Tackling the complex issue tactfully!

Fundamentally Happy (Singapore; 2015)
Director: Yuan Bin Lei & Bee Thiam Tan
Writers: Haresh Sharma &Alvin Tan

I would have not given this film a second look if not for the fact that somebody mentioned that this Singapore film got the boot from the Film Censorship Board (LPF). It was initially done as a play and was staged in Kuala Lumpur without much fanfare, but as a film, a no-no. So, when someone mentioned that it was screened on Mubi, I grabbed the chance.

The censors gave for prohibiting screening because the film contains "elements that may be sensitive to the feelings of Malaysian Malays and may be interpreted by Malaysian Malays as an attempt to reflect the community's attitude towards those who abuse the weak to fulfil their desires".

This ridiculous statement given by the powers given the cloud what the general public can be exposed is as absurd as what a retired Malaysian judge had said in a public address, that a particular Muslim cannot be charged for criminal breach of trust as by virtue of being a Muslim, he could do no wrong. As ridiculous as it sounds, he was not misquoted and had since gone into oblivion.

A single swallow does not make a whole summer. Hence, the subject matter in the film is specific to one ethnicity or culture. Paedophilia transcends all societies. It is a very sensitive subject. It negatively affects everyone. The aggressor may regret the whole thing, or he may not. He may just regret that he got but to do it on the sly. The victim may be too scarred to explore and re-open the old wounds yet again. The parties linked to the aggressor may also stand to lose by exposing all dirty linen in public. After all the investigation and public humiliation, there is no guarantee that the long arm of the law will mete out justice. The long ordeal may lead to nothing, and the victims still have to live through the trauma for the rest of their remaining lives. Anyway, how will punishing the perpetrator erase the scar that is imprinted deep in one's psyche?

This film tells about a 30-year-old young man, Eric (Singaporean actor Joshua Lim), who pays a visit to his old neighbour, Habibah (Malaysian actress Adibah Amin). After an initial cordial reminiscence of their good old times, Eric was a young boy who used to frequent Habibah's home. Slowly, the conversation turns murky, as Eric vaguely remembers Habibah's husband's awkward advances towards Eric. The home environment seems to bring those old disturbing memory to Eric. Habibah defends her husband whilst Eric accuses her of being complicit. She further accuses him of initiating and enjoying all the unholy liaisons.

In the second half of the show, the husband seems to have been interrogated by the police. Eric returns to Habibah's home and has another conversation with her. This time they bear to open their inner feelings about Ismail, Habibah's husband. They explore the complex issue of abuse with the grace of love.

Done in a theatrical performance style, it is packed with razor-sharp dialogue and a feisty display of emotions. A powerful presentation performed well by the actors. 8/10.  

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About Bengal famine.

Churchill's Secret War (2010)
Author: Madhusree Mukerjee

Besides participating in the Boer War and WW1 personally, as a Prime Minister, he spearheaded the Allied Forces in World War 2; Winston Churchill made it his life ambition to destroy India. His handling of the 1943 Bengal famine is equal to genocide. Instead of being responsible colonial masters taking care of their colonies that helped to propel their economies, he chose to blame the shortage solely as the natives' fault for choosing to breed like a rabbit. In his same tone of contempt, he verbalised, "Why isn't Gandhi dead yet?"

At the heights of the Second World War, the British had its hands tied all over the place. It was trying to act as the biggest superpower. In reality, it was bleeding. India was supplying all its credit needs. In essence, on paper, the British bought India's produce with a promise to pay later. And later was after WW2 when Britain was in dire straits and had to let them go.

Britain was also not self-sufficient as far as its food supply was concerned. Churchill had to feed his people throughout the war. He was dependent on the colonies for that - from Australia and the Americas too. The war made it difficult to move the food supply around. The U-boats were supposedly terrorising the Atlantic. In reality, however, there was only one such attack on commercial ships. There was a fear that the Japanese may enter India via Burma, made worse by the support by Bose's Indian National Army.

