to succeed in life, one has to have confidence and the gift of the gab. Her tough childhood in post-WWII Malaya made her and her siblings acquire the enviable skills of street smartness and the ability to sell ice to Eskimos. Like the eyes, the mouth an...

The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin, Irish: 2022) Written and Directed: Colm Bairéad My sisters and I were brought up to believe that only empty vessels make a lot of noise. Through Aesop's fables, we were told to keep our mouths shut. The story of three good friends, a tortoise and two wild geese, comes to mind. In the tale, the three friends planned a guided flight away from their habitat, a drying-up pond. The problem was that the tortoise could not fly. So the geese held either end of a long stick, and the tortoise bit the middle portion with its mouth with strict instructions never to open its mouth when they were cruising at a high altitude. And that is precisely what the tortoise did, opening its gap to praise the beauty of a 'bird's eyes view' of Earth. The end could have been more pleasant. Children were expected to be seen and admired afar but not heard. But no says techniques of modern parenting. Children are encouraged to express their feelings. They advocate a ...

We say a lot of things that we do not mean and do many things that we do not say. What we say may not be relevant in just two years, what more a lifetime. It is ironic that since most of the human interaction is based on verbal communications, we still cannot trust what we say. Are they just smokescreens for us to achieve our desires at all cost? Do we promise the moon and the stars, without mentioning the fine prints, just to get things our way? The direction of society and our lives is guided by our art of persuasion in debates and speech, but yet verbal communications are just fillers to decorate our lives; an exercise in creative writing to trigger the limbic system to immerse the brain in euphoria. One wonders if speech is relevant anymore. Maybe it is time for us to periodically reassess our promises. Like at the end of a rotation duty of a security officer who plays back the closed-circuit recordings of the night before, perhaps we should be doing the sa...