All kinds of everything reminds us of our past!

If a genie would suddenly pop up in front of me today and want to grant me three wishes and asked me what would it be, I would probably ask for an alternative life where I have the luxury of travelling to small towns. That decision would be made, of course, after considering the merits of knowing whatever happened to Flight #MH370.

In my alternative life, I would take a long slow leisurely ride (or drive) along the coastal and interior roads of Peninsular Malaysia. Since time is expandable, I would stop at every small town that I would come across, spend a few days there, mingle with the local populace to learn about the little things that unique is about them and write all about it. Just for the kick of it. Indeed there are many unexplored gems around. Now did you know that there is a Customs Museum in Jelebu District in the State of Negeri Sembilan? Customs not as Customs and Excise but traditional customs.

Talking about Jelebu, during one of our long rides to Kuala Klawang in Jelebu, our team happened to meet an unassuming gentleman who turned out to be a team member's friend's father. After the customary greetings and small talks, he insisted on showing us a 'museum'. Not fully understanding what he was saying but at the same time not wanting to offend, we just followed him. 

The mentioned museum was actually his personal collections of memorabilia of the generation of Indian immigrants used in early Malaya, at a time when she was a land of natives waiting to be cultured. His family has been here for over five generations. That is much more than many of bigoted national leaders who label non-Malays as newcomers.

Our gentleman proudly has rubber-sheet pressing machines, ancient weighing scales, kitchen utensils, the legendary woven 'Sikh' bed and many more day to day items. 

The family tree

Above all the guidance of the Divine Forces

Protection

Not Grimm Reaper's weapon of choice, Scythe

How the two-wheeler had evolved?

That is his little way of reminding the generation after him how the country benefited from everyone who dared to sail the rough seas and decide to settle in this wild country. Their taming of the land was no walk in the park but involved sweat, tears, dysentery and malaria. The concerted effort by all our forefathers, irrespective of their race, creed and religious convictions brought the name Malaysia to be known at the international arena for all the right reasons. Let us not destroy all that and propel us back to a time when only savages dwelled here.

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Things that you are fed

Jojo Rabbit (2019)

When you are young, with the propaganda that is fed to you, you grow up a simpleton. You think the knowledge that had been fed down your throat is the gospel truth and everything else is just farce. Then you grow up.

You soon realise that it has all been a smokescreen. The victors and those with might had convinced their way is King. 

With the opening of the inner eye, the onus is on you to educate and to spread the word to the ignoramus. But then, no one is going take what you say lying down. 

I was surprised that Scarlett Johansson was actually nominated for the Oscars for her role in this movie. Her character is hardly memorable, and she dies before the end of the film.

As for the storyline, it is nothing new. It is told from the viewpoint of a 10-year-old boy, Jojo, who is gung ho with joining Hitler's youth Army. Deep inside, he is a pacifist. He has an imaginary friend in the form of a comical Adolf Hitler who cajoles him to do the things that the Nazis want Germans to do. Jojo's mother, on the other hand, is a Jew sympathiser. Jojo soon discovers a Jewish girl that she hides in the attic. 

They soon build a bond. Jojo realises that Jews are no different from ordinary Germans; unlike what had been fed by the propaganda machinery.

A potentially forgettable satire that nobody would remember in five years.

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Just bulldoze through...

Darbar (2019)

Are we living lives that are so unfulfilling? Are we trapped in a quagmire of hopelessness and pessimism that destined us to be forever confined in a sticky web of doom and gloom? Are we resigned to the fact we are too intellectually bankrupt to lift ourselves up by our bootstraps?

Are we waiting for that imaginary knight in shining armour to magically hoist us out of our rabbit hole of melancholy? Is it possible? Or are we imagining another realm where all our aches, pains and attachments would be magically dismantled? 

Perhaps we had fought our fights and had given up. All the power and wealth of the powers that be have disarmed us from the shield of resilience. We have crumbled and wilted to pressure. We are numbed to our addiction to our devices that have sapped our juices to think.

Maybe it is not a new phenomenon. For ages, we of the human race have suffered under the tyranny of dictators and power-hungry madmen. And we have seen saviours in the form of revolutionists, orators, storytellers and even kings who were given demigod statuses. Some were labelled Son of God, Messenger of God and even avatar or representation of God walking on Earth. Rulers were bestowed divine standings when the country was peaceful, crops were bountiful, and natural calamities were absent. When economics went south, their reputations took a beating and acquired demonic ranks.

