RIFLE RANGE BOY

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 ...

  Joker (ஜோகார், Tamil; 2016) Before Joaquin Phoenix came out in the 2019 DC comic film as the legendary Joker, there was already an award-winning Tamil movie with the same name. Unlike the DC version, this one is a low-budget production. And like the former, both are political and social satires of the system that we are living. More often than not, in our societies, we give people the liberty to speak a little bit too much. Some talk just because they want to be heard. Others vocalise just because God gave them a mouth. We tolerate many because we pity them; we know it is unkind to be cruel against the mentally challenged. We let them just blabber, but the problem is that mental illness can be contagious sometimes.  With the advent of social media, there is no limit to how much stupidity can spread like wildfire and profound wisdom. Unfortunately, life is not so straight forward. Muddled somewhere inside the pile of insanity is what is supposed to be the truth. Because of al...

Ten Powerful Ideas from Ancient India - Wisdom from the Upanishads. Roopa Pai Secular in their content and universal in their appeal, these compositions have life-affirming secrets that contain ideas about life, the universe and everything relevant from the 700BCE to the 21st century. Computer engineer, journalist and children's author, Roopa Pai is the co-founder of Bangalore Walks and the winner of the Crossword Award for "The Gita for Children". She has published over 20 books, including the fantasy-adventure Taranauts.  Easily the best TedTalk in a long time.

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...

Who has the last laugh? Everyone is responsible for himself. The world outside there is just out to make mincemeat out of you. They would entice you to tread on the wild side just to get you off balance. They would appear casual just to let you lower your shields. They would encourage you to indulge in social lubricators just so that you downgrade your security level. They would talk dirty just to get you all excited. Then you let your hair down. That would be the hay that breaks the camel’s back. And the world will have a field day. And you would dig, your grave to bury all the good things that you took a lifetime to perfect. The dream that kept you awake comes crumbling like sandcastles that get washed away just like that. People would pry with judgemental eyes. Who cares if they would not be qualified to cast the first stone. Why do they bother? They were not put a pedestal to be praised to high heaven. You were. Nobody told you, but you were the icon that many schoolboys envy...

Really? People always say that sorry seems to be the hardest word. We are all so encrusted that in our hard-shelled egos that by admitting our mistakes, we value ourselves much less. And our psyche takes a dent so hard that we want to shrivel up and disappear! Hence, when a person comes down his high and mighty horse to eat humble pie, he is admired for his virtuous act. It sounds all dandy but it is really not so simple. Of late, however, what we see insincere utterance of apologies just for the sake of it. How many times have we seen drivers driving under the intoxicants causing major catastrophes and all they can say is, "I am sorry!" Some lackadaisical teenage would have elbowed an antique, just to apologise, as if by doing so, the broken menagerie would somehow miraculously glue together as if like magic! Yes, people say sorry without really meaning it. They know that the tragedy is no skin off their back and all the hardship is for others to endure. ...

We were meeting after 30 years and what do we talk about? Hair. Understandably, many had lost their crowning glory or their beauty mane. In the place of David Starsky's luscious fluffy hair and John Denver's mop hair is Kojak's shining scalp. Comparing each other's tonsorial assets was the order of the day. In the land of baldies and the receding hairlines, emerged a man with assets of Samson proportions. Standing steadfastly defiant against his wife's tirade and Delilah-like threats of trimming his lock, Samson stays adamant not to part with new found interest in trichology. Amongst the crowd also stood a gentleman with a scalp thick of Sultan Azlan-type of majestic thick silvery hair and another with a heavy white beard to compensate a somewhat bald head. Samson justified his penchant for keeping long hair to the same reason why sages and philosophers stay unshaven. It is same justification for psychiatric ward policy of shaving patients with serious mental i...

There are three levels of verbalisation. One which is vocalised for all to hear. This would be the one that gives an impression of ourselves to the world. It is often used as a yardstick to gauge our levels of education, our politics, our upbringing, class and creed. The spoken words in this category are guarded and carefully worded so as not to jeopardise one's own image. It is our way to engage with the world which would compartmentalise us into our pigeon holes. The second level of spoken words is the one uttered amongst immediate relatives and close ones. Here, the words are less guarded, but still, a certain amount of restraining is always exercised so as not hurt the sentiments of the people around us. We also take into consideration that the younger ones are watching (and listening). We have to be careful with his choice of words to a certain extent. Sometimes emotion takes charge to prove a point. The threshold to lose our composure is lower as we are in...

