Full circle?

So there was this guy who appeared in a similar attire as mine on my 4th birthday bash back in 1967. His grandmother was my parents' landlady when they moved into their first matrimonial place of stay. Their relationship with this matriarchal figure persisted even when they moved into their own home. Hence, the invitation and the photograph....
After the meeting in the late 60s, our lives (both guys in striped shirts) intertwined again in secondary school, though in different classes and off we went again different ways after the 80s.
As luck had it, with the help of social media, some old buddies met up at one friend's daughter's wedding. Midst of it all, a burly chap approached the table we were at, with the most boisterous of laughter. Quickly, he introduced himself. Everyone at the people was looking at each other, hoping that someone could correctly identify him. You see, he had now embraced a new name and new appearance after his wedding. Yes, not only ladies lose their surname but sometimes men lose their and their father's name!
I may not know the whole story, but I thought RK was born Chinese and was adopted by an Indian family. He is now dressed and articulated like a Malay. RK, now RA has lived a full circle amongst the major ethnicities of Peninsular Malaysia. 

What is real anymore?

Lingaa (லிங்கா Tamil; 2014)

Lingaa

The wait was finally over for Tamil movie enthusiasts the world over, including the band of ever faithful Japanese fans. Right smack on his 64th birthday, his latest outing was released. And in style, this sexagenarian walks out from a Hummer, which in turn is followed by a fleet of similarly spanking shiny Hummers to be showered by petals of flowers, as if ushering a demigod, by a bevy of beaus who look and dress anything but reflective of demure Tamil culture. To the catcalls and whistling of the cinema audiences, our hero shows his greatest presence - a turn to face the audience swinging the tail of his coat flashing his trademark smile and mustache still donning his thick crown of glory- his mane! That is Rajnikanth for you, still stirring the crowd after all these years!
Not bad for a man of his age to be able to single-handedly maintain the interest of the story. The other actors there are just side shows. He dons two roles, as a do-gooder king during the British Raj era and his wayward petty thief grandson in present time.
A dam engineer is murdered in a small village. His last dying words is to open the old dilapidated temple. As the temple is only supposed to be opened by the descendants of Lingeswara, the philanthropic nobleman who built the temple and the dam which saved the village from extinction, the search for his grandson starts.
Lingaa and his sidekicks are frequent visitors of the central jail. The petty criminals are known the policemen in that town. A TV compere, who just happened to be the granddaughter of the village headman tracks him down to bring him back to the village against his wish. Lingaa has a bone to pick with his ancestors who literally gave away all the family fortunes to charity, leaving him to fend for himself in the punishing world. After a failed robbery and in hot pursuit by the police, Lingaa has no choice but to go the village where he is ushered in full honours.
Hence starts the sweeter than nectar tale of a man beyond man who bends over backwards to fight the baddies in the form of corrupt British administrators and turncoats to use his own wealth, which would easily put him as the richest of the richest in Forbes 50, to serve the Indian poor.
The primary lesson to remember while watching some movies is not to ask too many questions. Do not ask how certain stunts are possible and why the costume change before the flashback story and after!
At the outset, the credits alerted that no animals were harmed in the shooting of the film and that of elephants were computer imaging. I would say that the computer animation specialist did a mighty fine job. The elephants which appeared in many scenes look quite real and I would not have even noticed.
Talking about real shots and computer graphic imaging, I was left in a quandary which was real and which was fake. Some of the scenes of the 64 old man was obviously staged as he swerved the curbs of the mountainous roads to leap jump into a hot air balloon to save his beau and to prevent the dam which had been the theme of the movie from being bombed to smithereens. 
At the end of the day, viewers went back relieving themselves of their real life woes but still feeling that his previous efforts were more meaningful and far more entertaining. The unanswered question remains unanswered. Just like how the die hard fans were heralding 'Muthu' as his entrance into politics, many of the so called 'punch dialogues' were geared towards this end. More joy in suspense?

