It ain't over till the fat lady sings!

Game Over (2019)

It is always easier to follow the weather-beaten road. After the imperfections, the potholes, the unevenness may have been corrected, or the path may carry a warning sign. Unfortunately, in this era where individualism and self-expression takes a paramount role in human development, the onus in handling curveballs in life is placed squarely on the individual's shoulders.

Previously, one can look back, follow the path of least resistance, have faith and move forward with confidence with the Divine Forces as the guardian angels. Failure is accepted gracefully as if it was meant to be anyway.

Modern men (and women) do not subscribe to such determinism. Intellect has given free will to fight whatever eventualities. It also gave them the ability to think of the possible adverse outcome and the fear of the unknown. Not all minds are equipped to handle such stresses. Some crumble. Memory is sometimes a curse, especially of a traumatic one. 

Life is not as simple as in a computer game; lose one life and still have two in hand. In reality, it is one wrong move, and it is game over.

This story is well crafted one with many symbolism. It is a genre-bending thriller about a gamer who is recovering from a stressful situation; probably an assault of some kind which happened a year previously during New Year's Day. 

It is New Year's Eve, and her panic attacks are recurring. The tattoo that she had got inked a year previously has started hurting. A visit to the tattoo parlour reveals that the ink had been contaminated with the ashes of a brutally killed girl. And the deranged killer is back.

The storyline is relatively predictable, but it comes with a twist at the end. It gives three possible outcomes to the ending depending on how one strategise one's move. One should use one's nature-given faculties to determine one's fate, not leave fate to decide one's life.

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Too deeply entrenched...

Article 15 (2019)


Of course, the law is quite precise in all of it; that no citizen should be discriminated based on their religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth. The trouble is that people like to flock together based on common practices, interests and vocations. Even though every man accepts that all Man are equal, they also admit that if everyone is equal, no one would be King. Plato's idea of an ideal society is also based on hierarchal order. Every member of the community is tasked with a specific duty so that society can function. Everyone got their place in the sun, and over time, people started putting value and importance of one profession over the other and called it a caste system.

Articles of late are suggesting that the notorious caste system in India is actually a foreign import. The word 'caste' has its origin in Portuguese and was brought by the farangs during their conquest of the East. The division of members of the ancient Hindu society apparently denoted the aptitude of an individual to a particular profession. It came with different names like jathis and varnas. It must have evolved over the generations as it was seen as an economic facilitator. People engaged in the same profession can explore the nitty-gritty and know of every nook and corner of the trade. This is evident from the generational continuity of individual businesses, e.g. Chettys and restaurants, Patels and hotels and of recent Jains and diamond trading. Apprenticeship recruitment amongst clan members ensured continuity of craftsmanship and continuous supply of services in the society. It is said that there was no hierarchical arrangement in the strata of society. It united the community.

Trouble brewed when caste was used to divide. The British have the dubious honour of conducting the first caste census in 1871 to codify society, give spurious recognition of one over the other, create mayhem, divide and rule. The last caste census which was done in 1931 forms the backbone upon which the educationally and economically disadvantaged layer of the population is aided.

To ensure a continued supply of menial labours and to justify one's perch at the top of the ladder, it was given a religious twist; that it is sanctioned in the scriptures and was decreed by the Gods and the First Man on Earth, Manu. No legislation is going to change this way of thinking, especially when it is convenient to be people in power.

The political use of the caste system is divisive at best. It is used by self-serving politicians to divide, ensnare and instigate people against each other. Like the colonial masters before it is a convenient tool to 'divide and rule'.

Prof R Vaidyanathan explains how Caste plays a beneficiary

role in society. Caste played its position at a different time

with a different economic model.

This movie is about a newly appointed Police Chief, of a privileged upbringing, being posted in a remote district which is run by the old school enforcement unit. The chief's subordinates have been keeping things under check by adopting a clear discriminatory rule by decree. Daily the low-caste members of the society are prejudiced. Many reports of missing daughters of the untouchables do not see daylight. The chief can see funny things happening under his nose. The crux of the story is how he, an Indian who had spent a large chunk of his young adulthood overseas with an activist fiancé, try to change the status quo.

It is imperative to note that BR Ambedkar, himself from the Dalit community, is the central figure behind the drafting of the Indian Constitution in 1950. He had alleged quipped that if the impoverished and oppressed are not protected by the Constitution, he will burn the Constitution! The polymath is mentioned many times in this film.

