Only theories, nothing more.

MH 370: The Plane that Disappeared(2023, Netflix)
3-part Documentary

"Good night, Malaysia 370!" Those were the last words before Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah disappeared with his Boeing 777, 227 passengers from 14 nations and 12 crew members into thin air in the early hours of 8th March 2014 en route to Beijing.

Nine years later, the world is still clueless about how an aircraft as big as a building could disappear without evidence. In an era when we may be at the cusp of discovery of the Higgs boson (God) particle, and we can convict a politician with denatured DNA from semen deposited three days previously, we are still unable to make head or tail to a Boeing plane's whereabouts. All the satellites and tracking devices that monitor our every move simply failed to comprehend its fate after it went off the radar after 0130hrs. External communications and transponder signals simultaneously disappeared after entering the Vietnamese air space.

This documentary series has yet to shed any new information on the disappearance of MH370. We know now that all communications went kaput after reaching Vietnam before the Vietnamese ground control could get in touch. A telecommunication tower on Penang Island picked up signals from the co-pilot's mobile phone hours after the vessel went missing. The incompetent Malaysian Airforce towers picked an aberrant signal in the Straits of Malacca. Unfortunately, they could not make head or tail on the origin or meaning. They could not confirm whether it was a flying object at all. I remember reading from the local dailies that a junior officer who noticed the signal decided not to disturb his superiors from their beauty sleep, fearing retributions.

Then somebody suggested seeing a possible satellite image of an aeroplane in the South China Sea. Nothing was found by patrolling Navy ships. Imersat telecommunication satellite opined they may have had pinging cues from MH 370 somewhere along the Indian Ocean. The trouble was that they could pinpoint its exact location. For all they knew, it could extend from the Arabian Sea all the way to the turbulent South Seas. None of the observation towers in Indonesia, Singapore, Myanmar or India had reported the passing of an unaccounted Boeing 777. Apparently, the policeman of the world, the USA, and Boeing are also in the dark about its locale.

Its black box was never discovered. Neither was any debris found despite extensive combing of oceans and beaches. Almost 15 months after the mishap, large chunks of plane parts belonging to the ill-fated plane made their presence in Reunion Island and Mozambique. The fact that a shady maverick in the vein of Indiana Jones found it and not a single boatman sighted it at sea raised suspicion about whether the evidence was planted. I remember there were some mysterious deaths of officials around the time of these discoveries.

As it stands now, there are only wild conspiratory theories to explain the whole fiasco. Still, none of them manages to correlate all the shreds of evidence we have so far. Then there is a question of which of the findings is indeed credible. Occam's razor principle suggests that when one encounters a problematic crossroad, the more plausible explanation is, the simpler one. As they say, "when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras." The problem is that all clues are equally compelling and are backed with scientific or pseudo-scientific convincing explanations.

 

Science and logic go out of the window in the modern world. Facts are sometimes stranger than fiction. The 6-tonne elephant in the room has yet to speak. Despite many of the victims being Chinese, China decided to play silent.

MH370 disappeared in Vietnam, a China vassal state. Search parties have searched a vast area, minus territories, under the umbrage of the CCP. There were talks of suspicious cargo on the plane. It was once mentioned to be mangosteens, even though it was off-season. Then there was talk of people travelling with fake Pakistani passports. At that time, the murmur was that the cargo was drones from Afghanistan meant to be delivered to the Urghurs. Another mention was some high-fi computer technology in the aviation industry. The passenger lists also included high-profile personalities of interest to the USA attending a computer conference in Beijing.

Is it possible that the whole thing is a nicely executed perfect crime by the CCP? Once MH 370 entered Vietnam airspace, it took control of the entire aeroplane, disarmed its connectivity to the outside world, brought it down to a safe space in its territory, dismantled whatever it needed to and cleaned up all pieces of evidence. With increasing curiosity, it simply fed the world with elements of evidence to confuse everyone.

That is what we are left with, only conspiracy theories. In a world of information overload, no one is sure of anything. With MH17 being shot down by Russia-sponsored Ukranian terrorists so soon after the MH370 fiasco, there is a question of whether there is a Russian hand in this mess.

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Is it man-made?

Ram Setu (2022)

Director: Abhishek Sharma

If I tell you today is Thursday, how do you really know that today is indeed Thursday? It is not good enough because yesterday was Wednesday, and tomorrow is Friday, as today is no different from any day. As we know, during the era of Pope Gregory, the Church realised it was missing a few days. It had overlooked the leap years and had to erase 10 days in 1752. So, for all you know, Thursday today could be a Monday.

