Blinded!

A Billion Colour Story (2016)

History tells us that India used to be a welcoming land to any weary sojourner. It is proud of being the only country in the world where its people did not persecute anyone based on physical appearances or personal convictions. It stands proud of not harassing Jews. It ushered in visitors with such warmth, sharing their knowledge in the hope of finding meanings of life, so much so that they decided to overstay their welcome and so much as a rule over the roost.

Did the last of the visitors leave such a scar of conquest that can never heal? To ease their administration, the British, initially a band of looters in the form of East India Company and then later for the Crown, divided and subdivided their subjects by breed, colour, occupation, religion, etc., drilled in the idea that they were different. They mastered the craft of 'divide and rule' to its finest.

The divide became so pronounced that it carved out the limbs out of the tripartite sub-continent. The conquerors were happy to leave with such an arrangement that became cumbersome. It fitted very well with their intentions to destabilise the region by instigating brotherly skirmishes. As the Cold War was developing, political influence over the area was maintained. Destabilisation ensured the petroleum supply was kept in check with British aspirations.

The world was achanging. Ideas were spreading like wildfire. People became loyal not to the flag but to a belief of an invisible pink unicorn that was an oxymoron, but who dare ask. The representation transcended all rational thought and called for blood. A once peaceful existence has turned hostile. How do you expect the hosts to take things lying down? An eye for an eye, and I will instead be blind than do the blasphemous something, says one party. A tit for tat says the other in reply. The combatants are mired so deep in muck that they had forgotten who drew first blood and for what they are fighting for.

We encounter this award-winning film with this background that showcases an eternally optimistic trained in Australia movie-making couple who believes that the old India is very much alive. Despite the adverse publicity churned daily on the media, they believe that a billion colours that beautify India are there for taking. Reality sinks when they discover that their mixed marriage (Hindu and Muslim) is a big issue in modern India. They find dead end at every turn as they struggle to complete their movie. In the midst of all this is their son, Hari Aziz, trying to find his place in society.

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No Brain, No Pain.

There was a time when I developed a compulsion of wanting to know everything about Bhagavadgita. I was told that the holy book had all the recipe for a meaningful life. And I heard about a volunteer at a local temple who was conducting a series of lectures on that subject. My acquaintances were all praises about the speaker and the contents of his classes.  

I was drawn in. I decided to give it a try. In the first lecture, all that I heard was that I was nothing. I was smaller than the smallest of the speck in the Universe. I did not matter to the greater scheme of things. Hence, the last thing I needed was my ego. I had to crack my hardshell called ego, following which enlightenment would flow in like an eternal fountain of knowledge. Like how Arjuna had to clear his head of all his doubts to receive the unlimited erudition from the Lord himself.

I thought to myself, "I do not need these people to tell me that I am nothing; my wife tells me all the time that my ego is bigger than my head! These people are asking me to be a zombie - to operate like a non-functional lump of protoplasm working in a reflex arc at the spinal level. I did not like to be another statistic along the line of a cult member of the Branch Davidian who perished in the Waco massacre smiling in anticipation of the bliss of entropy.

The little bit of sense that prevailed within me told me that these just will not do. Echoes of my mother's childhood stories of Socrates in his death bed murmured somewhere in the nook of my mind. Even though she barely scraped through primary schooling at a time when discrimination against girls was rife, she managed to sponge whatever she could from radio dramas, movies, storybooks and periodicals. Her words reverberated, "don't listen just because this fellow or that fellow said so; enquire and investigate and be enlightened!" or something to that effect.

Hence, I recoiled to the company of me, myself and I to indulge in a little soul searching and introspection. 

Ego, a sense of self-importance and self-esteem, cannot be all so bad. It is the trait to make one so embarrassed to hold out his hand for alms as his pride tells him that he can fend for himself in this big wide world. It prods that if a lame or a blind can survive, why can't he? 

