RIFLE RANGE BOY

Seven Years in Tibet (1997) Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud (Based on Heinrich Harrer's book with the same name) Similar to the internment camps established in the USA for German and Japanese migrants during the First and Second World Wars, India had comparable camps. Numerous German workers and even alpine climbers from Austria were detained in various camps around Ahmedabad and Dehradun. One notable individual was Gustav Hermann Krimbiegel, an extraordinary gardener credited with creating royal gardens across India. Krimbiegel was a German botanist who migrated to Britain in 1888. He began his apprenticeship at Kew Gardens and was subsequently recommended to work in the garden of the Maharaja of Baroda. After witnessing his remarkable gardening skills, he was commissioned by other princely states. He is recognised for his development of Lalbagh in Bangalore, Brindavan in Mysore, and many others. In addition to his horticultural achievements, he is also known for introducing new see...

Capricorn One (1977) Director: Peter Hyams With the confidence of singlehandedly defending the motherland against the German soldiers in Operation Barbarossa in 1941 and essentially stalemating Hitler in the Führerbunker, Russians knew they were no pushovers. Stalin's forced post-war industrialisation efforts skyrocketed the Soviet Union into space exploration. The Americans, coming out of World War 2 smelling of roses, after being able to turn the war around after their participation, felt they had to be numero uno. After all, after the Second World War, the US of A was the wealthiest nation around. On top of it, the war forced the migration of top scientists from Europe to America. The 1960s saw rabid competition between leaders of the free world and the communist bloc to outdo the other in space exploration. The race intensified when the Soviets sent their first cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, to orbit the Earth in 1961. That spurred JFK to declare that America, the leader of the free ...

The Zone of Interest (2023) Director: Jonathan Glazer Even though this is about something that happened more than 80 years ago, put in a similar situation, I foresee we humans do the exact thing that we did during World War 2 Nazi rule of Germany. We justify our actions and inaction through the dog-whistle call of the majority without taking a step back and asking ourselves, "Am I doing the right thing?" Even during peacetime in Malaysia, a section of people is trying to steamroll their agenda to the rest of the country. Any sane person of reasonable intellectual capacity would understand this is not how democracy works. The majority chooses, and the rest would follow suit. Changes are made via constructive discourses at the appropriate forums. This renegade group is trying to change all these. The might of high decibels in the confines of an echo chamber cannot be underestimated. Like Grobbels, who thought that the propaganda machines of the State could steer the thinking of...

Oppenheimer (2023) Director: Chrsitopher Nolan A few times in the Bhagavadgita, Krishna is said to have shown His true self, Vishvaroopam. He is said to have uttered the now-famous quote, “Now I become Death, the destroyer of worlds”. J. Robert Oppenheimer, himself a Sanskriti scholar, upon witnessing the detonation of a successful nuclear explosion and seeing the highly explosive nature of his experimentation, is credited to have mentioned the same line. Now that Oppenheimer’s experience is immortalised on the silver screen with Hollywood’s latest offering, this quote has been scrutinised extensively. One Hindu scholar even mentioned that he had never read such a line in the epic. Something close to the text in the scripture about the destruction of the worlds in Chapter 12, verse 11, is about Time. Time as being the destroyer of physical things. In other words, the scholar Devdutt Pattnaik says Oppenheimer had misinterpreted the text. The movie apparently was released in two versions...

Asia Reborn (A Continent Rises from the Ravages of Colonialism and War to a New Dynamism) Author: Prasenjit K Basu The 21st century, especially the second half, is considered an Asian century. Still, no single nation is said to have successfully challenged the Pax Americana of the late 20th and early 21st century. A continent ravaged by events from the 18th through the 20th century, Asia is making a comeback. As they say, time is cyclical. From the Common Era (C.E.) to the 1600s, when Europe and the Middle East were pretty much in the dark ages, more than half of the world's GDP came from India and China. Both these countries were the world's superpowers and ruled the greatest oceans. Suddenly, there were either domesticated or decided to close their doors. The European and Arabic powers, who all these while were running around like headless chickens, morphed into a force to be reckoned with. They ushered in mercantilism, slavery and colonialism. They embraced Industrial Revolu...

Churchill's Secret Wars (2010) (The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during WW2) Author: Madhusree Mukerjee In 1952, Nehru appeared on BBC TV in his first ever TV appearance. He was invited to the UK to partake in the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. As the head of a former colony of the Crown, Nehru was there, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Winston Churchill, gracing the event. By that time, Churchill had descended from his intense contempt for all races except whites. Churchill must have been brimming from ear to ear as India and many other former colonies had consented to stay under the umbrage of the Crown under the title of the Commonwealth. If two hundred years of looting of wealth from India was insufficient, now their subjects have agreed to make their wealth common!  It is ironic that Nehru and the bulk of the Congress leaders spent crouched in jail all through the most pivotal years before Indian independence, during World War 2. It was the time all the wheel...

Churchill's Secret War (2010) Author: Madhusree Mukerjee Besides participating in the Boer War and WW1 personally, as a Prime Minister, he spearheaded the Allied Forces in World War 2; Winston Churchill made it his life ambition to destroy India. His handling of the 1943 Bengal famine is equal to genocide. Instead of being responsible colonial masters taking care of their colonies that helped to propel their economies, he chose to blame the shortage solely as the natives' fault for choosing to breed like a rabbit. In his same tone of contempt, he verbalised, "Why isn't Gandhi dead yet?" At the heights of the Second World War, the British had its hands tied all over the place. It was trying to act as the biggest superpower. In reality, it was bleeding. India was supplying all its credit needs. In essence, on paper, the British bought India's produce with a promise to pay later. And later was after WW2 when Britain was in dire straits and had to let them go. Bri...

The Forgotten Army, Azaadi Ki Liye (For Freedom, Hindi; 2020) Amazon Prime. 26,000 Indians had died under the banner of Indian National Army (INA) while fighting for Independence of India. Their actions triggered the Royal Indian Navy mutiny, which nailed the coffin of the British occupancy in India. The plea for Independence and the spirit of Indianness were supported by the diaspora outside India just to be sizzled out by the historical turn of events. They say that history is written by the victors. This is one clear proof of this statement. History had vilified the efforts of INA and had labelled them as traitors. Their agitations had been marked, not as nationalism but as treason. Flag of  Azad Hind Their rebel yell, Dilli Chalo (Let's go Delhi), was not in keeping with the narrative of the day then, as dictated by the Father of India and supported by the Congress Party. These people wanted India to be a British dominion to be given crumbs by their colonial masters...