Well, the Hindus have the bragging rights to say their calendar says we are in the year 12,000, and they did not have to correct for errors and had had remarkable ways of calculating events. Even when the world was scared of venturing too far off on sea as they thought they would slip off at the edge of a flat earth, Hindu scriptures knew the planets were spherical structures. Scriptures say that Varaha, Vishnu's avatar, saved Earth from massive floods by placing the spherical planet on its snout.

When it comes to stating events in the ancient scriptures, the scribes have been quite precise with their descriptions. They have referenced events to planetary and astronomical positions to the tilt. Take Rama and Krishna's date of birth, for example. Rama, being a prince, his time of birth and his astrological chart is recorded precisely. Krishna's hush-hush delivery within the confines of prison walls, too, is noted duly. 

With the knowledge of modern astronomy and the help of planetarium software, we can predict precisely when such a constellation occurred aeons ago. Scientists have determined that Rama and Krishna lived around 7000 and 5000 years ago, respectively. (January 10, 5114 BCE  and July 21, 3228 BCE). From Valmiki's Ramayana, we know that Rama's date of birth is January 10, 5114 BCE, between 12 noon and 1pm in Ayodhya, Shukla Paksha in Chaitra month. Due to equinox precision calculation, a day is adjusted every 72 years. That explains why Ram Jayanthi is celebrated in March or April now. 

The critical question now is whether the story of Rama is a myth or part of history. Most landmarks mentioned about Rama and his father's kingdom have disappeared into the abyss of time. Ram Sethu remains the only relic to claim a stake in his existence. Descriptions of King Rama, his expedition to fight King Ravana in Lanka and the Vanara army is mentioned in many writings, even outside India. But can these writing be proof of historicity? Valmiki's Ramayana, unlike its other versions, like Tulsidas', Kalidas' or Kambar's, is referred to as itihasa (meaning 'thus it happened') because of its extensive descriptions. The others are labelled great poetical works (kavya).

There is a pressing need to clarify this issue now more than ever. There have been plans for a long time of dredging through the shoals to deepen the Palk Straits to allow ocean liners to skirt around the Indian peninsula. That would mean much ecological damage and possible destruction of an ancient engineering marvel, Ram Sethu or Nala Sethu, after Rama's chief engineer who conceived the idea when Rama's Army wanted access to Lanka.

Present-day engineers have proposed a possible prototype ancient builders may have used with the material available to build the bridge between India and Sri Lanka.

As early as the 18th century, the idea of deepening the sea bed between Palk Strait and the Gulf of Mannar was mooted. Many electoral promises were made to increase between the two countries and avoid the need for big vessels to circumvent Sri Lanka to get to the East coast of India. After many feasibility studies, the Government of India, in 2005, decided to get serious. It met resistance from religious and environmental groups. 

Some plans showed the need to drill through sacred areas, while others may pose an environmental nightmare.

The Government of India and the concerned parties have an ongoing legal battle. The opposition to the project wants the area to be declared a national heritage. Most parties agree that the construction of such a structure would not make any business sense. The amount of fuel saved by the distance is offset by the time taken by pilots navigating through the narrow strait. Detractors accuse the proponents of simply erasing any remnant trace of the rich culture and marvellous engineering feats the ancient Hindu civilisation could showcase. It is in their vested interest.

This 2022 movie which did not really make an impact at the box office, shows the diversity of Indian moviemaking. Deviating from their usual dance, music, romance and melodrama fare, they are venturing into other genres. This one must have had a cue from 'Indiana Jones' or 'The Mummy'. In cahoots with governmental officials, a private enterprise wants to develop Palk Straits. An atheist archaeologist who initially thought that Ram Setu is a natural occurrence is now convinced that it is indeed a man-made structure. He has to race against time to convince the Supreme Court of his findings before the greedy entrepreneurs usurp the land for their selfish needs.  

[There are veiled references in this movie. Aryan, the archaeologist, is the learned man. Aryan means learned in Sanskrit, not Northerners, as coined by Max Müller introduced in his now-debunked Aryan Migration Theory. The floating lab is named Pushpak with obvious reference to Pushpak Vimana, a flying vehicle owned by Kubera and used by Rama and his entourage after the tour-de-mission in Lanka. Anjaneya is another name for Hanuman. Here, the mysterious character who helps Dr Aryan is Anjaneya. There is a hint that he appeared out of thin air and disappeared mysteriously. Legend has it that Hanuman, being a true Ramaa devotee, received the boon of immortality. He sometimes manifests in various forms to help people in distress, so believe the reciters of Hanuman Chalisa.]

