The impersonal city life

City Lights (1931)
Written, Produced, Directed, Acted: Charlie Chaplin

Hailed as one of the best movies of all time, this silent film was released when sound system was already coming to the mainstream. Chaplin also wrote the musical score. The famous musical tune in it, 'La Violetera', was contested for copyright infringement and was won by its Spanish composer Jose' Padilla.

Keeping with Chaplin's political views, this story paints a very impersonal picture of modern capitalist living. It is comical to see (besides Chaplin's antics) how the general public is seen in such a hurry to be heading to nowhere. They party in such a meaningless way without actually enjoying themselves. It seems as if the revelry is forced upon them. Almost robotic, they carry on their life after all the merrymaking without any attachments.

Town folks only seek for you when they are in dire straits or in need of a shoulder to cry on. Otherwise it just everybody with their ways.

In his own slapstick ways, Chaplin resumes his Tramp persona to bring forth the above messages. He rescues a suicidal and drunk rich man who repeatedly does not have a recollection of him when he is sober. Charlie's love interest is a blind flower girl. He helps her with eviction and for eyesight restoration surgery. Like a Franciscan priest, he bears suffering for the wellbeing of others.

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The devil in us?

Murder at Orient Express (2017)

What was supposed to be an Agatha Christie's whodunnit turned out to be highly philosophical one. Sure, we all, by now must be quite familiar with the quirky Inspector Hercule Poirot and his peculiar ways of solving crimes. Here Mon. Poirot carries with him a baggage of a melancholic past and tries to make sense of the actions of mankind; his penchant for criminal activities, his failure to follow the path acceptable as the correct one should be.

A single action has many repercussions. A single turn of event that goes against our desires strains our relationships, changes our perspective of the future, increases anxiety, induces phobia, shatters confidence, brings psychosomatic maladies, destroys families literally and metaphorically as well as destroys the whole community in more ways than we realise.

All after all the generations of our existence, we still succumb to our primal desires to be blinded by anger and emotions. At the crucial time of reckoning, our hearts (and other organs) dictate our next moves. The decisive and critical mind is kept shut from the equation. Bypassing rational thinking, we are left to deal with the after-effects of our mindless actions. Pretty soon, we would realise that the hole that we have dug soon metamorphose into a rapid quicksand which engulfs us.

Is forgiveness an option to start a clean slate? Unfortunately, it is not so simple. We never learn from our mistakes. We only turn wiser, not to repeat our earlier that got us caught in the first place. We jostle, we snake, we burrow, and we squirm to deny all wrongdoings. We blame the devil in us that control our sense and hope to get a get-out-from-jail card.

In pursuit of knowledge

Just the other day, a discussion brewed in our WhatsApp group. This group was started with the intention of educating ourselves and understanding the nuances of the world. We discussed politics, world events, philosophy, religion, ancient history, epistemology, Trump, Vedanta and almost anything under the sun with the hope of peeling open the sleeping inner eye within us to see the bigger picture of things around us.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad:
असतो मा साद गमय, तमसो मा ज्योतिर् गमय, मृत्योर मा अमृतम् गमय
(Asato Ma Sad Gamaya, Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya, Mrityor Ma Amritam Gamaya)
Lead us from ignorance to truth, Lead us from darkness to light, Lead us from death to deathlessness.

(recited at the end of the climatic end of arthi, Hindu prayers, when the Jyothi, fire, is shown to the deity. If only the congregation appreciates the true meaning of the verse and put it into practice.)

On one hand, we see some who perceive the world as one going through a 'dystopian age' of 'an age of anger'. These angst-filled people look at the world around them as if it is approaching the end of times. They realise that it is their worldly (?God-sent) duty and the civil thing to push forward their rhetorics to 'correct' the imbalances. They spread anger and negativities to everyone to rise to the occasion to change their dystopia to utopia, knowing well that it is an unattainable dream. This group of people comprise those of the intelligentsia, writers, art practitioners and media personnel. They spur ideas to propel us forward to face all challenges and to be prepared for an uncertain future. Looking at a nihilistic future makes them better in dealing with a catastrophe, should one befall them. Appearing too optimistic, on the converse, may be self-defeating as they would be lulled into their comfort zone. They would forget the survival skills to smell fear with the option to flight or fight.

On the other hand, we have those who, with their blissful look, swear that we are indeed leaving in the golden age. The best time to live is now. With the advent of advances in science, technology and much more, people are living healthier lives, free from various communicable diseases and live longer meaningful lives. They deny that end is nigh. Our knowledge and understanding of the world around us has been incrementally increasing. The truth is out there to harness. The only thing that is holding us down is our ignorance and our inertia. We will never perish us a human race. We are too smart for that. Defeating more massive mammoth beasts in our past, we are now indeed the defacto most dominant species on the planet. Game theory applications predict that it is unlikely that we would annihilate each other as our arsenal of weapons gets too big for our own good. The only thing that could destroy us is a meteor hit, which is beyond our control.

