If walls could speak!

Vivekanda Illam, Chennai.

Ever wondered how people in the tropical climates used to cool themselves down on a hot day before the advent of refrigeration? Frederic Tudor, a businessman from New England, had the foresight to harvest something free from its frozen lakes to ship it to places that needed it most. He mastered the art of sending tonnes of ice, covered with sawdust, to Florida and the Caribbean in the early 19th century. He later even exported it all the way to India. A trip carrying 100 over tonnes of ice from Boston to Madras typically took 4 months with 80% of the cargo intact. In the 1840s, Frederic Tudor built a facility in Madras to store his merchandise. It was named the Ice House.

Frederic Tudor was part of the Boston Elite or Boston Brahmins, as they were referred to. The Boston Brahmins are descendants of the earliest immigrants from England. They were Protestants and were the leading influencers of American institutions and cultures.

Frederic Tudor

In 1833, the first shipment of American ice arrived in Calcutta. It sent excitement to the locals of such chilly luxury. For the next two decades, these cargos were in Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. They had a good thing going until local artificial-ice manufacturers started their businesses. Around the 1870s, refrigerated merchant vessels started scaling the high seas.

Madras, as it was known in the 1830s, was a bustling metropolitan city with a network of business enterprises. Many of its old buildings aged more than 200 years are still standing today. It speaks not of the English exploitation of the country but instead of the astute craftsmanship and quality of buildings built by the local builder. It is said that Madras had its own brand of superior plaster-mix. Chennai also has the reputation of having the second most number of heritage buildings in India after Calcutta. It has its own Heritage Conservation Committee that oversees maintenance and reservation of their old erections.

Sister R.S. Subbulakshimi

The Ice House was sold off in the 1880s after the ice business winded up. It was bought by a High Court judge who named it Castle Kernan. It was later changed ownership many times. It is now called Vivekananda Illam (Vivekananda Home) as he is said to have spent time there in 1897. The building was also used by Ramakrishna Mission and R.S. Subbulakshmi, a social reformer, for social upliftment activities. Almost all Indian freedom fighters, at one time or another, is said to have met there to preach their efforts for Independence at the premises.

Sister R.S. Subulakshmi was widowed at the age of twelve, and she made it her life ambition to uplift the plight of widows and woman generally. She continued her studies and obtained excellent results. She started Sarada Ladies Union (Sarada, being Swami Ramakrishna's consort) for widows. In 1915, the Government of Madras acquired the Ice House for her social work. 

It went on till 1963 when it was given to the Ramakrishna Mission. It currently houses an exhibition on the life and times of Swami Vivekanda.

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The background

Haider (2014)

It turned out to be not a film depicting the plight of the Kashmiris but rather a retelling of Hamlet with the beautiful Kashmir in the background the internal squabble as the country as its backdrop. Even though the movie makes it appear as though there is just bloodshed, guns and terrorism in this snow-covered paradise on earth, much of its past history remains untold.

People tend to assume Kashmir had always been a Muslim majority country where India is trying to exert its influence, but its citizens want out. There are much more than meets the eye.

Kashmir was a revered place from time immemorial for seekers of knowledge and epistemology. It was the destination for many sages the world over. Hinduism, Shiva Taitrism,  planted itself firmly here as early as 3rd century BCE. The populace was considered highly literate and skilled. The turning point came in the form of invaders. A particularly Muslim ruler by the name of Sikander Bhutshikan (1394-1417), an iconoclast, was hellbent on destroying non-Islamic symbols and enforced widespread proselytisation. Naturally, the Hindu Pandits escaped in droves to other parts of India and Kashmir became a Muslim-dominant country. Many Hindus remain closeted, only outwardly Muslims.

King Ranjit Singh united Punjab, Afghanistan, Kashmir all the way to Tibet, but his successors lost Jammu and Kashmir to the East India Company in the first Anglo-British War in 1846. The British started the Hindu Dogra dynasty. It was Hari Singh, its descendant, who was the King of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947 who decided to join neither India nor Pakistan. It stood an Independent sovereign state.

Trouble started soon after Independence. Pakistani troops masquerading as Pashtun tribal groups infiltrated into Kashmir to take over the country. The 1st Indo-Pak war started when Maharajah Hari Singh asked for help and agreed for ascension into the Indian Dominion. The battle, however, ended in a deadlock with India controlling a third of the country and Pakistan the other third. 

Martand Sun Temple Kashmir.

The director was embroiled in controversy

after staging a devil dance here.