Pushing the boundaries of self expression

Transparent (TV miniseries, Season 1; 2014)

Living is easy with eyes closed. When you start analysing your existence in life, the purpose of life and start questioning every shred of existentialism, life becomes too complicated. It make living impossible for you and those around you.
When you feel discontented and yearn for the perpetual unattainable pleasures in life without appreciating the joy and magic that is around you, life can be a living hell. This, in essence, is the bane of modern living. We are unsure what we actually want in life. We are forever lamenting that life sucks and things could be better. We reach out beyond borders that are accepted as norm only to realise that that is not we were looking in the first place.
This new TV show just completed its first season, released for binge consumption by Amazon. The ten 30-minutes episodes narrate the saga of a dysfunctional family. The father, Mort/Maura, is a respected professor, who decide to come out in the open about his desire to cross dress, at the age of 60 plus. His struggle to live to his inner needs predates 10 years before the present and is told in flashback - how he used to secretly try out dresses and sneak out to a transgender camp. His wife, Shelly (Judith Light, we knew her as the main character of the 80s sitcom 'Who's the Boss'), left him after his confession for another man, Ed. This Ed is now demented and finally dies at the end of the series.

The season tells us how Mort/Maura slowly informs his kids (2 ladies and a man) of his cross dressing desires. This creates many error of comedy in this Jewish family. For a start, their Papa has become a Mama, so they address him as Mapa.

The kids themselves have the own sexuality problems. The elder daughter, a mother of two, decide to rekindle her lesbian relationship with her former college roommate. Another crisis that she has to handle is her issues with her husband and her desire to marry her partner.

The son, a confused chap in the music industry, jumps from bed to bed to partners unwilling to commit themselves. He finally finds love in a female Rabbi who had earlier vowed celibacy.
The younger daughter who is just pondering on her own true desires in life gets confessed to by her best friend who used to be her brother's girlfriend.
As the mother's boyfriend becomes more difficult to manage, the family comes together to decide whether they should pull the plug on him, by overdosing him. Luckily, they did not. He falls into the pool and drowns instead.

As you can see, this comedy is satire of sorts. On one hand, it highlights the plight of the transgender community and educate us that their transformation is not solely on fulfilling sexual gratifications. On the other, we wonder if he is creating further confusion as the transgenders start falling in love with the gender that they were biologically born to love! (Transgender male falling for females).

There is nothing sacred anymore - Boy & Boy; Boy & Girl; Girl & Girl; Boy & Girl & Girl; Girl & Boy & Boy.....

One theory that explains the increased incidence of gender identity crisis is the fact that oral contraceptive pills get metabolised in the kidneys and gets excreted into water cycle of nature and comes back to us in our drinking water, albeit in ultra low doses, screwing up the masculinity of mankind! Just a theory! Of course, people are more assertive these days on their likes and dislikes as well as demand their rights under the shield of the right to live as a human being.
Those afflicted with this aberrance insist that they are also God's creatures made in his mold. The opposers insist that The Divine is infallible and their conduct is self imposed and can be corrected.

More old pix

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2833736/Shotguns-sundaes-segregation-Gordon-Parks-stunning-photos-families-1950s-Alabama-provide-poignant-unique-look-life-civil-rights-era.html?ito=social-facebook

Shotguns, sundaes and segregation: Stunning photos of families in 1950s Alabama provide a poignant and unique look at life during the civil-rights era

• African-American photographer Gordon Parks captured the lives of three families living in Mobile, Alabama in 1956

• The collection, called The Restraints: Open and Hidden, follows the lives of three families

• A total of 40 prints will now go on display at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia

• Parks worked for Life Magazine for 20 years, shooting the likes of Muhammad Ali and Malcom X 

By CHRIS SPARGO FOR MAILONLINE

A stunning set of photographs taken by famed African-American photographer Gordon Parks during segregation in the 1950s are set to go on display later this month.

The collection, called The Restraints: Open and Hidden, follows the lives of three families living in and around downtown Mobile, Alabama in 1956, and show how they went about their daily routine in a town separated by race with children at their side.

Rediscovered in 2012, six years after he died of cancer at the age of 93, these photos will be shown at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia beginning this Saturday.

