Generation Next?

I probably will let my imagination go berserk on this one. It may stink of stereotyping, generalization and gross assumption. I may be wrong but what the heck. It is the only way to keep the neurons firing away and keeping senility at bay. Talking about senility and selective amnesia at will, we have seen many around us guilty by the first degree on this charge!
Just the other day, I saw a lassy pushing a deep pram like contraption with three thorough bred puppies sticking their heads looking at passers by. The lassy,  in her mid 20s, in a well confident poise, brimming with self confidence with her equal well sculptured gymnasium time spent thighs and legs and hot pants, stiletto to accentuate her bragging rights and tops leaving little imagination of the modesty that it was meant to cover which was nothing to feel outraged about anyway, was trying to get her 'babies' into her car with her partner. The partner, probably not witnessed by fire, tea ceremony, cross or people sanctioned ceremony but by mutual consent was finding get great pleasure in gently making the animals comfortably at home in the car. Partner? Yeah, they look too cosy, touchy and civilised to be married!
Welcome to Generation Next! The generation who believe that they make the centre of the universe. Living for them by their way is their right. They would do any which way they choose but loose! Societal and theological regulations are good movie scripts and Aesop's toddler bedtime stories. It is their life and they choose the way they want to live it.

Children? Nah, they have bigger things on their plates than things that bog them down, like career advancements and seeing the whole world before they die.
Carnal indulgence? Please! Don't ask the obvious. There is a reason why they call it carnival (carnal festival?) and that they discovered contraception and sex education, to empower women and to ensure that all conceptions are received with open arms. Anyway, sex education is not wasted on them. Whenever they are afflicted with a sexually transmitted infection, they make it their God sent decree to impose upon themselves to contact their ex'es which ever corner of the world they may be so that all those in their wide web of sexual footprint are treated. That much they owe it upon themselves as social responsibility.
Role models? Kim Kardashian (who wants to elope with Kanye West) and socialite Paris Hilton who uses her giant sized handbag and puny sized lap dog chihuahua as ornamental accessories to complete her appearance!
Of course my sweeping statements above may be utterly out of context and wrong on all accounts. After all it is just an observational study that does not hold any water...

Before he started going places!

Nowhere Boy 2009
If you expecting another of those Beatles glorifying films, you are in for a disappointment. It is actually an emotional drama of John Lennon's early days as a confused teenager who has deal with his estranged biological mother, Julia, who left him at the age of 5 to stay with her sister, Mimi. He grows up to be a troubled teenage always getting into the wrong side of the school - the trouble side.
This is a biography of a teenager John Lennon was told by his principal that he is going nowhere (in his future) - hence the title but also his later song, Nowhere Man.
He grows up with Auntie Mimi and Uncle George since five. John is very attached to his uncle but he, however, dies early.
With his friend Stan, he secretly goes to visit his biological mother Julia, a shallow, inappropriately behaviouring promiscuous young at heart (for her age) lady who is married with two kids. John finds himself able to open up better than with Aunt Mimi but he still cannot get over the idea that she dumped him.
John and his friend Pete gets suspended from school. He finds solace in his mum's house. Here he is taught the banjo and his interest in music grows.
Feeling unwelcome by Julia's husband, he returns to Mimi's house.
He decides that he wants to be like Elvis, get a guitar and Quarryman is formed. The union with the unlikely left handed rock and roller of Paul McCartney starts. As the band performs, George Harrison joins in.
On his 17th birthday, he confronts Julia on the whereabouts of his father who absconded from them. This leads to a big showdown between John, Julia and Mimi. It is revealed that Julia was two timing her husband (more than twice) when he went off for war. Julia also had given birth to another child, Victoria. The recalcitrant Julia would not change her ways even after the war. The marriage ended leaving John nowhere to go. That is when Mimi took him in. Julia claims that she was not thinking straight probably due to what appears like bipolar disorder. Finally all spoke their peace and forgive each other and try to catch up with lost time. Just then, Julia succumbs to a motor vehicle accident.
After all the bereavement, John accepts Mimi as mother as he leaves to Hamburg with his band. As we know that is when the real story of Beatles began.
It is a quality movie with good acting from Aaron Johnson (Lennon), Kristin Scott Thomas (Mimi) and Anne-Marie Duff (Julia). Lennon here is depicted as bossy, spoilt, anti establishment kid whose morals are questionable. McCartney appears like a goody two shoes who drinks only tea, not beer. He has lost his mother to cancer and built his strong bond with bond with John after Julia died. He felt the pain of John losing his mother. A lot of Liverpudlian English which takes a little getting used to to comprehend! Sorry, no Beatles hit songs here.