Sheikh Abdullah was appointed the head of Jammu and Kashmir by Nehru. He had earlier led a rebellion against Hari Singh was had been imprisoned before. Sheikh ruled the state with special powers accorded to him via Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. His reign was marred with many insurgencies, Islamisation pogroms and terrorist activities with help from Pakistan. There were hardly any economic activities or development, but only a high tension volatile environment. More Sikhs and Hindus exited from their ancestral land seeking a better life since the 1980s. 

Many talented writers now settled elsewhere, have penned their doggone experiences in Kashmir in many of their heart-wrenching writing set in their once serene homeland. With the aberration of Article 370, India hopes to bring development and a semblance of peace in the region. Unfortunately, foreign media keeps stirring undue tension and anxiety amongst the people of the area to keep up their sales.

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More stitches in Nine-Nine!

Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Seasons 1-7; 2013-present)
Netflix

These days, the men in blue are painted as inhumane, dishonest and incompetent. With the ease of remotely recording them at work and with the benefit of hindsight, the public is quick to shoot, kill and bury the force. Things have become worst now, because of lockdown, as more vent their frustrations at the officers who are just trying to earn an earnest income (most of them anyway), carrying out duties assigned to them. Nobody likes to do the dirty job, but somebody got to do it anyway. What the powers-that-be can do is to improve public opinion. Like everything else in life, it is all perception. Police morale will further improve if they think that their job is given due credit by the public. They should not be looked upon as glorified gangsters working hand-in-glove with crooked politicians or even in cahoots with the very people they are supposed to protect the public from.

Rosa and Amy

One imagines the overhanging mood in the office of the police is that of anxiety, frustration, denial, suspicion and anger. Against this backdrop, it is a relief to see this sitcom which seems to show that the police actually have a good time while still maintaining high successful arrest rates. Sometimes viewers start thinking that they have too much time in their hands, especially from watching their highly intricate Annual Halloween Heist.

What makes this series different from other sitcoms? For one, it is their choice of cast. This fictitious precinct is led by a gay black officer, Captain Holt, who has a sob story about his challenging climb up the ladder of promotion in the police force which is overtly discriminative against blacks, what more if he is homosexual. The lead character is this whacky, sometimes immature, mischievous detective, Jake Peralta, who is the prime mover in the office. He carries the baggage of 'daddy issues' because of his philandering and absent father. His love interest is Amy, a meticulous Hispanic officer, whom Jake eventually marries. Jake's best friend is Charles, a timid colleague who plays along with Jake's pranks. Then there is Sergeant Terry, a buff but family guy who dotes on his twin daughters. Rosa is another Hispanic detective who is an emotional and insecure one who is bisexual. 

Hitchcock and Scully S6E2

Gina is Capt Holt's private secretary who does more job online than in the office. She lives in her own make-believe world and comes out with witty one-liners. Two interesting characters who had seen better times in the younger days, Hitchcock and Scully, now spend most of the time dodging work, eating and just sitting around. In their heydays, they were menacing enough to still hold the record of solving the most number of cases in the precinct. Guess, they burnt out along the way.

The fascinating thing about the sitcom is that the writers always come out with some new story every time. From busting drug lords to meeting family members or outwitting each other to meet the Halloween challenge, there is always something to smile. They are plenty of pop culture references that an 80s kid can pick up and feel happy about it.

Avid followers (like my son!) would have to wait a little longer for the eighth season to premiere, due to COVID and the lockdown.

Jake and Holt
Plenty of laugher at Brooklyn-99

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People will keep saying something!

Sanju (Hindi; 2018)

That is the problem with modern living. With the plethora of information at their disposal, people think they have everything they need to know at their fingertips. With this knowledge, they believe they are in the best place to make a balanced decision. True, in most situations, the various angles of looking at an issue are laid bare for scrutiny. In other cases, however, the news is generated to keep the writer relevant, so that the publications stay forever in the limelight.

A case in hand is the use of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin in the management of patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 infections. Keyboard warriors who before this did not know the difference between a bacteria and virus can now rattle out the pros and cons of each modality of treatment. Equipped with the little knowledge gained from anecdotal studies, they are quick to bring down institutions that have been handing down management guidelines for decades.

They immerse in meaningless banters over social media trying to prove a well-organised world conspiracy to dupe the human race. No matter how much counter-arguments are raised against their assertions, they stand steadfast defending their conviction as if that is their last mission on Earth. As if their ranting is going to change the way how doctors are going to manage their patients. Doctors and nurses have to follow specific clinical practice guidelines when they attend to their patients.  They cannot just modify their approach based on what they had read on WhatsApp.