It is the thing that pushes him to be better than his neighbour. It is that satisfying, gloated feeling that propels him to go beyond boundaries that no man has ever been before. Many individuals are addicted to immersion in the sea of endorphins as they become successful in their outlandish endeavours. Some fail, but that also inspires them to try harder to succeed. Well, that is how the human race progresses. It is the hard work of mad minds of the insane with a never say die attitude, not the complacent bumpkin who thinks very lowly of himself and no self-pride but just follows the herd. Beware, the shepherd, despite all the seemingly cordial and charming smiles, has only one thing on his mind - to fatten the flock and to prepare for the slaughter! He has a vested interest. For vegetarians, there is the proverbial cash cow to milk. 

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Life always finds a way

 Oru Pakka Kathai (ஒரு பக்க கதை, One-page Story @One-sided Story, Tamil;  2020)

If I learnt anything from Jurassic Park, and specifically fictional scientist Ian Malcolm, I remember a dialogue about how Nature has a way to deal with survival. When the mad scientist in the park only bred female dinosaurs to control the population, Malcolm warned that when species are on the brink of extinction, Nature makes necessary changes for an organism become a hermaphrodite! Reproduction may occur by asexual means.

These observations have been reproduced in laboratory conditions in certain snakes, fishes and rats. Parthenogenesis happens regularly in plants, where an unfertilised egg combines with the haploid polar body to produce a diploid offspring that is not a clone. The offspring should be a female if I understand well, since there are no Y chromosomes to go around.

The scriptures are bountiful with tales of virgin births and immaculate conceptions. Kunti is said to have been impregnated by Surya after her great worship of the Sun God. Then there are Zoroaster, Christ, and some say Plato too.

Is it not funny that there was a time when people accepted these phenomena readily. Try doing that now and see what happens.

I remember a friend telling me of his experience working at the A&E department of a hospital on the east coast. A schoolgirl was wheeled in with much drama and hullabaloo. Her teacher and two of her friends came in, accompanying wiping her brow and massaging her hand. The patient complained of debilitating gastric pains. Upon clearing the yards of garment draping her torso, my friend found a contracting gravid uterus and a fetal head was seen squeezing through her perineum. After settling down, the student father was summoned. The father, a religious leader, refused to believe that his daughter could be pregnant. He started talking about divine intervention. The daughter suddenly remembered a day, some nine months previously, when she heard some rustling noises on her roof. She wondered if some elements of the netherworld were up to some tricks. While putting on a serious face, my friend could hear the staff's muffled laugh in the background. The last my friend heard is that the father was still in denial that any wrongdoings occurred.

This film took a long time to complete. Production started way back in 2014 but got stalled along the way. The movie's outcome is quite telling as one can see that the first part of the film develops nicely to a climax only to fizzle out afterwards. Maybe the movie makers just wanted to finish it off.

Meera, a university student, going steady with her soon-to-wed beau, Saravanan, feels weak. It turns out that she is pregnant. After much accusations of a pre-marital union, which she denied, the doctors (just by history taking) and professors confirmed that the conception is actually an asexual one. This medical miracle gets media coverage, and when the baby turns three, it is abducted by priests in a temple. The priest and, in fact, other religious institutions lay claim on the divine child conceived by unconventional methods.

The story is fresh, but sadly, as the crisis develops towards the later part of the movie, one notices that the actors are annoyingly timid and unemotional when their innocent child is kept hostage in the temple. Their demeanour is so nonchalant. They do not give a fight but quietly recede to seek legal redress instead. 

One nagging question that kept playing in mind is why none of the attending doctors tested the child's DNA to ascertain whether the child indeed carried part of Saravanan's genetic material to prove or disprove Meera's claim!

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Uncomfortably numbed...