+12

The High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia will be showing a collection of photographs by famed American cameraman Gordon Parks

+12

The photos were originally shot on assignment for the September 1956 Life magazine photo-essay The Restraints: Open and Hidden

+12

This image shows three children staring at Parks'  the camera in Shady Grove, Alabama in 1956. Parks followed three families – the Thorntons, the Causeys and the Tanners – in their work, home and church lives near Mobile, Alabama

+12

The image taken outside a department store in downtown Mobile, Alabama shows the colored entrance during segregation. While only 20 photos ran in the original Life photo-essay, the exhibit will feature 40 of Parks' shots from the series

The images were taken while on assignment for the September 1956 Life magazine photo-essay The Restraints: Open and Hidden.

Parks followed three families – the Thorntons, the Causeys and the Tanners – in their work, home and church lives near Mobile according to The Guardian.

Only 20 of the photographs ran in the original photo-essay, but 50 additional color transparencies were found in 2012. Of these 40 will be on display.

He would later go on to shoot famous subjects including Malcolm X, Barbara Streissand and Muhammad Ali for Life, working with the magazine for 20 years.

He also became one of the first African-Americans to ever shoot for Vogue.

Later in life he would go on to direct films, famously helming the classic Shaft two years after making his directorial debut with The Learning Tree in 1969,based upon his semi-autobiographical novel of growing up in Kansas in the 1920s.

He would continue to write until his death, and also co-founded the popular magazine Essence.

+12

The photos had been forgotten until the Gordon Parks estate discovered 70 color transparencies six years after his death in 2012

+12

Parks would later go on to shoot famous subjects including Malcolm X, Barbara Streissand and Muhammad Ali for Life

+12

In addition to working at Life for 20 years, Parks was also one of the first African-Americans to shoot for Vogue

+12

The series represents one of Parks' earliest social documentary studies on color film

+12

Later in his life, Parks would go on to direct films, most notably the famed 1971 movie Shaft

+12

An African-American orders ice cream from the colored entrance of a store. Parks also directed a film version of his auto-biographical novel The Learning Tree in 1969, about a boy growing up in Kansas in the 1920s

+12

Mr and Mrs Albert Thornton sit in the front room of their home in the town. Writing became very important to Parks later in his life, and he would go on to co-found the magazine Essence

+12

Parks passed away at the age of 93 in 2006 as the result of cancer and was buried in his hometown of Fort Scott, Kansas

We’re blessed to be in a profession that helps

http://www.thestar.com.my/Opinion/Letters/2014/12/11/Were-blessed-to-be-in-a-profession-that-helps/

I AM a registrar (medical officer in training as a specialist) in one of the busiest hospitals in Malaysia.

I did my housemanship training here, went for my district posting, got into the specialist programme, and am now back in the same hospital where it all began.

Every once in a while, I come across a link sent to me via social media, regarding housemen, and their plight. Like how they are expected to work 75 hours; how medical officers and specialists are their bane; how they don’t get enough time for lunch or tea; and how medical officers have nothing else to do but make their already miserable lives more miserable.

Allow me to share the other side of the story.

My job requires me to work from 8am to 5pm. That’s a nine-hour job, with one hour for lunch. So that’s 45 hours per week, give or take.

That said, my work starts at 7.30am. I need to know my cases, especially the overnight admissions, before the specialists arrive. Sometimes, they arrive at 7.15am because they have got operations and clinics to run.

We don’t wait at the machine to punch out at 5pm sharp either. Sometimes, though not always, we have to stay back for hours because of certain cases.

Most of us do about six calls a month. Meaning, we punch in at 8am and punch out at 1pm the next day or 5pm the next day depending on the department’s policy.

Weekends, 24-hour calls, you don’t really hear us complaining, do you? Given the chance, I would rather spend the weekend with my family, rather than slog in the hospital for a mere RM220.

On average, the medical officer works 54 to 80 hours a week depending on the number of calls. And this varies from taking referals in the emergency department to doing life saving surgery at 3am.

So, the question arises, why do we do it?

To my junior doctors, we are blessed. We are in a blessed profession. We can alleviate pain, remove devastating tumours, make people walk again, we save lives.

We are blessed to be in a profession, where parents, children, sisters and brothers thank us for what we do. Be it a simple dislocated shoulder to a severe heart attack, we do what we can to help people.