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Poverty stinks!

Parasite (Korean; 2019)
Direction and Story: Bong Joon-ho

Yet another genre-bending offering from the land of kimchi. It is a thriller, a comedy, a dark one and a gory one too, for there is a blood bath at the end of the movie. But above all, it is a social satire.

The sensation of smell is often described as one of Man's most primitive senses. Olfactory perception is quite impressive. Its nerve endings are in such close proximity with the brain and are one of a few neurons in our brain, which is capable of regeneration. Even though it is assumed that our olfactory bulb, where sensory input converges, is underdeveloped, as our primitive survival skills dwindled when we became gatherers and farmers, we are still said to be able to identify up to a trillion different odours. The olfactory bulb is also one of the areas of the brain where neuroplasticity has been shown. At least in rodents, it has been illustrated to regenerate over the lifespan. Our olfactory sensation is under-credited than what it is capable of. Our smelling 'prowess' is shown in many professions - wine tasting and culinary industry being two common examples.

Our sense of smell has a profound and prolonged effect on our psyche. Just ask ourselves how much smells of our childhood, when life was so much more straightforward, gives us a fuzzy feeling inside. Simple things like the bodily odour of our mother or of freshly baked cookies give us indescribable warmth or reassurance that everything would be all right. 

On the other hand, there are certain smells that we just want to be released from our systems. A person wishing to uproot himself from his previous working-class background would be all too familiar with the effects of toiling long hours under the heat of the sun. He would associate fermenting strong odour with the first sign of poverty. Even how much he tries to mask with perfumes and aesthetics, to the outsider, it is apparent. And he may want to run away from his chequered past. 

It is also interesting that our mind somehow can 'cancel off' some smells that we are entrenched in. Like stupidity, body odour is for others to realise. My mother once visited her friend. In her small home backyard, she reared a few cows. My mother could hardly endure the one hour that she spent there. Everywhere she smelled cow dung even though the house was far from the cowshed was quite a distance away. She was quite perplexed that her host was entirely oblivious to the stench and going about their daily activities, like eating, doing school activities and such without a care about the lingering 'malodour' (at least in my mother's perception).

Like Bong Joon-ho's other film, Snowpiercer (2013), this film is about the clash of the classes. It tells the tale of the Kims, a poverty-stricken but happy, tight-knit family of Papa, Mama and two young adult children, a boy and a girl. They scrape through life, doing odd jobs and living in a filthy basement apartment. A job offer comes when the son is offered to replace his friend as a tutor to the affluent Park's daughter. Slowly one by one, the previous servant and driver of the Parks are terminated with the Kims devious plans. Pretty soon, Papa Kim, Mama Kim and Sister Kim join the Park household as employees in various capacities.

The drama unfolds when the previous servant comes back with a vengeance as she lost more than a job when she was pink-slipped. Even the elements of Nature seem to thwart the Kims' desires to unshackle themselves from poverty.

A thought-provoking flick. 4.5/5.

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No free lunches!

The Great Hack (Documentary; 2019)
Netflix

They say there is no such thing as a free lunch. Everything comes with strings attached. When something as luring as a freebie on the internet in exchange for some seemingly unimportant information and filling up questionnaires of sweet nothings, it is not just public service. There was a devious plan to collect little data about users. Sure, these were useful in devising digital businesses like Uber and Food Panda and developing algorithms into human behaviour. Unfortunately, this familiar and predicable human behaviour is the very thing that think-thank groups used to influence people's actions.

Cambridge Analytica (CA) and its parent company SCL (Strategic Communication Laboratories) are specially mentioned in this documentary to have been mining data from people with the help social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp. 

CA and SCL employed psychologists help to improve advertising and influence public opinion. They further expanded its business into military warfare (by changing public views to win wars) and political interference. With the help of data collected from Facebook, they allegedly vilified Hillary Clinton, swang the votes of the voters in the swing states to ensure victory for Donald Trump. The modus operandi is to collect data from seeming simple, jocular and sometimes fun questionnaires. Through this, 'persuadable' - people who may be influenced are identified. They are then fed with newsfeeds and perhaps fake news to steer their thinking towards a set agenda.

CA is also accused of skewing the Brits to vote for Brexit and landing the politics in the current disarray. 

