RIFLE RANGE BOY

Kadavul Irukindran from the movie 'Ananthi Jothi' (1963) It seems that poet Kannadasan started off as an atheist. With time, through his voracious readings and research for his songs, he claimed to be an avid practitioner of Sanathana Dharma (Eternal Duty) or Hinduism in his later years. Many of his later compositions brilliantly express the entity we assume to be God - the Force that puts order to things around us, the seen and the invisible, the heard and the silent, the felt and the void. Here, Mahakavi Kannadasan, in a 1963 composition, tries to explore the meaning of God, which carries different visions to different people, from an external force that oversees every move to an internal mechanism so intricate that it does its own checks and balances. You say He is not there because you cannot see Him. When you float but cannot see the air, you are hovering upon. When you close all your senses to the external stimuli, is the something you feel is God? In the crypts of darkn...

Kohrra (Fog, Punjabi-Hindi; 2023 Miniseries S1E1-6. Shrouded in fog, that is how it is. It used to be the food basket of India and the provider of the country's most significant tax returns from its businesses and income earners. Punjab used to be prosperous. People of the diaspora have been instantly recognised worldwide for their resilience, entrepreneurial skills, confidence and ability to adapt and integrate.   Sadly, the situation in their home state now is a far cry from what it used to be in its pre-independence days. The downward spiral started when a large chunk of the State was sliced away amid bloody butchering to satisfy specific political ambitions. Just as they recoiled back to health with the erection of a dam and the introduction of Green Revolution initiatives, they were the envy of many, including their poor Eastern cousins, Haryana.   Religiosio-linguistic politics dictated that Hindi-speaking Hindu Himachal Pradesh and Haryana be cut off from the predominan...

The Other Woman (2014) Director:  Nick Cassavetes One cannot help but compare this movie to 'Madu Tiga' (1964), one of P. Ramlee's classics. Both are comedies and hover on the topic of polyamory. The crux of the story is how the aggrieved parties learn about each other's existence. They meet up and go full-throttle to avenge the philandering Romeo. The climax is seeing Romeo fall flat on his face, down and out. Sweet revenge is having Romeo squirm in helplessness. Unfortunately, the comparison ends there. This film is a perfect example of how big names (of directors and stars) mean nothing if the story is not fresh and the plot has many holes. No amount of flashy displays of flesh and senseless giggling labelled female bonding will change viewers' perception of what entertainment is. Even a mighty name like Nick Cassavetes for the director, who carries the aura of his famous director father, John Cassavetes, can save the day.  The two 'Other Women' conspire ...

Bones and All Director : Luca Guadagnino There is only so much we can blame our parents for our miseries. Our parents give us building blocks to start life with. That foundation sets us the footing to let us grow. We acquire some favourable traits and some not-so-pleasant ones. We do not say much when things go our way. The moment something goes against our way, we jump at our parents for transmitting that offensive gene as if they were in control of what chromosome gets transmitted and what does not. Like an old friend once told me, we must take their diseases and other chromosome-related unfavourable traits just like how we willingly accept their wealth in their will. This bizarre romantic horror film is about an 18-year-old girl, Maren, who has to move schools and towns as she tends to eat human flesh whenever she feels love. She grows up with her single father. After her last fiasco at a sleepover party, her father had enough. He leaves her money, birth certificate, and background ...

There I was, minding myself performing my daytime duties, when someone approached me. "Excuse me, where can I meet Mr Rajeev?"  I scratched my head thinking, "Rajeev, Rajeev…?"  "Sorry buddy, can't help you there. Don't know any Rajeev."  Then it hit me. Of course, Majid. Before Majid was Majid, in another life, he was known as Rajeev.  "Oh yes. I remember now. Ranjeev is on the 1st floor. He is now Majid." I told him.   Then I left the place thinking…  A name is for the convenience of others to pick us out of the 8 million people on Earth. If Majid is comfortable with his new name, so be it. We should respect it. It, in no way, changes who Rajeev or, for that matter, Majid is. In the imagery of Avicenna's flying man, he is who he is.  A new name does not exclude the follies of the previous past, just as Pakistan came to discover. Wanting to carve itself out of the perceived vagaries of its motherland, it realised it could not disenta...

China's ten-dashed line map 2023. Learned a new word today - cartographic aggression. In simple terms, it is the act of shoving a map in front of someone's face and expecting the someone to respect its boundaries. This is the age-old form of exerting geopolitical dominance, failing which the aggressor will have justification to attack and usurp the non-conformer. Back at a time when the term Europeans and Flat-Earthers were interchangeable, early Portuguese voyagers managed to put their new discoveries on hand-drawn maps. These maps were State-guarded secrets. Everyone wanted to lay their hands on them to go another nautical mile. In 1538, Geradus Mercator, from a region around the Netherlands (a region known as low countries, which included Belgium and Luxembourg) with available information around him, put up the first world map. He mapped out Asia as separate from the Americas before the discovery of the Bering Straits. The East India Company, after establishing their first p...

Pan Am (TV Series, S1, E1-14, 2011-12) Come Fly With Me: The Story of Pan Am (2011, BBC Documentary) There used to be a time when air travel was a novelty. People used to get all dressed up to the nines to start their journey. Nobody was stopped for being underdressed, as getting on a plane carried some dignity. Boarding a plane was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Only the deep-pocketed could travel, and the airlines made sure their clients were pampered to the brim. The idea of having dinner in one place and breakfast in another time zone fascinated many a young aspirant that the fast, furious and restless applied for jobs to serve their clientele. In the service business, aesthetics and physical attributes were essential in selecting stewards and stewardesses. This, of course, was before the time body-shaming and diversity was even a term. