A field day for the dark triad!

The Hater (Hejter, Polish; 2020)

It is not something that we do not already know. The cyberspace has become where everything is made possible; a false narrative can be oft-repeated the gospel truth. Truth can be bent to suit the flavour of the day. A non-issue can be made the next game-changer. Deepfakes can change the path of one's career or fate. Destiny is determined by the trolls and influencers.

There is a concerted effort by news spreaders to mould one's thought process in sync to the agenda of their paymasters. 

The modern world, it seems, is divided into the right conservatives who yearn for the good old times when the world was a place of milk and honey, where politicians were honest, policemen cared for the public (not look at them as perps) and outdoors were healthy. At the red corner is the leftist who basically plays devil's advocate aim for anarchy and pushes the boundary to the point of entropy. 

The leftists, outwardly seem to have the downtrodden at heart. They appear to fight for the plight of the oppressed and the minorities. They go all out to tarnish governments and civil societies just to create mayhem. They are the true wolves in sheep clothing but the internet has the ability to expose these but who is buying it? It looks like the democratisation of information does not make people wiser, but rather more confused.

The Hater shows us the modern world of the 21st century. Social media is the primary way to access people and get people's assessment of anything the 'majority' feels relevant. The problem is that the 'majority' is not the true majority, but a fake one propagated by paid trolls. They spread 'lies' (or bent truth, who knows?) of alleged fascism, Islamophobia, homophobia, misogyny or abuse all over the net. Are they opportunistic scumbags, victims of online culture that has destroyed decency or are there just to earn a living?

Tomasz, a law student who got expelled from his law school accused of plagiarism, moves around in a daze, hiding the fact even from his sponsors. His sponsors, a rich couple who delves with art pieces and moves in high society, had earlier taken a liking to him during one of their summer vacations. Tomasz realises that his guardians are putting a front when dealing with him. He proves it by leaving his mobile phone recorder on as he left their home, just to their vile sneering. 

He is living during heady times in Poland, where the society is struggling to keep its borders closed to immigration. Tomasz's sponsors' associate, a left-wing politician, is sympathetic towards immigrants.

As the movie progresses, we see Tomasz's almost psychopathic behaviour as he uses his position as a computer whiz in a PR firm to expose the hypocrisy of the leftists and make himself a hero through a series of truth-bending social media messages. 

It seems that the militant ultra-right-wing terrorists have another platform to communicate. If radiofrequency or cyberspace can be intercepted, now they can communicate freely incognito via the numerous game platforms that computer gaming can offer. Peoples' brains have all been so fried up that they cannot appreciate what is real and what is mirage anymore. We have way past passing the Turing test. And we do not know what is good and what is bad anymore.

The net has become a fertile ground for individuals with nefarious

intentions to churn out untruths and spew vile baseless accusations

under the cloak of anonymity. The globalist has set the agenda and
anyone found not conforming this narrative is cancelled off in this
new culture. Back during the pre-internet days, to break a 

functioning society it took slippery Machiavellian manoeuvres. 

In the cyberspace, psychopaths are having a field day. A single 
negative remark and the herd will follow, aided by the algorithm.

(Credit: AqS)

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Nobody promised a rose garden!

Raat Akeli Hai (A lonely night, Hindi; 2020)
Netflix

Everyone enjoys a delightful whodunnit every once in a while. The problem with most Indian movies is that the said story eventually becomes too outlandish as the movie drags on for over two hours and the screenwriters rushing to tie all loose end into a jumble. But not this one. It has Agatha Christie's trademark storyline written all over it. It goes on round and round, shifting the suspicion from one character to another. In the midst of all these, some subplots give the story more punch.   

A dead body starts the narration. No one is beyond suspicion, and everyone has something hidden in their proverbial closet. Everyone has a valid reason to be the murderer but an alibi as well. Good old detective work solves the case at the end.

A wealthy tycoon is found dead on his bed on the night of his second wedding to a girl younger than his daughter. The tycoon is a nasty chap who had lost his wife to a highway robbery cum murder five years earlier. His family which includes his adult son, daughter, sister and first wife's brother are all unhappy with the old man's marriage to his young bride, a lady of questionable reputations who came into the house as his mistress. With every member of this patriarchal clan having a perfect reason to commit the murder, in walks an inspector. Of course, the maids know more than they are willing to talk.