The whole imbroglio surfaced when David Carroll, a US academician, sued CA in the UK to obtain his personal information and was denied. This opened the can of worms which finally made Mark Zuckerberg appear in front of the US Congressional hearing. Former employees of CA who were part and parcel of the whole kerfuffle, Chris Wylie and Brittany Kaiser, became whistleblowers. This documentary joins the dot between Jullian Assange's Wikileaks files, Russian connections to Trump's victory and the Mueller investigations. The Guardian journalist, Carole Cadwaaldr, explains the nitty-gritty details of the inquiries as seen in this film.

CA is said to have influenced elections in Trinidad and Tobago, Nigeria, Romania, Lithuania, Myanmar and even Malaysia. In Trinidad and Tobago, CA had deviously affected supporters of the incumbent to abstain from voting as though it was promoted as the cool thing to do. The underdogs naturally won. 

In the history of mankind, Man has utilised many grossly inhumane ways to stay in power. Psychological studies, like the Stanford Prison Experiment, have repeatedly shown the innate evil that prevails in all of us. So, it is no surprise that something as close to the pillar democracy like having free and fair elections can be tampered with.

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Go forth and explore...

To all my friends who ask me not to think too much, please ponder upon the following. We think we know everything and there is nothing more to learn. How wrong we are? I have come to realise that every living day is another fresh day to acquire knowledge.

At the end of the 19th century, investigative officers thought they had a full-proof system to track down criminals. Anthromorphological features as described by witnesses and evidence at crime were sufficient to convict suspects. We all know how unreliable are accounts by bystanders or witnesses. 

This arrangement worked fairly well when it was practised in the West where individual variations in hair, eye colours and other obvious physical were there. The British Colonial Police had a tough time policing as the natives all looked the same in their eyes. That is when fingerprinting techniques became the state-of-art avantgarde armamentarium in crime-busting. For some time, the method was thought to be so unique that it could never be wrong.  

Then it became apparent that this investigative tool was observer dependant. Slowly studies started showing high false positives between 1:18 to 1:30 as it involved human judgement, hence exposed to cognitive biases and this analysis lacked scientific scrutiny.

Soon trickled DNA as a device to aid investigators. Suddenly, it became a big shot in the arm for many a prisoner who was wrongly convicted for a crime they did not commit. And, the technique got cheaper, widespread and ultra-sensitive. 

Unfortunately, DNA detection grew too sensitive for its own good. There is even a case where a person transmitted his DNA to a murder victim just because he had been transferred in the same ambulance and had used the same pulse oximeter!

Hence, perhaps DNA is not the end of it all to solve all unsolved criminal cases.

So friends wake up. One can never think that he has reached the pinnacle and there is nothing more to learn. One cannot depend on age-old wisdom and think that it would take us through the end of times. Go forth and explore...

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Living on borrowed times

Radiopetti (Radio Box, Tamil; 2015)

I used to wonder why the humming of the radio was the constant background of my home as I was growing up. At the first break of dawn, if Appa had the choice and not for Amma's nagging, it would start with the early morning chanting of Subrapaatham and just breeze through the day and night until transmissions ended. Yes, there used to be a time when even broadcasters called it a day, mostly at the stroke of midnight.

At that time, the radio announcers' songs and rants sounded more like a nuisance, as my sisters and I were busily cramping our cranial vaults with facts and notes to regurgitate in the next tests. Nobody could understand Appa's fixation with his cranky radio box, which he later graduated to a transistor radio. It was not that the devices were manufacturing Top 40 hits. Sometimes, only white noise or high-pitched zapping sounds emanate when he tunes in to the short-wave bands from Kuala Lumpur or Singapore. 

But he continued this practice till his dying days...

The delicacies we consumed in childhood taste much better than the same thing available now. At least the memory of it is. It is probably the same reason why old songs mean so much. Every song, food, smell, and sensation that tickles our tastebuds is associated with a particular moment. Every byte of information stored in our grey cells is linked to one specific event in our existence; a fond moment with our loved ones, the yearning for an unfulfilled romance, a blissful time that would never come back or a time when things were simpler.

This low-budget, low-frill, award-winning movie never really made headlines. Only through word of mouth did it come to my attention. 

 Arunachalam, probably in his 60s, spends most of his time relaxing on his lazy chair after retirement, listening to the transmissions from his old diode radio set. Ired by the constant blaring of the radio, his only child, probably in his mid-20s, leaves his paternal home after a tiff, smashing his radio to smithereens. 