Des (TV Mini-series; 3 episodes, 2020)

This dramatisation of a 1983 real case from the police files of a seemingly boring man who carried out gruesome murders of equally unimpressive men in a most deliberate manner. He is credited to have killed at least 12 men. An ex-army cook with a short stint as a policeman and a civil servant invites young men to his apartment, makes them inebriated, kills them in various manners, and disposes of them in equally grisly ways. His activities came to light when a drain was blocked. Police were called in when human remains were discovered. The suspect, Dennis Nilson, is quite nonchalant about all his pursuits. He boasts about his crimes and even speaks to an author in the hope of publicising his feats. 

The murders and the investigations were later described in a best-seller titled 'Killing for Company'. The TV series shows how all the police investigations and this case, in particular, left a bitter after-taste in his mouth in the chief investigator, Detective Chief Investigator Peter Jay. Two years after Nilson was sentenced, he quit for force. In one of the closing scenes, Jay returns to the crime scene with the biographer, Brian Masters, where some of the victims were buried under the floorboard. The case never really left much resolution the many of the victim's families. Many of Des' victims were never identified. Masters quipped, "I can still smell the stench." implying the purifying bodies once hidden under the floor. To this detective, Jay replied, "Funny, I don't smell it anymore!"

It made my mind go asunder.

We are the company we keep with. My wise mother used to tell us when we were young about choosing the right friends. We became the persons that we befriend. She often quoted a famous somewhat brash proverb, "a calf, when it wanders with piglets, will soon be scavenging around dumpsites!" Cows, revered by Hindus, are given divine status. Pigs, on the other hand, are looked upon as dirty and shunned by most societies. By the association one keeps, he is lured to venture into the majority's habits as we, human beings, are social animals.

I feel for the many of the frontliners, the health and police personnel,  who have to deal with many of the unsavoury characters they have to deal with daily. Their clients come in as helpless, broken souls needing fixing. Once they regain strength, they bite the hand that fed them. The frontliners know that they should not be their own yardsticks to judge their clients. But with constant exposure to the nerve-numbing tragedies daily, are they at risk of becoming numb to the very struggles they are trained to handle. Are they at risk of becoming another file in the statistics in the annals of time?

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Wisdom is found when you step out of the shadows and into the light.

My Story: Justice in The Wilderness
Author: Tommy Thomas.

This book has generated so much publicity, even from people who have not managed to read it. Its sales have soared tremendously, selling off the shelves like hotcakes and has gone into multiple reprints in such a short time. The speed at which police reports were registered almost days after the book's release exposed Malaysian readers' voraciousness. Whether these people actually read the book is another question altogether.

Over the years, Malaysians have realised that rumours carry more weightage than the official narrative. Coffee-shop talks invariably turn up to be accurate, despite all denials. This book just affirms all of the above.

In my opinion, this book can be described as a logbook of a person who had completed his tour de force which he considered a national service for his country. He was given a mandate by the people to perform a task, and this is his way of saying this is what he did and what he failed to do. His report also describes what he found during his mission and the dead-ends that he could not overcome. A tinge of nostalgia can be seen as he narrates Malaysia's history that he grew in, his background, and the man behind the post of Attorney General of Malaysia.

For most Malaysians, what is described in the book is nothing new. We all know about it but just too courteous to squeal. Many did not want to rock the boat for fear of repercussions. We bicker and whine amongst friends, but the buck ends there. We do not utter this in polite company. As long as they can earn a living comfortably, like the cowardice German intellectuals Niemöller referred to, we do not confront the dragon. 

My civil service experience showed me there is ample opportunity to improve one’s capabilities, which would benefit the public. The only thing that seems to be the stumbling block could have been the individual’s inertia or the comfort of his safe zone. If one is engrossed in serving the public and making a mark, as public servants are supposed to do, i.e., to serve the people, he would be too short of time. Work is never finished, but the quality of work needs to be assessed periodically. 