To deprive the invading foes of food supply, stockpiles were moved and even burnt. Restrictions were imposed on the transportation of rice. On top of that, the agricultural yield in 1943 was dismal after a typhoon. Massive famine ensued. Instead of moving grains from other parts of India to fill in for the need, Churchill did just the opposite. Produce from the Punjab region were siphoned to feed the war troops in the Mediterranean. In Churchill's eyes, feeding Indians serving the British army was equivalent to providing for the whole of India. Imports from Australia were detoured to Ceylon. Despite being advised of the situation on the ground, the one-tracked hotheaded imperialist Churchill gave two hoots to the misery of the Bengalis. He kept dragging his feet to send aid. Contribution from American civil societies also did not make it to India.

The final outcome is a devastating famine in the Bengal region estimated to have reached 3 million by some studies. It became a testbed for what deprivation of food could do to Man. It brought out the best and worst of mankind. Mothers killed their children to ease their suffering. Lactating mothers were seen feeding their already dead babies. The mothers themselves were skin and bones. Some families had to sell their teenage girls to brothels to feed the rest. Many young brides kept themselves alive by marrying old widowers for food. It was common for British officers in India to give their supplies to the pleading and dying locals, but this was supposedly illegal. Eyewitnesses of the devastation at the ground are described in gruesome details in this book.

It is ironic that despite all the miseries that were taking, business in Sonaganj, a brothel village established around the time the British established Calcutta as their administrative capital, prospered with many few intakes! Sonaganj laboured through these hard times and remain the biggest brothel complex in the world.

Churchill's subsequent election loss spurred him to write history to put his perspective history as the correct one, one where he would not be painted as the villain. His statement before the House of Common in 1948 summed it all, "For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself."

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Religion a political tool!

Jinnah (1998)
Screenplay, direction: Jamil Dehlavi

This must be Pakistan's reply to Richard Attenborough's narration of the Father of India, Mahatma Gandhi. It was made, not by a Pakistani, but by a London-based British of Pakistani-French descent. The controversial Jamil Dehlavi, whose 1980 film 'The Blood of Hussain' earned the ire of the Pakistani government. As the name suggests, the storyline paralleled the events surrounding the historic Battle of Karbala, which is vital in the Shia tradition, not to the predominantly Sunni Pakistanis.

Even though this film fetes the founder, the Quaid-i-Azam, the great leader of Pakistan, it was never screened in Pakistan. Most depictions of Jinnah elsewhere are often of one who is cunning, conniving, humourless, and challenging to deal with. To be fair, this film tries as much as possible to paint a picture of a well-meaning, conscientious Jinnah. It, however, glaringly gives a blank about a few particular things about his background that questions his portrayal as a soldier of Islam in his quest to establish a brand new fully Islamic country to safeguard the welfare of Muslims in the subcontinent. Jinnah and his Muslim League Party feared that an independent India would mean injustice from the British Raj would be transferred to another heathen ruler, the Hindu Raj.

In a flashback sequence, the story is told in a flip-flop manner, as Jinnah is at the fabled heaven's gate and being interviewed by St Peter. St Peter's archival system faces a glitch; hence, Jinnah has to narrate in person his life events. St Peter walks through his life, literally, as Jinnah is asked whether he regrets all the things he did in his lifetime and whether he would do it all again with the wisdom of hindsight. With a few regrets to his family life and the people who perished during Partition, Jinnah's answer is yes.

Nowhere in the film was it hinted about Jinnah's origin. The fact that he was a Gujerati, not from Punjab, where central Pakistan was carved out. It also omitted that he was of Shia denomination. I suppose where he came and at that time, it did not matter. He also did not speak Urdu, the spoken language of the majority of Muslims in India.

Jinnah's grandparents were Gujarati Hindus who were converted by a Sufi. Jinnah himself was not a traditionalist. After getting married as his mother's pre-requisite before leaving to study in England, he was initially meant to study medicine. He turned mid-way to read law and turned out quite a force to be reckoned in the courts. In 1929, he was said to have successfully defended Sardar Patel in a funds misappropriation case. He stood in Bhagat Singh's and Bal Tilak's legal team in the right to speech trial. In his famous speech, he asked the court, "You want to prosecute them or persecute them?"

