Scepticism keeps us going!

Memories of Murder (2003)

We look at things around us, and we get awed. We observe, scrutinise, see a pattern, try to connect the dots and suddenly be cocksure about something. We brag and gloat that we have cracked it like we had unveiled the secrets of the Universe. Then it would hit you right smack in your face - that something did not turn out as we thought it would. We are shocked. We deny it. Cognitive dissonance would set in. Our ego would not accept our failure. We would blame error in experimentation, that somebody had slept on the job, that it just cannot be.

What we do next may make or break our civilisation. We can just deny that the whole thing did not happen and move on with life, content with our prior knowledge. We can tell ourselves that we have learnt everything already and that there is nothing more to earn. Or be a sceptic and retrace our every step and try to outline where and when and how things can go wrong. The former is the easy way out that maintains status quo and maintains the hierarchy while the latter is more problematic. Paradoxically, scepticism, rethinking and re-questioning are the very qualities that keep our civilisation propelling forward. Lose that, and we will be extinct.

The Koreans have leapt forward in many fields, science, technology, medicine, economy and of course the art form. Besides providing Psy, boy bands and soap dramas to the world, the film industry is a force to reckon. This film is praised for its storyline, particularly the climax. It is based on the series of unresolved murders that happened in South Korea between 1986 and 1991. It narrates the escapades of two regular detectives and a newly transferred one from the big city, in 1985, who desperately try to solve three murders involving young girls. They see a pattern in the crimes; the victims are females, all wear red, that the event happens on a rainy day and is preceded by a particular song requested on the radio. They come so close to solving the case until a vital clue comes against their suspicion. It happens repeatedly until they had to close the case.

How the man look? Just ordinary!

18 years later, after they had left the service and lead their own lives, the memories of this unsolved murder stay in their mind. The main character, as he is passing through the crime scene one day, decides to stop to have a look. As he is scrutinising the area and the avalanche of recollection about the death come pouring in, a young passerby asks him about his activity. He tells her that he is looking at something that he was working on many years previously. The bewildered girl replies that another man was doing the same thing just a few days before that. The puzzled ex-detective asks her to describe the man. The answers that she gives only brought him back to the memory his detective days, "Oh, just an ordinary-looking man!"

The detective must be telling himself,  anyone can commit murder. He does not have a different identifying look. Evil resides in all of us. When our shields are down when the time is ripe and at the spur of the moment, humanity fails, and darkness prevails.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Life is not so simple, or is it?

© Asleep at the Wheel, New Yorker cover by Frank Viva

We think that we do not have self-driving cars because the technology is not perfect. Furthermore, we heard of Uber experimental driver-less car crashing. Hence, the whole exercise had been put into cold storage.

Jack Ma, in one of his interviews, was quoted as saying that we should wait for a perfect system before introducing it for human consumption. He suggests that we should present it anyway and make changes as we go on, as we encounter obstacles and bumps. I think that is a businessman talking. Capital ventures usually sell an idea, get everybody excited, convince them that it is the best thing since Adam, create an illusion of demand, make loads of money starting the venture, selling the business, going for a kill and split the scene to begin another venture somewhere else.

The idealist would, however, ponder and yonder till the cows come home. Nothing new would see living daylight. Every endeavour would fizzle out as unremarkable as it started.

Another discussion that I heard recently on the use of a driverless car is the moral dilemma. It is dandy that the vehicle can be navigated from point A to point B. Now, along with the way, there can be many unforeseen circumstances. It could be one that had not been programmed with the machine's algorithm. A split second decision may need to be made. The car may need to decide between crashing into a crowd or hitting the pavement. But wait! Hitting the sidewalk or the tree may endanger the passenger. The question arises whether the maker of the car should give importance to its client or to the vagabond slouched by the roadside. How is the software going to know the identity of the potential accident victim if not for facial recognition and access to his bank account and social background? Oh no, does that mean some lives are more worth saving than others? Does owning a self-driving car make you more valuable than the man on the street? And all this in a fraction of a second!

Anyway, human beings are not the best of moral agents especially when it is their lives, or their loved ones are involved. Social class, race, religion and self-interest may cloud their judgement. Are machines going to be any better as they would be programmed by us anyway?

Rebirth to resume unfinished business?

Dora (Tamil, 2017)

Most Hindus believe that our physical bodies are just vessels for the Atma (soul). The Atma is eternal. It moves from births to births to finish unfinished business and to re-pay unsettled dues. Everything happens for a reason, and the reason is this. Nothing happens by mere chance or at random for nothing. Every flutter of a butterfly wing and every whiff of the wind that regenerates takes place in a pre-determined fashion. But then that would nullify the role of free will in deciding the course of our lives or it our free will also pre-determined. I think Avicenna incurred the ire of his contemporaries when he posited that God is too great to be worried about the nitty-gritty details of things that happen but decides on things seen at a higher level.