The Catholic Church, living under a rock, all these while imprisoning people like Galileo and Copernicus, realised under the leadership of Pope Gregory of their follies. Scientists of that era were summoned to recalculate the calender for modern consumption. The modern calendar, however, was not immediately practised by everyone at once.

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The attractions too hard to resist....

To Leslie (2022)
Director: Michael Morris

When you laugh, everyone laughs with you. When you cry, you not only cry alone, the whole world laughs at you. You also know that winning a lottery only solves a few of your problems. On the contrary, it creates more issues and shows who your real friends are. No one becomes rich after winning a lottery.

Another thing. The whole architecture of modern society is set up to make your life a decadent one. It makes partying enjoyable. Extragavance is revered. Alcohol is hailed as an indispensable social lubricant. The media promotes, and society encourages its usage. Nobody talks neither about its addictive nature nor of its destructive potential. But still, when a country is red and needs money, booze and cigarettes are the first things to be taxed under the heading of sin tax.

Society glamourises smoking as if it spurs the creative juices but fails to mention the respiratory ailments, the dependence and the expense that ensues. To top it up, many creative musical compositions were apparently composed under the influence of mind-altering substances. The media also advertises high-flying lifestyles and horse racing like a sine-quo-non of life. They conveniently omit the fine print of the danger of living in credit and bankruptcy.

Just how much can an average being can control his urges. One needs to have enormous willpower to remain sane in modern life.

'To Leslie' brilliantly tells us what happens after the money earned from a lottery goes dry. Reality hits the winner when the party lights dim and the money for drugs and booze fizzles out. Lack of prudence makes Leslie live door-to-door in a suitcase, and she loses the only love of her life, her now adult son. The film narrates how Leslie struggles to get her act together, stay sober and get in the good books of her beloved son. In the meantime, she finds love from a soul who truly understands her predicament.

Good acting and a good message, but we have all seen too many similar real-life instances to predict how everything will unfold.

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Nature prefers the young...

Broker (South Korea; 2022)
Written, Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda

Maybe Nature has wired us that way. Whenever we see a baby, a stranger, for no reason, we start cooing and making strange noises or faces to entertain him. Put an adult in the baby's place; nobody will give it a second look. We may be wary of whether the adult would enter our safe zone. A baby, however, is no threat.

Nature knows it is not kind to the living. Violence and destruction are everyday day-to-day occurrences. Imagine being left out in the wild overnight; chances are one would be pounced on or stung by a predator. If not, mere exposure may chance hypothermia or pneumonia. Hence, Nature tries to give the offspring, the harbinger of an improved 2.0 genetic mashup, a dig at life. That is why we get emotionally attached to a miniature version of ourselves, minus all the negativities and the evil thoughts lurking within.

OK, it is OK that Nature wants to ensure the continuity of progeny, and this world is no place for the aged. But it makes procreation too enticing for its participants to resist. Nobody has the foresight to realise the wisdom they would have the morning after. Herein comes all the entanglement and maladies. Kingdoms have fallen, relationships have been ruined, and families have turned apart. Still, sex is the best-selling merchandise on the planet.

This complicated drama tells us how a baby can change one's life. The sight of a newborn makes most people go all jello. The longer we are attached to a baby, the more we are drawn together.

A young girl, So-young, leaves a newborn in the baby box of a church. Unbeknownst to all, the place of worship is under police surveillance. Within minutes of deposition, CCTV recordings are erased, and the baby is ferried away in view of selling it off in the black market.

So-young changes her mind and wants her baby back. She goes to the police when told that the church never received her baby. The baby nappers, Ha Sang-hyeon and his sidekick, Dong-soo, decide to abduct So-young too. All three go on a road trip trying to sell the baby to the highest bidder. 

The time spent on the road bonded them and revealed each other's backgrounds. So-young is a sex worker who had killed her partner after a tiff about not terminating her pregnancy and was on the run. Sang-hyeon and Dang-soo are disgruntled orphans who believe the whole adoption system is a waste of time and have no qualms about a bit of making money out of the unwanted babies.