Jinnah with his sister and confidante Fatima

At one time in the movie, Jinnah is seen as a maverick Anglophile lawyer arguing in the British courts. A plea by a friend, poet-philosopher-politician Muhammad Iqbal, turned his attention to the Muslim plight in India. And he plunged head-on into his Two Nation strategy. What they conveniently omit is that Jinnah was not particularly religious. He lived the life of a wealthy English gentleman, openly ate pork, consumed whiskey, wore expensive European clothing items, and married a non-Muslim, a Farsi as his second wife. He was neither a great admirer of Muslim principles nor a frequenter of mosques.

Islam was a political tool to claim a new nation using victimhood of persecution by radical Hindu elements in India. Paradoxically, this same element assassinated Gandhi, a Hindu leader. The premise of this new country, Pakistan, was to offer its citizens equal rights, privileges, and obligations, irrespective of colour, caste, creed, or community. It promised citizens that religion had nothing to do with the state's business but merely a matter of personal faith. Obviously, this piped dream came crashing down only a year after the birth of this nation.

Richard Lintern as young Jinnah

When Jinnah succumbed to the illness (TB, disease of consumption as it was called then; it consumes your body), which was a tightly-guarded secret between Jinnah and his physician of the Zoroastrian faith, Dr Jal Patel, he left behind a trail of dictators who had set aside democracy principles and let religious zealots dictate how a country should be run. Jinnah led as a Governor-General, and his word was law. Liaqat Ali, who became his successor, decided to accept Islam as the official religion. This caused a frenzy. Many, including its law minister, Jogendra Nath Mandal, a Dalit Hindu, who was impressed with Jinnah's vision, fled for their lives, taking refuge in India. Pakistan went on to become an Islamic Republic in 1956 after a military coup.

Jinnah's second marriage to Rattanbhai (Ruttie) Petit needs mention. Jinnah was Ruttie's father's guest in his mansion for two years when he asked a 16-year-old Ruttie hand in marriage. The 24 years of age difference and the differing religion were hurdles, but it happened two years later when Ruttie was a major. Probably because of the age difference and the different priorities in life, she had clinical depression. It is said that she later succumbed to morphine overdose. Ironically, Jinnah's only daughter, Dina, married an Indian-born Farsi, against Jinnah's approval and was disowned by him.

A nation's fate is decided under a tree.

Even though this movie is supposed to give a human touch to the founder of a country often portrayed negatively, and as a villain, it never got approval for screening in cinemas. The detractors complain that it is wrong to cast an actor who is synonymous with playing horror and vampire films to represent an esteemed leader of a nation. It is not that he is of European descent. Christopher Lee, who assumed the role, actually did a fantastic portrayal of Jinnah and was the spitting image of Jinnah himself, as we see in pictures. Lee also regards his performance here as the best in his career.

A stellar performance by the cast but history, as they say, is muti-dimensional. The viewers have to accept the storytelling maturely. The almost unrecognisable and puffed-up Shashi Kapoor appears as the St Peter character.

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Can anyone really be free?

Black Widow (2021)

Everybody talks about wanting to be free, free from any encumbrances, free to say and do as he pleases, free as a bird to move around. The caged dog looks at his stray counterpart on the other side of the fence with contempt for the freedom that he enjoys. On the other hand, the stray longs for the time when he does not have to scratch his head looking for his next meal.

We think we are free by living with our loved ones or within communities that we find commonalities. Sad to say that even within societies, certain norms and mores exist that one is excepted to conform to. Challenges are bound to happen with the members in the spring of their youth; the young feel restricted with educational exposure. They want to be free of any restrictive chains that bog them down.

Like it or not, it is not easy. Wilfully or not, we are tied down. A society is paved towards a particular direction by the instructions laid down by the majority. To reach greater heights, these laid laws need to be progressive in keeping with the changing times and their corresponding challenges. One cannot hope one archaic rule to apply to the end of times.

The Black Widow story is set before Avengers: Endgame, where Black Widow sacrificed herself trying to undo Thanos' snapping of fingers. It starts with Natasha Romanoff's (Black Widow) childhood in 1995 Ohio. She discovers that her parents had to flee to Cuba to escape arrest by the authorities. She soon discovers that her parents are Russian sleepers in the USA and that her family is just a front for espionage. In Cuba, Natasha's father (Red Guardian - Russia's answer to Captain America) is apprehended by Dreykov. Melina, her mother, is inducted as a chief scientist in the Red Room to research the mind. Natasha and her sister, Yelena, are enrolled on the Black Widow programme to churn out efficient lean, mean mind-controlled female assassins.