This movie is a biopic of famous Bollywood actor, Sanjay Dutt, son of Bollywood's thespians, Sunil Dutt and Nargis. Growing up under the spotlight of prowling reporters and parental expectations must have been hard for a young Sanjay Dutt. All the affluence, wrong friends, and partying could not have helped either. Early in his life, he was already trapped in the world various addictive intoxicants - he ticks all the boxes in a questionnaire in a rehab clinic! And the number of girls in his life - some with tragic ends. I was surprised that the often his tabloid-gossiped affairs with Madhuri Dixit was not mentioned in the film.

The show focuses primarily on his substance abuse, his relationship with his parents, and his protracted brush with the law. It was around the time of widespread riots surrounding the destruction of the Babri mosque in 1993. Sanjay Dutt was charged under the  Terror and Destructive Prevention Act for possessing firearms which were linked to the underworld networks and the Bombay bombing. Ranbir Kapoor gives a sterling performance of Dutt, complete with gait, mannerisms and tics.

The presentation may be viewed as a public relation attempt to paint Dutt's  (?whitewashed) version of the turn of events surrounding his arrest. He blames the fiasco solely on the press. He accused the media of accusing in a subtle way and insinuating in the most creative way to influence public opinions. Every day, to keep the gap between paid advertisements relevant, the media moguls employ cocksure self-proclaimed super experts on the most mundane field of expertise to rant repeatedly their undisputable error-free decrees on cable channels in an undisguised stage called trial-by-media. Before the respective lawyers register their cases with the courts, the public opinion is already made. They are the judge and jury. When they become the executioners, that is when all hell will break loose.

The take-home message here is that people will always keep saying something. It is just noise. We should not take it personally. They are just feeding the public's appetite. It is their rice bowl. 

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Know the two sets of Laws

Dark Waters (2019)

One thing the lockdown has shown us is that there are two sets of rules for people. One for affluent, the one perched atop the highest branch and the other for those scrawling at the lowest branch or doodling on the ground. The one close to the ruling party will get just a friendly slap on the wrist while the brunt of the long arm of the law would descend upon the nobody.

An 80-year-old vagabond who was waiting for his free food was slapped with a RM1000/= compound without much deliberation. He risks imprisonment. A minister was seen sharing meals with his supporters, and a deputy minister was enjoying his birthday bash without a care in the world of the MCO. The prowling digital spies did manage to capture the moment for the public to judge, but the law seems to be dragging its feet. This type of subservience by the authorities to the people of power is no alien to this country alone.

Beware, there is a 2015 horror flick named 'Dark Water' (singular) which is different from the remake of Japanese movie with almost the same name. 

This 2019 film is based on real events. It tells the story of the fight of a lone farmer, Wilbur Tennant, who took legal suits against DuPont, a giant chemical company. It started in 1995 when the farmer discovered that his cattle, 190 of them, had died mysteriously with bloated organs and blackened teeth. He suspected that the cause could be due to the dumping of chemicals upstream. He tried to get the help of the authorities, but instead, he was slapped with a fine for improper farming.

Living in dire circumstances, he approached an old friends' grandson, Robert Billot, a hotshot lawyer who makes his fortune defending multinational chemical companies. Initially, reluctant to waste his time on an unrewarding case, he finally caved in to investigate the farmer's complaint. 

He became interested when the environmental impact assessment report showed no contaminants, but DuPont's internal investigations repeatedly showed some unknown abbreviated compound. He also noticed that many dwellers of the town had an unusually high incidence of cancers. Everyone in the town looked at Tennant and Billot as trouble makers as DuPont had contributed so much in the upliftment and upkeep of that town, Parkersburg, West Virginia. Things had really changed for the better since DuPont set up a plant there. They thought their misery was a small price to pay for development.

Using the tentacles of the law to his advantage, Billot came to discover that compound was indeed PFOA, a fluorated hydrocarbon, which was used to make Teflon coating in non-stick pans.

It came to light that PFOA or C8 and PFOS had poisoned the land and their drinking water. Now, everybody wanted to join in the suit against the giant. It indeed became a David versus Goliath match. The mega-company used all the might of their finances to quash dissidence. Lawsuits were not affordable for the average Joe. Neither the legal fraternity nor the administrative bodies are laypeople friendly. Just like how flies are drawn to garbage, power begets influence.

Robert Bilott and Mark Ruffalo, who portrayed him.