When TT highlighted the numerous areas that AG’s office was deficient, many got hot under their collars/robes. For example, when Equanimity had to retrieve from Indonesian waters, TT realised that his office had a dearth of experience dealing with Maritime legal procedures. It is not that there is no such expertise here in Malaysia. Only that the AGC did not seem to keep up with the changes. 

With TT’s good office, he managed to get the correct people for the job, and it turned out favourable to the people of Malaysia. If one noticed from the book, many counsels from the private sector are more than willing to go pro bono for the country. 

One of the main gripes of the far right-wing of society on TT’s tenure is his alleged ‘handling’ of Adib's death, the firefighter. This book is a canvas for TT to show his side of the story where his job was to help set a coroner’s tribunal and aid them with the necessary information. 

The last thing that TT would be guilty of his racism and denigration of a particular society's ethnicity. He clearly calls a spade a spade. He gave due when it was and did not mince his words when he saw deficiencies. 

From my reading, TT’s 22 months’ tenure at the helm of the highest legal advisor to Malaysia's Government is a short-lived dream. In the pitch of darkness that the Malaysian were enduring pre-GE 14, we had a plan. It came through. During REM sleep, at a time of bliss, came a dream with the hope of a better tomorrow, the bubble popped. The bark of a distant dog shook us from that slumber. We were brought to the ground to realise that our neighbourhood was bountiful with many dogs and dog owners' paranoia that their property will be broken into. They do not mind the occasional ugly encounters with their beast or the occasional litter they drop around the housing estate. And we stay awake for the rest of the night.  

Like in the cave allegory, we build our own echo chamber, self-aggrandising our perceived achievements. If we stay too long in the cave, the light may be too blinding for us to accommodate that we may recoil into the kingdom of one-eyed-Jack or the blind for validation.

                                                                       
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A balancing act!

The Crown (Miniseries, S1-S4; 2016-present)
Netflix

I had been resisting the urge to immerse myself into another miniseries for so long. But, no thanks to DKLA's persistent persuasion and continually dangling the proverbial carrot that British history was intertwined in its storyline, I caved in. It did not disappoint but instead turned out to be quite an informative and educational one, actually. It is a sort of a history revision for me, of course, from a colonial perspective and the one which puts the British Crown above all.

Throughout the whole series, the Damocles' sword that seems to be hanging over the royalties is the fear that they might be ousted at any time. The idea of a single-family, through lineage, ordained by God to rule over his subjects cannot be swallowed by the common man anymore. The nearest they can get to this by being the leader of the Church. Even then, the Crown members' behaviours were neither Christian-affirming nor exemplary for the subject to emulate.

Their contemporaries the world over, one by one, seems to be shown the exit door, sometimes unceremoniously.  Just look at Prince Philip, who had to be smuggled out of Greece in an orange crate to escape an angry mob. What started as hungry French peasants demanding bread but were given cakes instead slowly led to the brutal killing of Rasputin and the annihilation of the Romanov family. Monarchs in Asia, Africa and the rest of Europe were dropping like flies in the 60s, which added much to their anxiety. The challenge faced by the Windsor castle occupants was just that -  to stay relevant with the times. The idea of the Crown filling the intermediary gap between God and people is laughable when every human being is supposed to be created equal. Why then do royalties earn a special place in society, placed on a pedestal and demanding courtesies, the people ask? 

This thoroughly researched miniseries starts with Philip taking a new surname, Mountbatten, after renouncing his Danish and Greek nationalities. He is related to Admiral Louis Mountbatten, the Viceroy of India. Philip is inducted into British royalty with his marriage to Elizabeth in 1947. 

Prince Philip @ Duke of Edinburgh
had no problem kneeling before his wife.