When you look at consultants, they are where they are, not by whining. They are there because of the countless hours they put in, both with the books, as well as in the hospital.

There is no doubt, everyone wants more pay and less work, me included.

But dear housemen, take a good hard look at the person next to you. This is going to be the person who will eventually take care of you and your children.

If you have even a little bit of insight, you will know how to correct things, and at least be a better person, if not a better doctor.

MED REG

Kuala Lumpur

Whiners of the new generation!

Letters

Published: Monday December 8, 2014 MYT 12:00:00 AM
Updated: Monday December 8, 2014 MYT 7:57:26 AM

‘Trauma’ faced by some housemen in hospitals

IN the last two years there were a couple of articles regarding the tyranny trainee doctors in our hospitals are subjected to and the unethical treatment they are accorded to by the senior medical officers (MOs) and sometimes the specialists, too.

It is also a known secret that some trainee doctors have left the profession in disgust without completing the two-year compulsory internship.

Unfortunately, up to this day nothing seems to have been done either by the Health Ministry, Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) or the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) to fix this problem.

A houseman in any hospital in the peninsular is required to work for a minimum of 78 hours a week.

I say minimum because depending on the mood of the MO in charge, it could go much beyond this, with some end up serving even up to 90 hours a week.

Once in every week a trainee is scheduled to work continuously for 32 hours. This may be extended to 48 hours if the MO in charge so prefers.

Could you imagine how effectively a doctor can attend to patients after having gone sleepless for more than 32 hours?

And, while on duty the trainees are not given time to go for lunch or dinner; forget about tea-breaks.

Worse still, at times, they are not even allowed time to rush to the washroom to answer nature’s call.

They have to “steal” time for all these, hoping that the MO in charge would not appear suddenly to check on them.

That aside, the torment these trainee doctors undergo under their overly bossy MOs, to say the least, is atrocious.

A houseman is scheduled to serve in one department for two months.

However, if the MOs or the specialist in that department do not like any of the housemen entrusted to them; then the life of that trainee would be made miserable.

The unfortunate trainee would be picked on undeservedly and reprimanded in front of the patients and visitors.

And, very often, that trainee shall be held back to spend another two months or even more in that department.

To put it in a nutshell, everything possible, including veiled threats, would be used to torment the trainee psychologically to coerce him or her to leave the profession.

I hope the ministry, MMA and MMC carry out a thorough investigation immediately in all hospitals involved in training to ensure that the housemen are treated with some decorum.

Those involved in the training of housemen should be reminded that teaching and learning cannot occur by merely humiliating and threatening the housemen.

Those MOs involved in holding back trainees for more than the stipulated two months period in any one department must be hauled-up to justify their action.

Severe action must be taken against those MOs who are found to have breached the basic ethics of humanity while dealing with their charges.

For a start, these unprofessional MOs should be relieved of responsibilities to train the housemen as they are not at all fit to be in the medical profession.

It must be remembered that the two-year period the trainees spend under senior MOs and specialists is very crucial as that is what moulds them to become good doctors.

DISGUSTED MALAYSIAN

Kuala Lumpur

An early horror flick

The Innocents (1961)
This must be one of those early supernatural horror movies before the likes of the 'May 13th' franchise and Salem Lot came to fore. The setting, in black and white, in a Gothic castle and pre-electric bulbs made it especially scary. And the use of little children as evil always fascinates.
A British production with a few accolades to their belt, it boasts of excellent lighting. John Mortimer, whose biography I read recently, had a hand in the screenplay.
The lovely Deborah Kerr, despite her inexperience, gains employment as a governess to two pre-teens in a massive Gothic mansion. She is employed by their uncle with definite instruction not to disturb him from his social activities.
The job starts on a good footing. The picturesque estate, the serenity of the countryside and the lovely children all appear nice at first.
The previous governess died in mysterious circumstances which nobody wants to talk about. Slowly the governess start seeing odd behaviour of the children and the occasional apparitions that appear.
Slowly the secret of the mansion is discovered without the gore and senseless killings as is usually seen in present day horror flicks. In its place, you have a nicely choreographed build-up of suspense and mystery.