Along the course, Natasha escapes, join SHIELD and becomes a fugitive. When apprehending a rogue Black Widow, Yelena is sprayed with Red Dust, which removes her from the clutches of the Red Room mind control.

The rest of the story involves Yelena joining forces with Natasha to break their father from prison, influence their mother to reveal the location of the Red Room and destroy Dreykov to free all the Black Widows.

The word here is free. In the post-credit scene, we are told that Natasha had died, killed by Hawkeye. So, Yelena falls into the trap of Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine (Val) to avenge her sister's death. So much for being free. It looks like Yelena, like a Black Widow who was under the control of Dreykov before now, maybe under the thumb of possibly HYDRA.

Interestingly, HYDRA believes that humanity cannot be trusted with freedom. When freedom is taken away, they resist. Wars have taught them that humans become most resourceful, efficient and laborious under pressure. Hence, humanity has to surrender its freedom willingly. Sometimes it needs to be done without their realisation.

(P.S. This is a through and through a feminist movie. Almost every assassin, sharpshooters, armoured henchmen (who could be women) and the main characters are female. The theme of freedom and removal of ovaries hint at such an agenda. The male characters are weak. Look at the almost drunk-like Red Guardian and Natasha's sidekick/love interest Rick Mason who yearns for her approval by bending backwards to get the things she wants.)

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Can willpower change destiny?

Samantar (Parallel, Marathi, 2021)

Season 1&2, Mx Player.

We understand that life has its ups and downs. Sometimes, the downside drags us so severely that it buries us in the muck so entrenched that it becomes impossible to wash off. Occasionally, choices made at the spur of the moment plunges us into such miseries. If only there was a way to identify these times when these crucial decisions had to be made.

Our ancestors came to suggest ways to predict bad times and possibly avoiding bad decisions. Palm reading and astrology charts based on one's birthdate and times form a crucial Indian way of soothsaying. It is believed that celestial bodies in space affect events, behaviour and outcome of events. Hence, the importance of auspicious times in officiating life-changing events.

What if someone is given hints of events of the near future? Would he be able to avert maladies, or would he still be subject to the same path he is destined to follow? Is knowing one's fate a way to avoid tragedy? Of course not, says this miniseries. We are all enthralled in fulfilling our primal desires that we fell prey to the conducts of the others who, in desperation, aspire to fulfil specific aspirations, use all their God-given attributes toward this end. 

Our present depends on our past, and our future turns out due to our current actions. We are the results of our efforts and will carry the burden of our activities to our next birth. This transgenerational carrying of karma is the reason for many freak accidents and bizarre occurrences in one's life.

This 2-season, 18-episodes of 20 to 30 minutes each tell the tale of a down-and-out office-middle-rank-worker, Kumar, who cannot understand the spate of bad luck that befell him. A close friend who is a work colleague cajoles him to consult a palm reader/religious man. At one look, the palm reader refuses to read Kumar as he has seen that same palm before. Upon much coaxing, he said that that was the same palm of another person named Sudershan Chakrapani some thirty years previously. Looking at Chakrapani's life would predict that of Kumar's.

Next begins Kumar's obsessive hunt to find Chakrapani. Their lives, it seems, run parallel, albeit at different timelines. The end result is not palatable but can Kumar change it with the help of Chakrapani's little peak into the near future? Can willpower ever change destiny?

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2 million hits milestone!

 The 2 millionth mark reached!

Even serial killers want to live!

The Serpent (Miniseries; 2021)
Netflix-BBC

Ever since I read about Charles Sobhraj in the papers back in, probably 1976, I was fascinated with this character. Over the years, little snippets about him used to pop up here and there. Again, my interest in him was piqued when he would repeatedly outsmart his captors and make yet another dash to temporary freedom. Earlier, in one of my old posts, I mentioned someone who had named his newborn Sabhraj, not knowing the infamous icon behind the name. Now, after so many years, the child must be a teenager; I wonder if the child is cursing his parents or revelling in the glory of his cool name, securing many equally cool friends.