That must have reinforced the existence of religions. And of angel and demons and when everything else failed, a blissful afterlife in the waiting! 

This film is strictly for diehard Thalaiva fans who have not seen enough of his 80s, 90s and 21st-century mind-boggling, gravity-defying and logic-escaping masala-spaghetti flicks. The storyline is the same old same old time-tested format. One lone-wolf Indian cop sends shivers down the crooks and singlehandedly clashes head-on with the whole brunt of the mafia force with brute force without planning or regards to law and order, police professionalism as well as to human rights.

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The race never ends...

About 20 years ago, an uncle of mine (may his soul rest in peace) used to be a regular feature in our household. Living alone, he found great pleasure clowning around with my toddler daughters. With a lot to spare time after retirement and having all his kids (and wife) leave the nest, he spent time gardening and doing his own home improvement projects at a snail's pace. 

He was then just passed 70 and was so happy to relate to me how he completed his Penang Bridge Run only in the nick of time, just one minute before the cut-off time.

I failed to understand then what his fuss was all about. In my mind, partaking in any competitive event meant I had to end well amongst the top few. I had lived my life with the adage 'a miss is as good as a mile'.

Being a good sport, however, I did felicitate him and recommend his feat. Deep inside, I failed to appreciate his joy. 

Now with the passage of time, and hopefully wiser, I can see clearly that after a certain age, even getting up in the morning itself is an achievement. At any age, there is always someone better, stronger and faster. Trying to be on top all the time is never humanly possible. 

Perhaps at the spring of youth, I can put myself out to test out where I stand in the population distribution. After that, with advancing years and a gradual decline in prowess, I am left to compete with two entities, myself and me. Then there are the inner demons and the naysayers who insist that I am weaker than I am. I do not know if they are overly concerned, jealousy or just wanting me to be vulnerable and be dependant on them.

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A private eye to the world

Don't F**k With Cats (Netflix 3-part documentary, 2019) 
Hunting an Internet Killer

I just happened to bump into this as I was on the treadmill and I was hooked. It was not much of love at first hello, but I liked the quite convoluted storyline. It illustrates the twisted nature of human behaviour, but at the same time, there are people who, through their actions, show that humanity has not died. But life, as it is, is never straight forward.

In life, Occam's Razor states that 'entities should not be multiplied without necessity' does not solve all puzzles. Things are more complicated than they seem. Simple answers may not be the correct one. 

It is not an easy watch and is not for the faint-hearted. Few viewers could pass beyond the first 20 minutes of the show as the subject matter is unpleasant. It is based on a true story that happened between 2010 and 2012. It involved many countries, including Canada, the UK, France and Germany. But I guess when it consists of the cyberspace, these borders are arbitrary.

The documentary starts with a youtube clip that came out in 2010 of a couple of kittens which were brutally killed in broad daylight under the full view of netizen with a live recording of them being placed in a plastic wrapper and slowly vacuum sealing them! Concerned cat lover netizens, including the narrator, Deanna Thompson, a data analyst from Vegas, who goes under the screen name of Baudi Moovan, started discussing this heinous crime. Pretty soon, they started trying identifying the location as well as the maker of the clip. Everyone chipped in with their amateurish investigative skills. The need to apprehend the perpetrator became more acute as a second video appeared online. In that clip, a cat was fed to a python. 

The internet sleuths slowly browse through pictures over pictures online, scrutinised in between the images, with the help of Google Map and all, managed to pinpoint the crime to a Luka Magnotta. Now, to pinpoint who Magnotta was and his whereabouts, that was an enigma itself. It appears like he was a globetrotting celebrity. The armchair investigators also try to analyse the character. In midst through it all, to avenge the death of cats, an innocent man was wrongly accused. And he took his own life due to the humiliation!

Another problem with this type of crime is jurisdiction. Who is to investigate these crimes when nobody knows where it happened.

The issue became more problematic when the video maker made a chilling clip of a person being stabbed repeatedly with an ice-pick.