After watching the movie, only then you realise that you have seen it all before. Yes, it is a remake of 'Knives Out' starring Daniel Craig as the inspector. If 'Knives Out' was more of a light-hearted comedy, 'Raat Akeli Hai' is a dark drama that deals with the unsavoury truths of society where wealth and power bring with it evil intentions and ability to get away with murder. On the other hand, being stuck in the lower rung of society also pushes one to commit heinous crimes of desperation and helplessness. 

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Expressional freedom or exploitation?

Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's 'WAP'

Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's 'WAP'

It seems that this song is the latest one to play earworm in every Gen-Z and even millennials. It is said to have smashed many records and currently the most-streamed song. Streaming is said to be the true assessment of its popularity, uninfluenced by the interferences of the recording giants. It is also the talking point of many, saying that this song defines female-centred sexual empowerment.

To others, however, this is all just noise - a cunning way to exploit the female body to gyrate to obscene lyrics in scanty outfits. The dance moves are no work of art but mere abuse of freedom of expression to showcase pornography to the public eye in the name of democratisation of oppressed black females. The moves are not sexual innuendos but outright vulgarity.

Defenders of this type of expressions rebut that no one objected when male rappers made these type of sexually explicit videos. Not true. Even back in the 1990s, concerned with the rise in songs with dirty lyrics, a kind of classification system was introduced. This kind of lazy songwriting and exploitatory videos cannot be defended in the name of artistic licence.

Actually, this type of outburst is nothing new. Even when Elvis Presley started gyrating his pelvis to the song of 'Jailhouse Rock', the older generation thought it was an abomination. Such suggestive gestures, they say, was not in decorum with civil society. The end is nigh, they cried. People objected when 'Escape - The Piña Colada Song ' hit the airwaves; it promoted casual infidelity.

In Malaysia, Boy George's 'Karma Charmeleon' music video was banned as the singer crossdressed. Michael Sambelo's 'Maniac' went under the censors' scissors for the yoga pants that outlined the female anatomy a wee bit too vividly. The moral guardians, however, are helpless in stopping its wide-eyed citizens from feasting on Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's 'WAP' as streaming transcend their jurisdiction.

For better or worse, this is how a society evolves. Lessons from the Prohibition in the US in the 30s only teaches us that suppressing something only makes the problem go worse. The inquisitive nature of people will always arouse their inner desire to take a bite at the forbidden fruit. In time to come 'WAP' will be as tame as Brothers Grimms' fairy tales. Only that the messages are cryptic just like how the story of 'Little Red Riding Hood' is not all a quick-thinking young girl but about a flirtatious girl caught between innocence and sexuality.

Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's 'WAP' Debuts at No. 1 on Billboard Hot 100 With Record First-Week Streams

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Affairs of heart are irrational

Sufiyum Sujathayum (Sufi and Sujatha, Malayalam; 2020)

It started with a slow but discernable sporadic increase in reported cases of Hindu girls eloping with Muslim boys. Then came in the honour killings. The media picked it up. Everyone else then came out with their experiences of so-and-so female members of their families ex-communicating from the rest in pursuit of true love. To these girls, it finally meant embracing a new religion, new name, erasing themselves of their past lives and age-old traditions.

People started calling this phenomenon as 'love jihad' - a supposed form of religious warfare by Muslim boys to entice Hindu girls into conversion through marriage. It was a numbers game. They allege that that was another modality to increase their representation in the community. In 2009, it garnered national attention with claims of widespread conversions in Kerala and Karnataka. There were also similar accusations by British Sikhs and minorities in Pakistan. Even though the National Investigative Agency (NIA) in India found common instigators in 'love jihad' cases, the police and the court dismissed them as pure fabrications with no substance. As there was a hypothesis that these brides were prepared to be made ISIS bride, it became a terror issue, hence, NIA came to the picture. 