King George VI's reluctant ascent to the throne in 1936 as the Crown's head and the British Commonwealth came about when his brother, King Edward VIII, thought love was more important than the Crown. He abdicated his throne when the Crown decided that there is no place for a divorcee in the royal household. Edward's beau was an American twice divorced with two living ex-husbands. This situation was deemed inappropriate for a queen consort as the King was the head of the Church of England, and divorce was socially not accepted in Britain at that time. The story often rolls back to Edward and Simpson's back story and their shenanigans from their exclusive chateaux in France. I suppose, with the liberty of creative licence and the need for dramatisation, the scriptwriters have also painted Simpson as a German spy. In reality, the exposè of Marburg files highlighted the cosy relationship between Edward and Hitler. There was an elaborate to reinstate Edward as King after a German victory over Britain.

Every episode brings one or two so-called controversies that rocked the public imaginations in the 60s. In real life, they were mere storms in a teacup. The Queen and her band of minders averted any bad press. During the Profumo affair with a young model who in turn was linked to a Russian naval ataché, Philip is mentioned to be a fellow attendee of their wild parties.

Churchill is portrayed as a farsighted statesman who built a fantastic working relationship with the Queen. Being a politician, his masters are British and the Crown, not the starving peasants in the rest of the world. Even the mighty Churchill is not infallible as bungled up with handling the 1952 Great London Smog. He erroneously attributed inefficiency as an 'act of God'.

  

Talking about Prime Ministers, the idea of having a PM started in the reign of non-English speaking King George I in the early 18th century. After messing up with the South Sea Company, which hails across the Atlantic Ocean delving in a myriad of trades, including slaves, he appointed an astute businessman, Robbert Walpole, to sort out the mess. The job continued as the PM post, and the tradition dictated that he should have a weekly audience with the monarch. Interesting that they were many non-English speaking rulers who ruled Britain. Even as late as 1917, the royal family's surname was 'Saxe-Coburg-Gotha'. Due to anti-German sentiments at that time, the family name was changed to Windsor. Philip's sisters were not on the royal wedding's list as they were Nazi party members.

In the first two seasons with both the Queen and Philip in the prime of their youth, we see the Queen immersing deep into overseeing the 'ruling' of the country whilst Philip absorbed into his role of a royal house husband. His secretive boys' outings at the Thursday Club and long weekend outings portray Philip as a philandering husband. A particular Russian ballerina is mentioned as 'the other' (or rather one of many others) woman. His shenanigans came to light after his 1954 world cruise aboard Royal Yacht Britannia when his best friend Mike's estranged wife got hold of some evidence of their mischief.

A memorable episode is the mining disaster in Aberfan, Wales, which claimed 116 children and 28 adults. The CGI looks so believable. 

Talking about following royal decorum, Queen Elizabeth's sister, Margaret, has been the subject of many embarrassments. Starting off with an affair with a married man at a young age, she had to sacrifice her beau in place of losing her sovereign benefits. A party animal and a sort of person who finds comfort amongst the plebeians, her consort turned out to be one with an illustrious extramarital prowess. As is depicted in this series, Margaret's magnum opus could be how she smoothened UK-US strained relationships after Edward Heath refused to support US entry into Vietnam. 

JFK is portrayed here as an insecure person who is apprehensive of Jackie's popularity. Maybe the Malaysian public did not notice that the series poked fun at the Malayan royalty in the earlier season. The British royal couple were seen showing around Buckingham palace to a Malayan aristocrat who seems to be going on and on about their courts back home. Queen and Philip sat exhaustedly in the next scene, saying, "I thought they will never stop!"

Another remarkable episode is about the Apollo 11 astronauts. Philip, being a licenced pilot, was fascinated with the Apollo mission. He invited Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins to the palace. He thought of getting a philosophical view of the whole expedition and a first-hand account of their heroism.  He was into an existential crisis of sorts. What he saw, instead, were young technicians who were more concerned with protocols, the task at hand, ticking off the checklist and down with flu; not enlightened men with answers about life.