This must be the basis of this movie. The soul of a dog (Dora) goes into a car to avenge the death of its owner. Nayanthara is the kick-ass protagonist which unknowingly becomes the owner of a second-hand car which becomes alive with her touch. Nayanthara (as Pavalakodi) is the recipient of the dog owner's heart (heart transplantation).

The story seems far out. A self-thinking car with the ability to self-drive and auto repair itself, including re-materialising broken windscreen and headlamps in a jiffy is laughable. The story is predictable. It seems that nowadays, abusing parents and ridiculing them constitutes comedy. 2/5.

Beware the soft signs!

Credit: Pinterest
Sarawak, 1950. 
A tattooed Orang Ulu nurse and patient.

Have you noticed how so often we are made to realise of our shortcomings? We thought the house was spick and span only to receive a metaphorical smack on the head when it is discovered that the stench was actually culminating the years sweeping the dirt under the carpet and the moisture it accumulated year in year out.

Our colonial masters left us with a community level medical services network that we could be proud of. In the late 50s and all through the 70s, every gravid mother, parturient and neonate in a village was given personalised attention by the members of the medical team. They took great pleasure in caring for them from the cradle to the grave (when the time is ripe, of course).

One of their greatest success stories is the immunisation programme that drastically brought down the incidence of common communicable diseases.

Over time, we have become complacent. Lurking beneath the surface society, amongst the subaltern community, the immigrant population, the unwelcomed sojourners, undocumented unskilled workers and overstayed students who became pregnant by choice or otherwise, are individuals who are not protected against many diseases that the adult Malaysian populations are. Since daily survival is a struggle, ensuring that their newborns are immunised is the least of their priorities. This would dilute the herd immunity and hence put the rest of the citizens at risk of various diseases that we thought we had eradicated in the country. Something to look into!

Nothing changed much!

The Return (1981)

Author: K S Maniam

A plethora of emotion flowed through as I perused through this book. The memories of yesteryears, of the dilemma in wanting to retain the Indian identity as well as knowing that Indianness was taking me nowhere. The perplexity of needing to get out the rut of being born in the lower class of society as well as not wanting to be one to forget his past. The predicament of not wanting to speak the Tamil language so as not to attract the wrong crowd but to converse in English, which in my mind, was the language of knowledge. Enduring the insults of being 'white-assed' for pretending not to understand the language whilst living in a place equivalent to a ghetto. Of being embarrassed by the fiasco of the Indians in the neighbourhood as if I was the bearer of everything Indian.

This story also reminds me of all the people in my life who work hard as if it was the last thing they need to do but lack the foresight to prepare for their future and that of their family. There were also people who went to great lengths to outdo their neighbours in meaningless festivities just to satisfy their own egos.

It also reminds me of a time when I was admonished for not contributing enough to the family well-being as the economic situation demanded. I was accused of finding the easy way out by immersing myself in my books as if I was the only kid in the world who went to school.

It was déjà vu once again, those loud days when neighbours raised their voices in acts of family feuds and loud decibels of music from gramophone players. Just because they have a rough day at work or is Deepavali eve, the neighbours made it the social duty to entertain the whole neighbourhood with their brand of cinema songs.

Then there were those who do things knowing very well it is wrong just because they can. Some people never registered their marriages leaving their spouses in a quandary as they kicked the bucket, quite prematurely in those days, when health awareness was not a priority but living the moment was. Even births were not registered, making school registration a Herculean task. What more to excel in school.

K. S. Maniam 

I thought with the passage of time,  these scenarios would be events of a bygone era. Unfortunately, half a century after witnessing all of the above, these events are still very much alive.

The book narrates how two generations of Indian migrants failed to lay claim to a place in the country they decided to call home by their ignorance or probably failure to conform. The Indian community in this story seems to be at loggerheads with everybody, the authority, with people in power, Indians of higher stature (and vice versa, with people of lower strata), with relatives, with teachers and within the family.

It is a sad tale of all Indians in Malaysia. From the time this country started to evolve into a nation-state, they have been putting in their hard and soul into its soil. The sweat, blood and soul that they contributed to the country's development somehow seem to have been buried in the shadows of the tropical clouds.

Talking about shadows, no matter how far we try to run away from our shadows, they return to haunt. Bonds of blood and DNA are not easily broken. They come recoiling back. The emotional chains are simply too strong. Even if the eyes do not want to see, the skin, nevertheless, quivers.

The feminine force unleashed!