Six years later, Arunachalam and his wife spend their time in sheer solitude. The couple is engrossed in their routine. Arunachalam is busy working as a clerk in a cotton mill. His wife, Lakshmi, is happy serving her husband. The memory of their son pops up every now and then. His contact is limited to his occasional phone call. The son is living with his wife and her family elsewhere. For company, they have a fellow tenant downstairs whose husband works overseas and her tantrum-throwing pre-teen son. 

Arunachalam's old radio is only a distant memory. Lakshmi's surprise gift, a transistor radio, rekindled his suppressed memories. The broken diode radio was one of the only remaining assets of Arnachalam's now deceased parents. The rest of the movie highlights the loneliness endured by the senior members of society. After fulfilling their familial duties, unable to keep up with the demands and changes in values of the generations next, they are generally left to fend for themselves. Their life is mired in silence, with an occasional highlight of a visit of a long-lost friend or relative. 

Even if they are financially taken care of, boredom is the basal undertone. Just how much of TV can one indulge? Nostalgia, which has a bad reputation for making people delve into the past rather than looking at the future, is not all that bad. With the curse of a long life, perhaps an unhealthily long life sustained by advances in medical sciences, longevity may be a curse. As if dragging their feet into the twilight of their existence, sweet memories of the past may be the only thing that keeps the bunny going. The presence of crazy friends in their lives goes a long way...

A good movie, 4.5/5.

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Meet the P-stars

S2B: Seoul to Busan
It is not a race. Ep #1
Episode #2: Meet the P-stars.

It is time to see our pedalling stars. Officially there will be seven cyclists. The seventh participant will be joining us from Australia. A young punk teeming with adrenaline and power, he is Coach's son and is doing his secret training to 'keep up' with the oldies.

Coach

@Coach
Spending half of his adult life on the hockey fields, he continued to keep himself fit even after hanging his boots. After his retirement from work, rather than lazing around counting his end of days, he found pleasure in the outdoors.
He remains the driving force in pushing us to explore our true grit. Like Jesus Christ, he goes around recruiting same-minded people who are willing to fight a good fight against surrendering to effects of ageing. 

Wayang

@Wayang
He is the second most seasoned rider in the group. He is nicknamed 'Wayang' (Theatrics) not because he is showy but precisely the opposite reason. He would often start his day lamenting how exhausted he is and how he did no manage a single wink the night before. At the end of the ride, he will be speeding past everybody else.
Always a 'Pekeliling flat' at heart, he enjoys the simple pleasures of life. Not forgetting his roots, he still carries the hidden mojo that sees him through any challenge.  

Tabib

@Tabib
Another dark horse in the group is Tabib. Named so because of his profession, (Arabic for healer), he has been secretly training on his own after an unforgettable, sweat-drenching, heart-pouncing outing with the group months earlier. He came out strong like Rocky after months of hibernation. Like a majestic swan, the little ugly duckling had transformed slim and durable. No hills remained unconquerable for this former state hockey player. Cycling clears his mind to think of the next topic to discuss in his next radio show.

@Rabbit
Known for his speed, he is aptly named rabbit. A perfectionist, a stickler to time and a master planner, he worries about everything that may happen and may not. Being higher achiever, after successfully completing a full marathon, the only natural thing to do is to cycle and swim. Come April 2020, he will be a triathlete. Going through an existential crisis, he is still wondering why he is cycling and from what he is running from!

@Bionic Man
The hockey stick would have been another appendage on his body in his teenage and early adulthood. His constant roasting and sweating it out in the hockey field earned his appearance at the national level. That also made his whole body re-aligned and his knees traumatised so severely that it had to replaced at a relatively young age. He did not reach the pinnacle of his achievements lying down. Hence, with the same determination, he laboured through the pains of bilateral knee replacement and the subsequent gruelling physiotherapy. His never-say-die attitude has now brought him up hiking mountains and cycling along interstate highways.

@Chennai Express
This Johnny-come-lately is the latest addition to the gang. Not being of the athletic type, he contended himself jogging around the housing estate. The fear of contracting diabetes, which ran deep in his family history made him run farther. Like Forrest Grump, he kept on running and now cycling, giving much palpitations to the family instead. Nicknamed Chennai Express for his occasional burst of energy that eventually fizzles out much like an express train that starts out with much pomp and splendour but reaches its destination late as usual!

Rabbit

Bionic Man

Chennai Express

(T - 32)
[Next: The Storyline]

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