Another point not mentioned in any of these arguments is the lack of young boys in many of the places where 'love jihad' takes place. There were no economic opportunities in these states and the young men had to go off to work in the Gulf States or Singapore. Young girls with raging hormones and Muslim boys, in the spring of youth, left behind to mind religious and theological duties were the best ingredients for a perfect storm. And suave hunks with Bollywood movie-star look as many of these Sufi practitioners have, as some are from the Middle East, sparks are bound to fly.

As these girls who are alleged victims of forced conversion were major in the legal sense and were intelligent and educated, the courts could not nullify such unions. Anyway, affairs of the heart are never logical and cannot be argued in a sensible manner. Blinded by romance, the world is a wonderful place and pigs can fly.

Even though movie pundits on the social media hailed it as another must-see movie of 2020, I seriously think one can give this one a miss. It tells the story of a vocally-challenged Hindu Karthak dancer whose only job seems to be to cycle around the village and play with children in the madrassah. In the small town where the only member of the male gender is an uncle or from the geriatric population, a tall bearded young man is a sight for sore eyes. She is fascinated with him and his way of life - his mystical dances and songs. She falls flat for him despite the arrangements made by her parents for her to be married to a groom working in Dubai.

Long story short, she is emotionally blackmailed by the parents to get married.

Ten years on, she returns to India with her husband, after the Sufi lover dies. The rest of the story is about her letting go of her boyfriend and coming in terms with her status as a wife and mother, leaving her juvenile puppy love behind.

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Above us, not just sky!

Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl (Hindi; 2020)
Netflix


This film was stream via the OTT (over-the-top) media with a bang. First, the Indian Air Force (IAF) objected to the film depiction of the force being one filled with masculine toxicity and bullying of its officers of the fairer sex. Next came the netizens' loud call for the boycott of movies made by offsprings of movie stars. This follows the alleged suicide of Sushant Singh Rajput and the accusations hurled against the Bollywood mafias of nepotism involving children of stars.

In my opinion, this offering is just riding on the wave of nationalism that seems to have hit the world over. With the power of artistic licence, the story writers have given masala to spice up the saga of a lone wolf, or rather lamb, in a sea of wolves. As predicted in tales of this nature, the protagonist, despite all the barrage hurled along her path, she comes out smelling of roses. From this angle, the story seems to motivate young girls with ambitions to serve in the forces to realise that brawn is not all that is needed to swim against the tide, sometimes one just needs tenacity. 

The real Saxena and the celluloid form.

This movie tells the story of Gunjan Saxena who fought against the stereotype to become one of the first female officers in the IAF to go war. She was eventually awarded for her courageous works during the Kargil War in 1999. The IAF stated its objection against the depiction of discrimination of its female officers. There were also factual errors and twisting of events which may actually cause an officer to be court-marshalled. Saxena was not really the first female officer in the IAF. Saxena also had a fellow female officer in her batch who was not mentioned at all. In reality, it is not a biopic but stretched far away from the real story.

Again, the narrative just goes well with the oft-repeated general trend of the world; that we are living in a toxic world that discriminates the weak, the minorities and the marginalised. Any news is good publicity for the producers. Objection or accusations of nepotism is all the same. More curious viewers just throng to peek.

Sabiha Gökçen with Ataturk.

Just for curiosity, the world's first female fighter pilot is actually Turkish. As part of Kamal Mustafa Ataturk's modernisation programme of Turkey after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, woman empowerment was the order of the day. He banned the burqa and encouraged women to study. One of his four adopted daughters, Sabiha Gökçen, went on to become the first female fighter pilot.

She went on to become a somewhat controversial figure later. She was orphaned during the tumultuous times of Turkey when they went through brutal civil war and swapping of citizens (of Greeks and Albanians) at their border. They were rumours that she could an Albanian, hence defeating the scream for 'Turkey for Turks'  at that time. Her renewed assault on the Kurds became a sore point when Erdoğan wanted to mend his relationship with Kurdistan in 2011, threatening her iconic status in Turkish history.

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Who are you really?