Like the two opposing poles of a magnet, like the Ying and the Yang, like the duality of life, like the opposing forces of Siva and Sakthi, these two effects complete us. We need both parties to help us to be on toes to face an unexpected eventuality, be creative to plan our next move, to explore different dimensions, to remember the glory of past achievements. Like the newest Magnetic levitation train where two opposing poles of magnetic strips push a massive structure to travel forward, it is our sincere hope that the human race does the same.

[Thanks AqS for his invaluable deeds in paving towards the Path of Knowledge]

Time after time...

What Went Wrong?
Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response
Bernard Lewis (2002)

Warning: For mature readers only

There was a time in world history when the Islamic world was like what America is today; the place of culture where people could sit down in coffee cafes to partake in intellectual discourses all day whilst the rest of the world, including Europe, was in the dark ages. Fast forward into the 21st century, one would find the situation reversed. People in the Islamic world cannot wait to get out of their toxic countries. If before, refugees used to move from the West to the East, now the tide is reversed. The author asks, 'What went wrong?'.

In essence, the event that marked the beginning of the end of the heydays of the Ottoman Empire must surely be the failure at the Battle of Vienna in 1683. It was the time that the improvement in the weaponry and the military planning of the Europeans started to manifest.

If before, coffee drinking was introduced by the Muslims after obtaining it from Ethiopia to call it theirs, their nemesis started procuring their supplies from their colonies. Instead of getting sugar from Persia and India, the West sourced it from the Carribean Islands.

The culture of wanting to learn and explore drove Muslims to greater heights during their earlier conquests had somehow dwindled.  In many Islamic empires, concerted efforts that were made to translate, study, argue, and debate have lulled over the years. They had developed a superiority complex. Their old technologies soon were no match for what the rest of the world could offer.

The printing technology helped to disseminate information and educate the masses in Christendom, whilst the Muslim monarchs were quite content in keeping their subjects ignorant. In fact, printing in the Arabic language was considered sacrilegious as it was the language of the Quran.

The Muslims were comfortable with the sundial clocks and water clocks which kept time, albeit with its imperfections. The sundial could not be used when the sun was down and time varied on the position of the sun. The water clocks also had technical issues. The Europeans took the time-keeping concept seriously, improved it with mechanical clocks, and sold it back to the Turks. Timekeeping not only eased appointments but also aided transportation, ticketing and even music. Tempo helped to develop music.

The concept of freedom, which is a construct of the French, is relatively alien in the Islamic world. It fascinated citizens of the Muslim countries, but unfortunately, what they got were despots and authoritarian leaders who were happy to thump their citizens under their tight-fisted regimes. Democracy in the real Western sense is still sorely missing. Despite the many attempts to separate the State from religion, unlike their cousins in Christendom who learnt the hard lessons of the tyranny of the Church, it remains an uphill task. With most economic activities in the hands of the monarchs, real social justice seems hard to come by.

Music, art and culture are generally frowned upon. Even though Islam started off as a liberator of women and the oppressed at the time of its inception, it failed to keep up with the change of the seasons. Consequently, it is somehow construed as treating its women as second-class citizens.

Another two groups of individuals who feel discriminated against are the non-believers living in a majority Muslim population and the slaves. Even though modern societies have accepted the concept of human rights, freedom and liberty as their pillars, these people on the fringe of society feel left out of the race.

In conclusion, the author states that the once-mighty Islamic world is having a reversal of fortune. It is left poor, weak and ignorant behind the rest of the world in its military capability, economic achievements and political stability.

Its society, in reflection, tries to find the cause of their predicament. Besides the usual suspects of Jews, Mongols, Turks, Shias and Christians, their latest punching bags are the Saud family and the USA. I suppose it never dawned on them that change starts with the man with the mirror. In this hostile world, every leader would and should put the interest of their own people as their utmost priority and should put their God-given faculties to use. In a way, we all deserve the leader that we choose!

Free for all?

I found it funny that a close friend of mine should call me one day of something that eventually got me thinking. His close relative had been admitted for an ailment and he, who had decided that he was too good for the country, and was residing miles away after emigration, wanted to know whether the physician who was treating her was any good.

"Any good?" I asked myself. "Perplexing that he should ask me that. After all, the physician must have been the guy who had probably topped his class academically, had apparently spent his productive years of his youth burning the midnight oil whilst other youngsters were having a whale of a time enjoying their youthful existence, trying not to leave any stone unturned just in case he is caught in a life and death situations in future. These and his other present-day out of office-hours and ungodly hour labours had come to this. Market forces deciding on the expertise and skill of a person who literally has the licence to kill. Err..."