At the end of the day, the general public is left only with a loud public voice via civil society bodies, the fourth estate and an unbiased judiciary system.

But wait, is the legal system here to carry out the law or to mete out justice?

In real life, Robert Bilott went through many financial and familial turmoils pursuing the matter, for each and every defendant, 3,500 of them. After a long battle that spanned ten-over years (Tennant had died then), he won the first three multimillion-dollar settlements against DuPont, and DuPont settled the class action for $671 million. Du Pont, however, seems unperturbed. They are still going on business as usual with other joint ventures.

For our own knowledge, Teflon is marketed as other variants and have made their way to our household in various forms - water-resistant furniture and carpets, wrinkle-free and water-repellant clothing, lubricants, pizza boxes, dental floss and many more.

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Another Kennedy curse?

Dark Legacy II: The Assassination of JFK Jr.(2014)

This is a followup documentary film to the one released in 2009 which incredulously implicated George HW Bush in the 1963 assassination of JFK in the streets of Dallas. 

It looks like the Bush-Kennedy animosity seems to continue into the next generation. George W Bush is said to be cited in the death of JFK's son. John F Kennedy Jr.

I remember reading about his plane crash on 16th July 1999. The cause of his mishap was told to be spatial disorientation as he was flying at night and lost his bearings when he made a sharp turn near the coast on a dark night with no stars. At that time, I thought it was just a case of a rich kid crashing his new toy. 

Now, this documentary shows many loopholes in the reporting, investigation, the search and rescue missions and even official statements from the authorities.

JFK Jr was a licenced and experienced pilot who is said to be meticulous in the handling of his flight paths. He had just recovered from an ankle sprain but was fit enough to fly. He was flying with his wife and his sister-in-law. There is controversy on whether a flying instructor was accompanying them. There are conflicting statements on this.

They started the journey a little late at about 7.30pm as they could have been waiting for his sister-in-law who arrived late. A skilful aviator as he was, travelling in a spanking new plane, he maintained regular contact with the traffic control tower. Just after his last contact at 9.39pm, his plane just plunged down almost vertically into the waters.

No rescue attempts were initiated and his uncle, Ted Kennedy, had to contact the FAA and the US Coast Guard on his disappearance. Being a public figure, the media was also interested. Even late past midnight, the authorities were clueless where to look for the plane. The information about the locator beam was also unknown. Search mission only commenced after 6am.

The wreckage was only found in the afternoon. The black box was found to have its battery missing, and the fuel valve turned off. One of the plane seats was missing allegedly with the said flight instructor.

To the makers of this documentary, all of the above screamed of a planned assassination. The battery of the black does not go missing just like that. It is not easy for the person manning the flight to accidentally turn the fuel selector valve. There are safety features against this. In the Egypt Air flight #990, a few months later, its pilot deliberately turned off the valve in an apparent suicide manoeuvre. 

The makers suggest that the flight instructor could be a Manchurian Candidate implanted by the same Military Industrial Complex as warned by President Eisenhower in the early '60s. This group of people are the wealthy moguls of the world who prosper from a world which is in an anarchic state. This Cabal is the same one which profited from World War Two and masterminded JFK's assassination in 1963 because he wanted to pull out from Vietnam.

JFK Jr had political ambitions. And so had George W Bush. At that time John McCain seemed like the likely candidate to make to the White House. Thus, the Cabal got George W to supervise the planned murder. Bush's whereabouts for three days surrounding 16th July 1999 is unknown to everyone, including his office in Texas. The documentary suggests that he was on the ground arranging the 'accident', it seems.

There was talk that JFK Jr was going through some turbulent times with his magazine 'George'. A rumour was going around that his marriage could be in the rocks but, on the other hands, others said his wife was pregnant. The press, which initially gave the image of trying to find the truth soon started parroting the authorities and hinted the suicide angle.

1963: A 3-year-old JFK Jr saluting Sr's hearse.

The final verdict (according to the documentary makers) is that the instructor was the Cabal's Manchurian Candidate, who was on a suicide mission, and the delay is discovering the wreckage was necessary to retrieve his body to cover his trail.

After this incident, George W Bush was catapulted to the White House. Then there was 9-11 and their involvement.

In another YouTube presentation, the presenter suggested that probably the elusive Q of QAnon fame is non-other than JFK Jr himself. He postulates that JFK Jr faked his own death to confuse the Military-Industrial Complex. JFK Jr is now working in the background to right the wrong that his father wanted to do. The Cabal was just too powerful to clash head-on.

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