The First Phone Call from Heaven Mitch Albom (2013) I picked up this book during a long wait at the airport. You fly low-cost, your time is also low-cost (cheap), and they expect you to come early and wait. After reading all his books thus far, it is only natural for me to lay my hand at once. His books deal mainly with important things in life like death, heaven and Godly matters. This time around, too, he dwells on 'life' after death and incorporates Alexander Graham Bell's invention, the telephone, as the means to receive a call from the heavenly world! Interestingly, we learn a few snippets here and there about Bell's journey to his invention, which is still being contested by the original discoverer. His invention almost did not make it to the forefront, thanks to the Brazilian King who worked with Bell and the hearing impaired, who insisted that his device be seen. Despite all the hurdles, it has stood the test of time. In fact, in its infancy, there were sug...

So what happens when 4 guys who met at the tender age of raging hormones meet up again 30 years later with declining testosterone and receding hairlines. They talk and talk. Gone are the small talks and gigglish teenage pranks. After embracing life in their own strides amidst its ups and downs, the discussion progressed to something intellectual and profound. Conveniently, all the four followed different paths to righteousness. Just like the saying, 'all roads lead to Rome' and 'if you don't know where you are going, any road takes you there' (courtesy: George Harrison), we had representatives from Bahai, Christian, Hindu faiths as well as an agnostic atheist.   Just like how Einstein's futile attempt at answering nature's favourite curiosity - Does God exist?- the quartet and wives of 2 embroiled in a stimulating discussion on God, nature, evolution, The Message, as well as bankers! Why bankers? In the new postmodern world, they rule the world, man and...

From the time of civilisation, human beings have tried to make Man think in the same manner so that it is easy to control. Anyone thinking outside the box is considered deviant and a troublemaker out to disturb the tranquillity. A uniform way of thinking and values are imbibed to all. It is accepted that red is danger and it means 'look-out!' In the same manner, a certain response is to be invoked to a particular situation and is accepted as the norm. For example, if you find an envelope with an address written with a stamp pasted at its corner, the normal reaction expected of a person is to put the said envelope into the nearest letterbox. This is accepted as how a civilised individual is expected to react. If I were to tear off the unused stamp to use for myself and just throw the envelope and its content into the nearest bin, though logical and rational, I may be labelled as barbaric uncultured, uneducated or under-developed mentally! This is h...

Now that the news of the forthcoming 13th general elections is on every body's mind, it is only appropriate to mention something on Malaysian politics. Some people talk passionately about politics. Now, with the dissolution of the Parliament, politics is at the tip of every body's tongue. People of all ethnicity and social class, as it appears to me, seem more courteous to each other as though have teamed together to fight for the betterment of the country at large. One particularly peculiar observation that I realised is that whenever you are embroiled in heated political discussion, say in a social function - birthday, wedding reception, dinner etcetera, the person who leads the conversation with much passion, offering intricate inside information would invariably not be registered as a voter with the Election Council! Of course, you have to ask him point blank on the face to skewer this information. And you have to indulge in a lot of face reading to authenticate t...

Lord Yama It is interesting to see men who had been in the limelight of late for deeds not deemed moralistic by an average simple minded plebeian, a simpleton, is invoking the quiet sleeping giants, i.e. the Gods. One was seen religiously performing religious rights and seen regularly in the temple. Whilst the other, thanked the Divine one and the spirits of the unceremoniously departed for saving him from the clutches of The Reaper and the Man on the Bull recently. I always thought, which shows how naive I am, that a man should say what he means and mean what he says. I also thought that it is as succinct and precise as that. A mark of a true gentleman is just that. There was a time when man would hold by their word to the grave. But then, that was a time which seem so distant, almost eons away. Now,words are just words, a means to impart orders but not intentions. Only the wrong doers, the conniving mavericks and lawyers are allowed to play with their wo...

This is a blatant bastardization of a Malay proverb which goes like this, 'Lidah tidak bertulang'. Essentially it means that talk is easy and words can be malleable to suit a particular scenario. In other words, it shows the insincerity of man who would sway to the tide. Well, this colossal trait of the glossus (tongue) is a particularly useful tool of the trade of some professionals in the upholding the law (whichever side) business as well as politicians who have to make statements and modify them periodically. Why this talk about tongue, bones and insincerity? Imposing Bukit Takun, like a sleeping giant, forms a formidable backdrop at Templer Park. (The Star) On 9th May, Wednesday, at 6pm, a 51 year old seasoned trekker went into the jungle to trek out a path for his fellow climbing junkies and never came back. By the following day, a search party had been organised by police, family and friends to track him down. Just as soon the newspapers announced the news b...