The dilemma of an educated woman

Charulatha (Bengali, The Lonely Wife: 1964 )
Director: Satyajit Ray

This film is actually based on Rabindranath Tagore's 1901 book by the name of 'Nastaneer' (The Broken Nest). Its storyline is altered here and there by Satyajit Ray. For one, the story in the film happened at a time earlier than is depicted in the book, 1879 vs 1901.

Set at a time of what is referred to as the era of the Bengali Renaissance when scholars and literary people started roaming the streets of Calcutta. At a time when literacy rate in the rest of India was depressingly low, here English education flourished, thanks to the establishment of Calcutta as the capital of the British East India Company. English newspapers were printed, poets were nurtured, people appreciated arts, living room redesigned in the mould of their European masters, pianos were a regular feature of the sitting room, and women started exerting their presence and desires beyond the confines of their kitchen and homes.

To create an atmosphere of loneliness, a good 10 minutes of the beginning of the show had no dialogue, just some street sounds, soliloquy and flapping of birds. Charu, a well-to-do lonely wife, stays alone in the house doing embroidery, reading, humming and people watching as time drags its feet whilst her slightly older husband is deeply immersed in his newspaper printing press.

Her husband, Bhupathy, is actually a nice guy who is trying hard to improve his newspaper. He is a proprietor of an English language political paper. Charu's brother, Umapada, who is not doing so well as a lawyer in his town, is invited to help out in the press. Umapada's wife gives a simple company though they are both of different intellect and interests, Charu being the educated one.

Madhabi Mukherjee

Bhupathy's cousin, Amal, returns from the university after reading Literature. He is encouraged by Bhupathy to get Charu to be interested in writing and poetry again. After spending a lot of time with her, Charu develops feelings for Amal. This is shown in a series of excellent cinematography and minimal, if not no dialogue and done discreetly beyond the obscenity that is hurled right at our faces these days!

Charu starts writing again and in fact, supersedes Amal's authoring ability. Rivalry subtly builds up.

It was the year Gladstone and his Liberal Party won the British Elections. Bengalis are jubilant, hoping that things will improve in India. While Bhupathy and his friends celebrate the victory with a little drink and local music appreciation, Umapada and wife scoot off with the bulk of the office money.
Feeling utterly disappointed his brother in law's foolhardy, Bhupathy confides in Amal that he is the only person he could trust.

The non-verbal expression of feelings

Feeling embarrassed for not living up his cousin's expectations, even though he was oblivious of the content of his heart, Amal decides to leave the Bhupathy household.

Relationship between husband and wife improves as Bhupathy decides to spend more time at home, and Charu starts a Bengali division of her husband's newspaper. Until...

They receive an informal letter from Amal sometime later. That old feeling came back to Charu, and she started crying in the comfort of an empty room talking to herself. Unfortunately, as in all Indian movies/teleserials where eavesdropping is an accepted way of life, Bhupathy hears everything and comes to realise it for the first time. Disappointed, he goes for a ride in a carriage for some soul searching.
He returns home after the turmoil was over to a sympathetic reconciliation with his wife and the movie ends with both parties with extended arms reaching for each other.
The movie deals with the dilemma of a woman at an age where the society expects here to change at the same time expect here to be the same typical Indian lady who always one step behind her man. A+

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At a time when food was was scarce!

Those with deep pockets always feel that their annual (or maybe as frequent as they can afford) feast must have a plethora of spread culminating from all four corners of the world to announce to the world that they have arrived or still have excesses that they can waste for the poor hungry to save a square meal. They justify their action with rationalisation of cleansing their karma and the blessings of a contended stomach will stay on with the family for generations to come.
Food has always been the highlight of any function. Temples open their kitchen to the poor after an important  prayer. The offering is looked by vagabonds and the peasant for a fulfilment of bodily need and satiety. The offers feel contended that they have fulfilled their divine obligation by offering to the needy.

No body is going to be 'red-carded' (sent off) for gate crashing!

Just look around us. There are most people malnourished than there are people fit. Malnourished  meaning that the nourishment that they were to receive grossly exceeded what they were supposed to receive, hence mal-proportion. Not, the malnourishment of the marasmic kind!
Do we still have to have such lavish feasts any more? Now that we know now of what we did not know then and that we are not as mobile as we were then, do we still need the unnecessary calories? In fact, it appears that we are eating ourselves to illnesses.
Perhaps, we should consider attending a function for the fellowship rather than for the food. Try it! Entertain your friends during the next Diwali with your charisma and bare minimum of healthy organic finger foods. That is a sure recipe for your next open house to be bare.