The documentary makers cleverly put in the element of doubt into the whole story. They inserted interviews taken with Magnotta's mother. She threw a spanner to the works. She told of a manipulative character named 'Manny'.

From then on, the pace picked up. Police forces from many countries became involved, and the suspect was an Interpol's 'Red List'. It all came to a dramatic end with words like paranoid schizophrenia and bizarre role-playing of movie characters thrown in. Disturbing.

With all the benefits that the internet offers in improving lives and empowering people, there is a dark side to it. It becomes a convenient playground for weirdos and the mentally deranged for their one moment of attention in the world stage and sometimes to create mischief under the cloak of anonymity.

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Between the willing, the forced and the maleficent

The Morning Show (Miniseries; 2019)

On the one hand, we want to empower the weaker one. We say do away with barriers. Let there be no fences between the bosses and subordinates. There should be no discrimination between the sexes. At the same time, we realise that hormones rage high in the spring of youth, at a time when everybody wants to set the right footing for their future. The race to perch at the higher branches has become increasingly difficult. The juicy fruits hanging at the top are so luring. Everyone wants to catch a glimpse from the coveted crown of the food chain.

Everyone can give their time, dedication and knowledge towards this end. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Players have to dig deep into their bags to confer something quite primal to achieve their goals. What is wrong in a little flirting or exchanging little bodily fluids, they would justify, especially when they look at the bigger picture. Mission accomplished, and everybody is happy.

People in positions of power, on the other hand, may use it as a bargaining tool to dangle their carrots.

If it is a win-win situation, why would anyone complain? Are they the sore losers who got conned into an unwilling arrangement? Were they helpless as they overcome by pressures to conform by people in authority? Was there regret? Was there a morning-after self-realisation? Was there ill intent to humiliate? Was it all a well-planned plot to dethrone? Did the juices turn sour? 

Humans being social animals, with continual contact with co-workers or bosses, may be attracted to one another over time. The question is whether this liaison is going to affect their work. No one is a saint and life is not fair. 

That is why it is tricky to deal with the #metoo complains. Sometimes it is the people in power who use their positions to obtain sexual gratifications. At other times, it is vindication on the part of the victim or alleged victims.

'The Morning Show' is a gripping miniseries with sexual misconduct in a TV station. The station is embroiled in controversy as Steve Carrel, the male anchor of their premier show of 15 years, is fired when a co-worker accuses him of sexual harassment. His co-anchor, played by Jennifer Aniston is in a tail-spin as her job is also on the chopping block. In the midst of this, Aniston, at the spur of the moment, uses her time in the limelight to announce her new co-host. The latest addition is fast-talking brash journalist, Reese Witherspoon. 

In a hurried environment of datelines and inflated ego, internal investigations try to portray a safe working environment for the public to see. Beneath all these, this is a compulsion by a few to expose the toxic culture that is happening in the station.

Not only the main stars performed well. Even the supporting actors gave their best to re-create what seems like an attempt to showcase what Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby did to the movie industry.

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You gave me breath, now let me breathe!

Why should I be subservient to you? Why should I bend over backwards to support you? I never asked to be born. I never had the choice of choosing you as my parents. If you two did not get frisky, I would probably be floating around in ethereal world gliding around as an angel or even a bumblebee.

Because of you, I am here. Because of that, you think you own me. Loaning me your DNA to use during my worldly sojourn, you think I should be forever indebted. True, you did not need to make all those sacrifices of time, energy and resources to sustain my wellbeing. But you did. Was it really out of selflessness at work or your selfish plan to forever entrap me? Or is the protective maternal hormones?

But then, you did not have to do all the things that you did to keep me alive and kicking. There is something called free will. For all the early hour awakenings and the regular sponging of my body when the fever hit the ceiling, I am eternally grateful. To make me forever trapped in your petticoat, it is blackmail.

You say my colour is no right that I look disspirited. You make me feel and convince me to be sick even though I am just tired. Also dispirited of your constant ranting. You tell to take this, do that and to eat those. Are these all not your attempt to make me inadequate to manage my own faculties? You are trying to clip my wings. 

What you do you not know is that I am nurturing my own little levitators that would lift me up far away from all these clutches of tentacles of smothering emotions of yours. Do it, Scott, beam me up!

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