R Arumugam @ Spiderman in action

I remember a time in primary school when Malaysia was playing hockey in the World Cup, and we were hosting them. One of my friends, ignorant that he was, predicted that Malaysia would lose, not because India is a good team but because Malaysia had too many players of Indian ethnicity. The Malaysians would not play with as much zest due to allegiance to their ancestral roots. Of course not, I told him. It was like the national goalie Spidey R Arumugam letting in a few goals during Merdeka tournament to India for old times’ sake. No way that was going to happen.

In the same way, I fail to see why many individuals of the Indian diaspora are getting all excited, ad nauseam, after the announcement of Kamala Harris as Joe Biden’s running mate. For the record, Kamala is half Indian on the maternal side and Jamaican on the other.

Kamala @ Momala with hubby and stepkids.

Kamala Harris is an American true and true. She was born in America, read in the American education system and lived the American Dream. True, the motivating factor in her life was her learned Tamil mother who migrated to the US for greener pastures. That is where it ends.

Beyond that, it is all politics. Ms Harris was initially riding on the African American ticket, but now that the Indian Americans are a force to be reckoned with and are mostly aligned to Trump and the Republican Party, there is a pressing need to woo the American Indians back to the Democratic Party.  

Charles Sobhraj

Whatever way the US election results swings out, it is not going in any way going to affect the day to day of an average person in the Indian diaspora. The leaders of any country have the best interest of the nation that elected to heart, not allegiance to the land that once bred their ethnicity but not kind enough to nurture them to full fruition that their ancestors had to fleet.

Funny nobody staked claim to proclaim Charles Sobhraj @ The Bikini Killer as an Indian when he hit the headlines four decades ago!

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Love is never enough?

Life in a... Metro (Hindi; 2007)

Thomas Sowell, an American economist, surmises that the main reason behind the disparity between the blacks and whites as depicted by the Black Life Matters (BLM) movements is the destruction of the family unit and the libertarian policies of the US governments in the mid-60s. Two-thirds of black children born in America today are out of wedlock. 90% of inmates of correctional facilities in America had grown without a father if that is telling something. Sowell himself uprooted himself from the shackles of poverty, growing up in Harlem without a father, dropping out of school at 16, only to eventually become a prominent academician in Stanford. He recently entered his 10th decade of existence.

The implementation of liberal economic policies in tandem with changing social norms seems to reward the sluggards. He posits that minimum wage actually discourages high achievers. Having social policies favouring single parents actually encouraged single-parent family units. Welfare states just promoted laziness. His research showed that living standards were actually better off for the black during the Jim Crow era despite its discriminatory policies. People just had to pull themselves with their bootstraps.

Their grouse then was how they could pull themselves by their bootstraps when they did not have shoes!

How is all that connected to this story?

One of the characters of this story goes through the life of a lifeless marriage. She has a preteen daughter and a philandering husband but feels rejuvenated all over again as she finds love in a single man. They are about to commit to an amorous relationship only to have the thought of her child, and the sacrosanct institution of marriage jolt the lady back to realisation. Concurrent to this dilemma, the movie also narrates the pressure-cooker living condition of the metropolitan city of Mumbai, love life-wise.

The protagonist's husband is in a supposedly meaningless affair with his worker. As the matters the heart are not straight forward, she soon demands more than just physical love, a commitment. This worker, however, has a secret admirer. The protagonist's sister is devastated that she is still not married at 28, and her recent boyfriend turned out to be gay. Meanwhile, a guy with awkward social skills is getting close to her, but he is also getting married soon. The protagonist's widowed mother, who is living alone in a retirement home, receives a letter from her teenage flame who is returning from the USA after all these years to meet.

Through this winding maze of story, the storyteller tells a tale of love of different kinds and how most our decision on life and love eventually turns out dissatisfying. Perhaps, modern romance is expecting the oxytocin-infused addictive feeling of amorous disposition to be forever and ever. Unfortunately, being chemicals, we develop tolerance to oxytocin or serotonin over time, and we need a more enormous boost in different thrills to attain satiety. That is human nature. Society mores and restrictions were made to ensure that the unwanted effects of this primordial desires do not come back to plague the society.

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