A pioneer noir

Clay Pigeon (1946)
A patient recovers from a coma only to discover that he is to be court marshalled. He slips from the Naval Hospital. A bulletin goes out to enforcement units in search of a certain Jim Fletcher, a first class seaman for treason.
Jim (Bill Williams) has amnesia but still can remember his 2 best friends in the Navy- Mark Gregory and Ted Niles.
Jim goes over to Mark Gregory's house only to discover in the newspaper that he had tortured and killed Gregory. It is all news to him as his memory has been blanked out. Mark's wife Martha (Barbara Hale of Perry Mason fame) initially entertains him only to quietly try to contact the police in the sly. Jim intercepts,kidnaps her and drives to LA to meet Ted Niles a fellow Navy man to clear his name.
Enroute to LA, a car tries to knock him off the road.
After fainting whilst driving and resting in the beach caravan for a week, Martha nurses James back to health.
They continue their journey.
In a Chinatown restaurant, he bumps on to a guy familiar to him by the name of Tokiyama a.k.a. The Weasel. In the war, Mark, Ted and Jim were stealing food from the enemy's kitchen when they were held as prisoners in WW2 and was squealed out to the enemies by one of them. Jim thinks that it was Gregory and Jim had allegedly beaten him to death (according to the papers).

Damage control - So as not to hurt the sentiments
of  Japanese American as the villain is Japanese and
the World War had just ended 4 years previously, Jim,
who is running away from the crook, is saved by an
Japanese American widow whose husband died whilst
serving in the 442nd Infantry Regiment. This regiment
has a reputation of having many decorated Japanese
American war heroes whose motto was 'Go for Broke'.

Then starts the cat and mouse chase around Chinatown which finally leads James on a train with Ted and Tokiyama. It turned out that Ted was the double crosser all the while. Both of them were out to finish James once and for all after only managing to keep him in coma for 2 years before. In the meantime, Martha who did her own private eye work discovers the whole truth and inadvertently bumps into the the Naval Intelligence. The police intercepts the train, the crooks are apprehended and Jim's name is cleared. Apparently, after Pearl Harbour, the Japanese had a large of cash set aside to be used to attack the Eastern coast of USA. As it did not materialize, Tokiyama managed to smuggle it to the US and went into business with Ted. With their capture the US Treasury got some stash and James got all his 2 years back pay.
James and Martha decide to tie the knot.
A mediocre Saturday afternoon cheap flick matinee with not much imagination. The characters are plain, lack depth and unimaginative. A film one can do without watching. The only reason I gave it a go is because of wanting to watch Barbara Hale on the silver screen but she did not shine either. Even though Bill Williams and Barbara Hale were married for 3 years before the film and share good chemistry, somehow I could not help it but feel that the chemistry between Hale and Raymond Burr was stronger.
This film noir was the series of B-grade noirs produced by RKO studios after it went into the red and was taken over by Howard Hughes.

clay pigeon (noun)

1. Trapshooting, Skeet . A disk of baked clay or other material hurled into the air from a trap as a target.
2. (Slang). A person in a situation likely to be taken advantage of by others.

Murder Mystery: Mumbai Style!

Looks like more and more lawyers are disillusioned with the practice of law and are wanting out, looking over at other pastures! There was Tan Twan Eng, the Penang born Cape Town based corporate lawyer-turned-author whose two books were listed for the Man Booker's prize - The Gift of Rain (longlisted,2007), The Garden of Evening Mists (shortlisted,2012). Another person who took the same path of giving up writing legal document to venture into the ever engrossing world of storytelling is Sharmini Flint. She gave up her high flying 'evil past' to be a full time mum. After starting writing children's book, she has ventured into books meant for adults too (I do not mean adult themed!).
This is the second book of hers on the Inspector Singh series that I managed to lay my hands on, the first being 'A most peculiar Malaysian murder'. In the Malaysian series, he was assigned by his superiors in the Singapore Police to see to things right for a Singaporean model accused of murdering her a Malaysian business tycoon. It was an opportune time for the author to bash the Malaysian amnesties, work ethos of civil servants and the weather!
Inspector Singh, for those who are in the green about this beer bellied, oversized, turbaned, hirsute inspector from Singapore, he is a contended, laid back policeman who enjoys his occasional banter with his wife and an occasional dose of spiced Indian cooking, puff of cigarette and beer.
Here, Singh is on medical leave. Recovering faster than he should, his superiors quite happy not to have him around the station. So, when his wife suggested that they should attend a relative's wedding in Mumbai, Singh grudgingly obliged on this all-expenses paid trip.
Enjoying his cold beer and watching live cricket telecast in Taj Hotel was bliss, so he thought. Call it jinx or otherwise, as Singh was itching for action, he finds some when the bride (Ashu) goes missing after the choora (bangle) ceremony!
The patriarchal leader of the family, Tara Singh, the bride's grandfather, who took the family under his wings after her father was lynched after Indira Gandhi's assassination, assigns Singh to investigate her whereabouts to keep the news from the prowling busy-bodies of the public. You see, Tara Singh is a famous business magnate.
The bride then is identified as a kerosene charred body in the mortuary from an apparent suicide! The course of the investigation narrows the death to between suicide (for the bride had found secret love in a Moslem colleague), honour killing (by the Khalistan sympathizing family members) and murder (by Tara's American multinational company CEO).