In the meantime, the widow of the murdered partner has sent some thugs to lay her claim on the baby. The police also try to trap the kidnappers by setting up fake potential buyers. Meanwhile, a couple who recently had a stillbirth desperately seek to adopt a baby.

Is it not ironic that something unwanted suddenly becomes so much sort after?

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'OnlyFans' of Tamil politics!

Kidugu (Cover, Tamil, 2023)
Director: V Veera Murugan

This is an all-out political bashing movie. In a state where the silver screen and political stage are closely intertwined, the ruling parties have used cinema to spread their brand of politics for years.

The story goes back to the pre-independence era. The Justice Party (JP), the biggest party representing a large chunk of South India, parted ways from the Indian Congress Party (INC). JP felt INC was too Hindu in its outlook. JP claimed to be the sole representative of the downtrodden, and INC needed to do more. At the same time, JP was selling the idea that Hinduism and Lord Rama were just Northern India's subtle way of subjugating the Southerners.

In a bizarre twist of events, JP's leaders, at one time, did not want to join the Union of India but rather become part of Pakistan. Its founder, EV Ramasamy, lamented that the 15th of August 1947 was a day of mourning, not a celebration. In 1972, Ramasamy was accused of disrespecting Lord Rama on Ram Jayanthi by garlanding Him with a garland of slippers.

JP and subsequent offshoots of parties that followed, like DK, DMK and AIADMK, were not only unabashed atheists but anti-Hindus.

Many scriptwriters of the Tamil cinema of the late 1940s and 50s had politics on their minds when they released film after film that reflected their brand of politics - atheism, anti-Hindu and Dravidaism. Dravidaism probably is the remnant of Max Müller's now-defunct 'Aryan Migration Theory'. The theory posits that the original inhabitants of Mahenjo Daro and Harappa were herded away by galloping horsemen from the steppes of the North, bringing with them knowledge, civilisation and Hinduism. The persecuted people came to occupy the Southern part of India and were named Dravidaians. Hogwash, say modern scholars. Dravida means someone from the South, that is all. In anything, mitochondrial studies of ancient corpses suggest an 'Out of India' kind of migration to Persia and beyond

Since 2014, a wave of change has hit India, Tamil Nadu included. Ironically, the state boasting many mind-boggling places that honour various Hindu representations could stay anti-Hindu forever. BJP, the most prominent Hindu nationalistic party, made its move to Tamil Nadu in a big way.

DMK controls Kollywood and the mass media. Its cronies also usurp the chain of film distribution. This film rebuts all the messages subliminally imparted in Chennai mainstream movies. It is a hit-back film against decades of Dravidian propaganda. As none of the theatres in Tamil Nadu was willing to screen this film, the makers decided to screen it free on YouTube and hoped to reimburse production costs by crowdfunding.

A viewer well-versed in local TN politics will be familiar with its storyline. It is hard-hitting against politicians and Dravidian parties at large. The police department, which appears to be working in cahoots, is shown as spineless as leaders and their lackeys control the man in blue via remote control. Joe Public is given the runaround as politicians, businessmen, and gangsters have a field day.

Five friends go on a killing spree to avenge two people who were killed for demanding justice. Their father was falsely accused of stealing temple jewellery and was cheated of the temple land.

It is not a high-quality production, but its dialogues are explicit and hard-hitting on the parties referred to in real life. The film will only excite keen followers of Tamil Nadu's local politics.

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We are not taking questions, thank you!

Mentega Terbang (Butterfly, Malay; 2021)
Writer, Director: Khairi Anwar

This release was released about two years ago and won international awards for its efforts. Unfortunately, it became famous in Malaysia only after the local artists guild decided to make a police report about it as they deemed that it offended the sensitivities of Malay Muslims in Malaysia. Many of its dialogues appeared like they were ridiculing Islam, it is alleged.

The Malaysian certification board had no control over Malaysians viewing it as it was broadcast online on a webpage. Since the recent brouhaha, even the said screening platform decided to stop having it on its accord.

We all grew up wondering about death in our formative years. With all the cultural-religious rituals associated with funerals and the stories related to the soul and the afterlife, we naturally assumed that God and religions give a kind of shield to protect us from untimely death. This internal squabble to choose the 'right' religion to fulfil our spiritual needs was important in my moulding into an adult.

Naturally, when Aisya, a 16-year-old Malay girl has an ailing mother with terminal pancreatic cancer, the thought that her mother may be gone at any moment must be daunting. The zest to save her mother from death or what would happen to her mother prompted her to venture into other holy scriptures to understand death. However, her parents, strict Muslims, were quite relaxed with their daughter reading other religious books about it. 