And then, this miniseries also reminded me of a friend who shares almost the same name as Sobhraj's sidekick as Ajay Chowdhury. Cocooned comfortably in his own sanctuary with no mobile phones and e-mails, he can be contacted via the landline. There is a problem here. He is so hard of hearing but does not believe in getting hearing aids for himself. So calling him is out of the question. He is not in the pinkest of health either, battling cancer. With all the travelling restrictions and the rage of the pandemic, giving him a visit has to wait. In his mind, not being able to hear is not his problem; it is others'.

This 8-episode miniseries starts with his time in Bangkok in 1975 by the poolside in his apartment complex. He assumes yet another pseudonym, Alain Gautier, as he entertains friends who later become victims. He professes to be a gem dealer, but his main interest is drugging travellers, robbing them of their monies and passport and dumping off their dead bodies. At a time when forensic sciences were primitive, the exchange of information was sketchy and local resources were limited, Sobhraj (aka Hotchand Bhawnani Gurumukh Charles Sobhraj @Serpent), and his accomplices, Ajay Chowdhury and Marie-Andrée Leclerc, could literally get away with murder.

Tahar Rahim
French-Algerian actor
who acted well to fit the mould of an
 Indo-Franco-Vietnamese serial killer.

Through the storyteller's creative storytelling, the miniseries, through its unique way of moving to and fro between episodes, managed to paint a composite picture of Sobhraj's formative years, his earlier crimes and his relationship with his mother. Sobhraj is said to have operated in France, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, India, Thailand and Hong Kong. Besides robbery and heists, he gained notoriety primarily from his systemic enticing and killing of backpacking hippies. His modus operandi is the same - befriending white tourists through charm and warmth, poisoning them, followed by taking their passports. Sobhraj and Marie would then travel, assuming the identities of their victims to avert detection.

His crime came to light through the almost maniacal investigative work of a Dutch diplomat and his wife stationed in Bangkok, Herman Knippenberg and Angela Kane, working relentlessly with a perenially under-resourced Thai police and later the Thai chapter of the Interpol.

Sobhraj and Marie's running days came to a halt in 1976 after Sobhraj's failed attempt at poisoning a group of German students in New Delhi. He was imprisoned for 12 years. Marie was diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer in prison and was extradited to Quebec to spend her remaining days. In prison, Sobhraj led a cushy life bribing the jailers. He even managed to sell his life story to a publishing house. Fearing extradition to Thailand after his time in Delhi Tihar jail, he held a big party at his 10th year of prison term, drugged the prison guard, and staged a jailbreak. He was re-apprehended in Goa and had was jailed for another 10 years as he had intended because a conviction in Thailand would mean the death penalty. Using the 20-year statute of limitation in Thailand in his favour, he walked out a free man in 1997. 

Nihita Biswas - fascinated by Sobhraj's French charm!

He went back to France for a quiet life to reconnect with his first wife, daughter and his Vietnamese mother. For reasons best known to him, Sobhraj made another trip to Nepal in 2003. It was a bad mistake. A reporter identified him, wrote about him in the local papers, and the Nepali police sprang to cuff him for an old unsolved murder. He was given life imprisonment. Some say he missed being in the limelight, hence his last trip. Even in prison, he created lots of publicity. Despite the denials by the local authorities, Sobhraj lives like a Raj. In 2018, he was said to have wedded his lawyer's daughter, Nihita Biswas, a TV personality 44 years his junior.

He pops up in the news every now and then, a complaint here and an appeal to the French President there. In 2017, he underwent open-heart surgery for defective heart valves. The irony of it all coming out from the mouth of a serial murderer accused of 12 to 24 people, as quoted by the operating surgeon, Dr Raamesh Koirala, was this. When counselled on the heart valve replacement, Sobhraj is said to have said, "do whatever you think is right for me, doctor. I just want to live!”

[P.S. The whereabouts of Ajay Chowdhury is unknown. He is said to have been sent to do a gem deal in Malaysia. Unconfirmed sightings of him in Germany were made, probably untrue. He must have been killed by The Serpent.]

The reel is almost close to the real!

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