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Singh's escapade brings him through the crowded city, the slums with unmonitored pollutants emitted by their  neighbours, the pride of capitalism, the international companies and other landscapes of Mumbai which made him thank his ancestors for seeking out for greener pastures outside India.
The search for the truth with his Indian counterpart, Inspector Patel (the guy who tries to find the easiest solution with minimal paperwork) meets another bump. Tara Singh is bludgeoned to death with his own walking stick and Ashu, the suicidal bride is found alive!
An important judgement on the fate of a mosque is anticipated by the volatile societies of India and trouble seem brewing. Then the plot become more convoluted with plans of bombs and inciting riot....
An entertaining lovable character, this Inspector chap.The most interesting part of the book is the quirky 'wise crack' soliloquy that goes through Singh's mind as he investigates his case.

India bashing lines... (something to effect of.....;not in verbatim.)

• Singh was uncomfortable with a smell when his plane was landing in Mumbai. He was wondering whether it was burnt plastic or something like that he should dash for the exit. He asks his wife, "What is that smell?". Mrs. Singh coolly replies, "India!".
• '"What? I thought they make good beer. There fly planes too?"' (obviously referring to Kingfisher!)

Crazy movie

History of the World, Part I (1981)
The reason I decided to give a go at this movie is for old times' sake. It was at time when my buddies and I used to crash at a friend's to watch some interesting films on his VHS player after sitting for our STPM examinations. Of hand, I remember watching Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part 1 (Part 2 was never produced, I think), Cannonball Run (with Burt Reynolds, Farrah Fawcett, Roger Moore, Jackie Chan and others), Murattu Kaalai (Rajnikanth), The Gods must be Crazy and ... others.
At that time, in 1981, with our raging hormones and naivety at its maximum, this movie was particularly rib tickling, not any more! Well, it is still a stress buster with little cerebral activity...
It goes on to narrates certain events in the history of man, from ancient man all through Biblical times to Roman Empire and French Revolution. It is by no means intellectual comedy but much laughter is derived from toilet and foul R-rated humour.
In the pre-Stone age era, before managed to learn the skill of speech, whilst working, he accidentally drops a stones a stone on his friend's foot. The friend gave a loud shriek. That high pitched shriek fascinated man. He went on dropping stones of different sizes bringing out different decibels of sounds and hence formed the first acappella choir!
Then there was Abraham who presented the world with 10 commandments, not 15 as initially given by God as he dropped one of the brick tablets containing 5 more commandments!
They move on to the Roman era, poking fun at Caesar who portrayed as an obese obnoxious gas releasing bumbling social grace deficient monarch. Mel Brooks plays many roles at different part of the movie, here he is a stand up comedian (philosopher a.k.a. bullshitter). During his first gig in Caesar's Palace (not in Las Vegas, get the joke?), he offends Caesar and starts a cat and mouse chase with the palace guards. He is cornered in a harem amongst eunuchs. To sniff the culprit out, the guards bring in an exotic dancer who dances in worship of Eros, saying, "If all goes well, nothing should arise!" - I remember it like it was yesterday!
They (with a slave and a virgin from the harem) escape that one too but the chariot they were riding (pulled by a horse named Miracle who keep appearing in different era!) comes to river, Moses is there to part the river! Actually, he just raised his hand as he was mugged with a knife at his back. They cross over to Galilee.
The comedian starts a new life as a frustrated waiter with demanding customers. Jesus is having his last supper. Michaelangelo moves in to paint his picture with his disciples.
Next is the story of the Spanish inquisition which is actually nuns doing synchronized swimming to a musical condemning the Jews.
Finally it is story of Mel Brooks as King Louis XIV, again a blue bearded good for nothing king. It is the eve of the revolution. The piss boy (also Mel Brooks), a guy walking around with a pail for the aristrocrats to release themselves, is used as a double and is sent to the guillotine. Guess who comes to the rescue - Miracle!
A brainless movie but still did its work - to entertain! Just like the present day films of the same genre - Epic Movie, Superhero Movie etcetera.