Aisya is excited about reincarnation and rebirth as preached in Buddhism and Hinduism. The idea of her deceased mother hanging around her as a bug or a butterfly in her next birth excites her. Her journey of discovery is eased with the presence of her neighbour, the dog-walking Auntie Esther, who helps with Christian scriptures. Then her classmate, Suresh, gives the Hindu-Buddhist perspective of life and death. To pour cold water into her burning passion is her busybody neighbour, Uncle Kassim, who is everywhere to remind her to stick to her religion and beware of the other practitioners who are out to sway her away from the one true path.

On her path to self-discovery, Aisya is seen patting and getting cosy with a dog, hanging around doing her school homework with her male classmate in her bedroom and saying that she has no qualms about eating pork. The scene that probably took Malaysians by storm must be the one where Aisya's father offers her the choice to embrace another religion if she pleases to come to terms with her mother's death. Even in the last scene at the mother's burial ground, Aisya thinks her mother is with her as a butterfly that lands on the tombstone. That is reincarnation.

History suggests the world of Islamic civilisation around Babylon and Basra was the envy of the learned. Its coffee houses with its intellectual discourses were to die for at the time when Europe was in Dark Ages. The Mutazilites' brand of Islam of the day encouraged such discussions in search of the truth. All that came to a grinding halt when the Ash'arites became the dominant force. Open Aristotelian type of arguments about religion was put to an end. A grown adult with his faculties intact has no willpower but to leave his life to a group of leaders who herd people into submission by invoking the name of God for their own nefarious intentions.

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Only when you are gone.

Pyaasa (Hindi, Thirst; 1957)

Director, Actor: Guru Dutt

Legend tells of a certain wanderer who kept looking for the meaning of life in all the places. He meditated for hours, walked into the wilderness, exposing himself to the element of Nature and trying to seek answers in cemeteries and crematoriums. He would rub ash from funeral pyres to humiliate himself and consume the human flesh of the dead to crush his ego.

We can just imagine the treatment he would have received as a living being. Shunned by the public for his shabby appearance and bizarre behaviour, the general public would be mocking him and shrugging their heads in disproval.

This guy, Siva, must have found wisdom in his endeavour and started voicing his finds far and wide everywhere he went. Only after his death, people began appreciating his prophetic pearls of wisdom bit by bit. Before we knew it, the whole narrative started to make sense, and the rest, they say, is history.

Fast forward to the present, he is positioned amongst the highest of the pantheon of our existence. He is revered as God for his keen interest in seeking the truth. That is the problem with people. We never appreciate people in their lifetime. In fact, we vilify them and accuse them of many things because they dare to question the status quo. They dare to rock the boat.

In a sense, this 1957 movie takes a swap at society at large. It is post-Independent India. Times were hard, and the profit-hungry world had no time for writers and poets. Doing a 'proper' paying job is what everyone is seeking. In their books, writing poems is not a real job. Against this background, the hero, a natural poet, is admonished for being jobless. He is homeless and finds solace in the company of a prostitute. He meets his ex-college sweetheart, who is now married to a publisher. They had departed ways earlier in not the most pleasant circumstances.

Guru Dutt and Mala Sinha

The publisher husband befriends the poet and employs him as his assistant. He promises to publish his work. Even though the publisher enjoys the poems in the company of a writer's group, it never gets published. The prostitute, in the meanwhile, falls for the poet. And his ex-girlfriend, too, tries to rekindle their old flame.


In a bizarre twist of events and mistaken identity, the poet is mistakenly thought dead. The forlorn prostitute gets the poems published to rave reviews. The poet, who re-appear after a stint in a mental hospital, comes to claim authorship of the poems. The general public refuses to believe that a madman could have penned all that poetic lines. The poet and the prostitute leave to start a new life.

Only when the ex-flame leaves for a more affluent man and after spending time in a loveless marriage does she realise the poet's worth. Similarly, the general public vehemently refuses the poet's ability when he appears in flesh and blood.

Labelled as one of the 100s best Hindi films of all time, this movie is rife with many symbolism or 'easter eggs' as they call it. In one epic scene, the protagonist appears at an auditorium door with outstretched hands against a light beam. Ultimately, it seems like a silhouette of Jesus Christ on a crucifix. In his subtle way, the filmmaker hints that the poet had 'resurrected' from his death.

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