Spitting image?
Iron Lady and Jillian Anderson

The climax of all seasons so far must surely be Margaret Thatcher's role, who was played convincingly by Jillian Anderson in Season 4. Viewers can understand the obstacles that one has to go through to lead a country. For those who hail Thatcher as a feminist, you are wrong. She probably believes in women empowerment and that the fairer sex should grab opportunities that come their way. Her cabinet had no women. When asked about the absence of female representation, she merely replied, "Oh, they are too emotional!"

Politics is not for the faint-hearted. One needs to learn to juggle many roles, wear many hats, listen when needed, and sometimes make unpleasant decisions. 

The screenwriters did not ink Prince Charles in a favourable light. He appears to be a moody, sentimental insecure fool who seems run to Camella Bowles's skirt for assurance that he never got from his mother. His liaison his Mrs Bowles predates his marriage. Conveniently, he blames all his miseries on his absent father. The saga will continue with two more seasons with a switch of casts.

Coming from a country with nine Sultans and a rotating post for a King, the answer to how the Malaysian royalty remained relevant all through the years may lie within this miniseries' storyline. Our royalty is even older than the British Crown if we start counting from the reign of Parameswara of the Malacca Sultanate in 1403. Through feuds, intrusions, pirate attacks, Siamese and Chinese hegemony, colonial invasions, the World Wars, and the post-colonial uprisings, it still commands respect through the years. The British exerted their dominance over the administration, and the Japanese terrorised with their brutality and torture tools, but they came out smelling of roses.

Life, despite the occasional doubt on their relevance, is unthinkable without them to many. Their importance is enshrined in the Rukun Negara (National Principles). Their role as a buffer in the balancing act between politicians may be a testimony of this.

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Make up your mind and move on...

Waiting for Godot (play, book)
Writer: Samuel Beckett

Thanks to MEV for the suggestion; for helping me in my journey to crack open my hard shell of ignorance. 

Albert Camus and Samuel Beckett fall into the same category of philosophers-writers who lived through World War 2-ravaged France to build a very nihilistic view of life's purpose. Samuel Beckett, an Irishman, who spent a good portion of his life in France, can be credited to have started the 'theatre of absurdism' and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969 for his books and drama.

The life that is laid in front of us is apparently meaningless. In this tragi-comic play, we are shown as headless chickens running, not knowing what to do and not knowing what is expected of us. We are so fickle, always losing track of our purpose and get swooned over easily by events around us. We eagerly await instructions from people in authority without an iota of a clue about the right thing to do. But we wait and follow like sheep, correctly or otherwise.

The play narrates a conversation between two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, who await mysterious Godot's arrival. It seems that Godot is very elusive, does not keep to his word and has no qualms keeping his men waiting. Vladimir and Estragon, in their endless wait, have to do things to pass the time. They encounter Pozzo, a rich man, and his slave, Lucky, who traverse their path. They realise that their miserable lives are much better than that of the slave, but still, they are unhappy. They keep on waiting for Godot hoping to get instructions from him.

That is life as we know it. We are clueless about why we are here, why we are alive, what is our mission. We create stories trying to justify our existence. We are not convinced and need validation from someone, anyone. We grope in the dark, making along. This aimless journey is so long and arduous.  

Like Sisyphus, we are cursed to be doing the same repetitive unending chore. The boulder pushed with so much exertion, and determination just rolls down just as it hits the pinnacle. His job is repeated and repeated yet again. Sisyphus can just call it a day and call it quits. Sisyphus knows he is destined to do throughout his life. He has to find happiness and purpose in life within that miserable ordeal. Life is tough, but he has to find joy and fulfilment within that wretched circumstances. 

Looking at this paradigm, we can distract ourselves into doing things that take our mind off of what happens at the end of it all. The indulgence in primal pleasures, intoxicants, flesh and music remain possible options. One desirable alternative could be the dissipation in art forms. It numbs the pain but at the same time, open up the mind to gaze at our lives from different perspectives. We can be leaders and serve society or delve deep into science to uplift mankind. The bottom line is that this is our existence, we have to accept it and make sense of it all and make our own conclusion.

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