Encountering Kali 
(In the margins, at the centre, in the west)
Edited by Rachel F McDermott, & Jeffrey J. Kirpal

To the uninitiated, like the Europeans who arrived on the Indian shores to encounter its natives paying homage to a gory angry looking dark imaged Goddess with weapons of destruction hanging from her multiple arms, wearing a necklace of human scalps, skirt of human limbs and protruding tongue, it must be the image of Devil itself. For the non-believers, it must have appeared like devil worship and a warped sense of divinity of the tribal people. To the natives, however, it is their expression of the embodiment of how the world is to them.

The world is a cruel place. Man's survival is paved with the daily struggle against the elements of Nature and is a constant combat against various atrocities. It is not easy, but life has to go on. Civilised people in India had apparently realised these long ago, even before the spread of Brahmanic and Vedic teachings. The forces of Nature are believed to be feminine in origin. The same mother with the maternal instincts to cuddle is the same one that shows wrath when she is not pleased. The same mother, despite her anger, would not bear to see a hungry child cry. Hence, her bosomy posture with an angry looking stance. The rage within Devi is also to combat negative forces in the world.

The Devi, Sakthi, the generic name for this female divinity, assumes many roles. In the form of a loving wife and kind mother, she is Parvathi, the consort of Lord Shiva. When the situation warrants, she would assume the role of Durga, the fearsome tiger-riding Goddess. Certain quarters insist that it is from the female energies indeed that the Trimurti, the union of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva (the creator, protector and destroyer respectively) arise. In fact, She is Brahman, the ultimate force that spins the Universe.

Kali is said to be the concept that resides in the female psyche. It is the dominant force which climaxes when a situation warrants for her to be to protect her loved ones. When a wounded animal is cornered for the last kill, it will garner all its last remaining strength to fight back, most voraciously and in an unstoppable manner. That is Kali. It is said in a Purana that this force was invoked when a demon (asura) obtained a boon from Brahma which promised indestructibility by any living man. Kali, with the help of Shiva, was so intoxicated with the victory over this demon and the gore of his blood that She went on a rampage. The carnage went on. She was on a killing spree that no one could stop. Shiva was called in to stop his 'wife'. Shiva laid amongst the corpse. Only when Kali realised that She was stepping on Shiva, she relented whilst biting her tongue. That is the persona of an embarrassed lady, extruding her tongue and gently biting it!

While some would look at Kali as the current state of the world, hostile and unforgiving, there is still some humanity in the form of comfort and security from this towering figure. Others would associate Her with the left-handed Tantric practices. These are habits considered deviant from the mainstream, the use of sexual energies of the unsanctioned kind, intoxicants and abnormal behaviours. In the realistic world, these negative forces still make up the equilibrium of the world that we live in.

Dakshineswar stance

The belief in the feminine forces of Nature predates Brahmanic and Vedantic teachings. It was a way then to appease the forces with blood sacrifice. Some quarters assert that it is a perverted practice. When the seemingly humane practices of avoiding animal sacrifices came forth, Kali worship became marginalised. It was taken to areas considered to be at the fringe of civilisation, Bengal, South India and the mountainous areas of India. When sea transportation became a trendy thing, Kali worship was re-introduced to the world, at least to the Western world through Calcutta and sea-ports of the South.

To the marginalised societies, Kali gives them hope and redemption. To the Tamils who were persecuted during the Sri Lanka's systemic genocide, She shone a light on them despite all the adversities. Like Her, behind the epitome of destruction, there was a glimmer of love and maternal cuddle to the hungry and the tortured ones. Oracles who invoked the spirit of Kali gave them closure to their missing or lost loved ones. Kali was not expected to change or be blamed for the situation they were caught in but rather remained a beacon of hope to the downtrodden.

These tuft of faith was also given to the indentured labourers who crossed oceans for survival. Kali worship is still widespread in South East Asia, the Caribbean Islands and the spread of islands over the Indian Ocean.

As the world became 'civilised' and inhumane blood offerings became a taboo in the eyes of non-tribal people, there was an attempt to classify Kali worship as 'low-caste' or subversive. The practitioners of younger religions like Jain, Buddhism and Brahmanic brand of faith, viewed it as the devotion of the low-caste, natives and the dark-skinned South Indian coolies, especially so in places they were brought in as labourers.

It is interesting to note how the word 'thug' made it into the English Language. It was just about the time when Indian raised arms against their colonial masters just after the 1857 Sepoy Revolution. The wanted terrorists (freedom fighters) ran into the Vindhya mountains to escape persecution and found solace in Devi Thuggee (a manifestation of Kali) temples. Soon these troublemakers were labelled as thugs. Of course, for the hunted they just yearned for an abode of hope in their patron Goddess to focus on their next move.

From Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Psychoanalysts do not want to be left out in the interpretation of what Kali means to the world. The female gender has always been said to passive and irrational, at least in the eyes of the West. The community expected the male counterpart to take charge of the situation to maintain order. Feminity has a wild, aggressive side which is kept under a calm demeanour that they seem to exhibit. When the situation demands or the time is ripe, the explosive magma of physical energies, sexual prowess and rage just spew out. Another critic suggested that perhaps the West is a male-dominated society with their phallic projections penetrating the weaker natives. To see a powerful feminine force with pent-up energies was unacceptable. Hence, the denigration of Goddess Kali in the mainstream media and by the celluloid industry. Take for example the depiction of Kali in 'Help!' (1966) and 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom' (1984). For believers of Kali as their guardian, the whole persona of this Goddess is just Mimesis, imitation of real life in art form - a dialectical, double-edged, complex play of mimesis and imagery! Kali is Mother India against foreign oppressors (Ferringhi). I suppose, for the colonists, it is reverse mimesis. Many Indian Independence fighters like Bose and Aurobindo used this dark avenging ferocious icon to rise to the occasion, whereas Gandhi must have used the subtler subdued form of Kali when he opted for passive resistance.

This towering matriarchal role of Goddess Kali in our daily lives cannot be overstated. As the unifying force Nature is feminine, it has to assume different roles in combating different situations. The message here is that an angry mother, no matter how angry she is, would still feed her crying child. We have to understand that the narrations are that of people from vast areas with their own perception of the Divine. Therefore, the knowledge may have been lost in transit or in translation. The idea is that all our attributes are divine and our ability to converse, mobilise, protect and think is a blessing to cherish. These are remembered on certain days, like Navarathri.

In the modern era, after being oppressed for millenniums, the female gender is out with a bang. Their dormant powers have suddenly been unleashed. The fairer sex is out with a vengeance. They are now slowly but surely making their presence felt in all fields including some that were considered too physically or intellectually demanding for what used to be called the 'fairer' sex.

Ra, Ra, Rasputin, lover of the Russian Queen!

Rasputin- A short life (2014)
Frances Welch

After reading this book, all I thought of was my history teacher, Mr LKK. Even today, I can still remember his theatrical antics and his story-telling techniques as how he tried to impress upon us the events that happened in the annals of history.

Why I am saying this? Whatever Mr LKK taught us when he was covering Russian Revolution and Rasputin is clearly illustrated in the small book, the twisted preacher that he was; the mysticism that surrounded his prophecies; the devious ways that were employed to assassinate him as he was almost invincible and his scandalous affairs including the one involving the Tsarina.

Grigory Rasputin must surely mark the beginning of the end of the Imperial family in Russia. The mysterious peasant man from Siberia who proclaimed to be a Man-of-God but with questionable personal hygiene, moral conduct and penchant for all the very activities that were frowned upon by the Good Book, must have not down well with the starving subjects of Russia. His mysterious powers and his entry into the Royal household must have created ire on their part. His activity to wrap the Tsarina around his finger who in turn could manipulate the actions of the monarch was a sore point with the people.

The manner Rasputin managed to wriggle himself through the love of a mother to her haemophiliac son. Rasputin provided comfort that none from the medical profession could give.

He created enemies within the Russian Duma and the Orthodox Church for his outrageous behaviour. It finally took three men to put a stop to his nefarious actions - Felix Youssopov, a member of the Imperial Family; Dr Stanilaus Lazovert, an army doctor and Vladimir Purishkevich of the Duma. As the legend goes, Rasputin was no easy person to die. He was poisoned with cyanide, shot at, beaten up, thrown from a bridge and finally drowned in the river. It is said that he may have outlived all the attempts on his life. There was even a controversy that post-mortem may have shown water in the lungs, hence the cause of death may have been drowning (i.e. he defied all previous attempt at his life). Certain quarters claim that the postmortem report may have been altered in view for Rasputin to be canonised. Legend says that a Man-of-God would have perished in water! His grave was relocated thrice to thwart unnecessary attention and finally was just cremated by the roadside when his car broke down. Urban legend says that he 'moved' in his funeral pyre! Of course, it must have been just contractions of tendons in the heat.

He may have foreseen attempts on his life and had apparently prophesied that Imperial Russia would perish if Russians would kill him. Sure enough, the Romonav Dynasty collapsed, the Red Revolution changed the landscape of Mother Russia and Russia was never the same again. Even the lead singer of Boney M, who mocked him via his hit song, died on the same day as Rasputin (corrected for the differences between Russian and Gregorian calendar), of all places, in St Petersburg! (just like Rasputin).