Hasn't the society decided early in their formation that certain professions that guide the people to the future need to have the particular calibre to ensure that the wealth, health, order, justice of the future of the human race be guarded against annihilation.

A little leeway and small cutting corners here and there have led to this. The people appointed to hold the torch of this august profession has let us down. Now it looks a freestyle rodeo show!

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

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The cold lonely walk of modern life...

Lights in the Dusk (2006)
Written, produced and directed: Aki Kaurismäki

This must surely be the bane of modern living. In contemporary times, Man lives a loner's life. He is individualistic and tries to find happiness in the company of himself. Koistinen runs life in a routine, doing things that he sees little satisfaction. He yearns for that elusive happiness, wonders where it is, contemplates where it is, questions whether it exists, wander around looking for it at all the wrong places and fails miserably.

In his fear of not achieving eudaemonia, he is scared to commit himself in relationships. Perhaps because he spends too much alone, he finds sharing his living space too restrictive. He wants the freedom to explore without being tied down. He wants the cake and to eat it at the same time. 

The film, which is the last instalment of Finland trilogy [Drifting Clouds (1996); The Man without a Past (2002)], keeps the theme of lonely life in that country. The background story seems to hint that life is all not hunky-dory in this supposed first world country with a perfect infrastructure and social safety net. For the common man, it is all the same to him, whether a socialist government reigns or capitalism is the order of the day. Neither of them is friendly to the entrepreneurial desires of the common man.

Maybe it is just me, but there is also a hint of resentment of the days when Russia ruled over Finland. Finland is said to have been raped of its resources and culture by the Russian giants before the fall of the Romanov family. Anti-Russian sentiments continue to date. This must have been sarcastically inserted by the director as a group of drunks arguing about the greatness of some Russian literary figures. It is also seen when he boasts of naming his security firm 'Kosinski', not Koistinen, his real name.

It tells the mundane life of a lowly loner security guard who leads a lonesome routine. He is a shy guy who goes back to an empty cold apartment. His only meaningful contact with a living organism is the plants that he keeps on the roof. He has big plans for his life, but nothing can get off the ground. He finds an admirer in the owner of the hotdog stand but is too aloof to realise. In midst of all these, a mysterious lady befriends him. This femme fatale, as it turns out, is using him just to rob a jewellery under his care. His life goes topsy-turvy.

It is unbelievable that a character such as this should exist; a passivist, one who goes with the flow without fighting back, holding old age-forgotten loyalties like honour and bearing all the burdens in the name of passion. Perhaps, there do!

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Everyone's a loser?

I Hired a Contract Killer (1990)
Screenplay, Production, Direction: Aki Kaurismäki

When does a person consider himself a failure? Does it happen when he loses his job and is unable to sustain his existence? Or it happens when he realises that there is no future for him, nothing for him to live for? The path in front of him is just an abyss of nothingness with nothing to call his own. His life is hollow, and his interaction with others is just superficial acquaintances which end at the end of working hours or the break of dawn.

Is he a loser when he is unable to provide for his loved ones? Does he lose it when the curtain draws on him and the Maker prematurely call him in?

Set in the gloomy, dull days of the 70s in the United Kingdom when economic malaise was the order of the day and financial market was in the doldrums, it depicts the story of the Royal Water Works Board clerk who was retrenched. The Board is being privatised and the protagonist, Henri (Jea-Pierre Léaud, seen as a child actor in the classic French neo-realist film '400 Blows'), being a foreigner, is the first to go. A disappointed Henri, probably with other baggage that he must be carrying with him as he had run away from France, attempts suicide. He fails miserably. By chance, Henri encounters an article in the newspaper about hired killers. With his life savings, he employs them to kill him!

Along the way, he meets and falls in love with a flower girl. Suddenly, the zest for life is renewed. Life has a purpose now. Unfortunately, the agency that sends hire killers cannot be contacted, and a contract killer is on the prowl for his blood. Amidst the cat and mouse chase, we the audience, come to know that, even the hired assassin has a sob story to tell. The slayer feels he is a loser as he is dying from terminal lung cancer, his days are numbered and has a daughter that he has to depart soon.

In his own way, the storyteller paints a picture that everyone would perceive themselves to be a flop if there is nothing much to look forward to life. The next question is whose duty is it to pave a flawless path for us to follow? Is it our individual duties to plan our futures? Is it the role of our elected leaders to stimulate the economy so as its citizens can prosper? Does money solve everyone's problems?

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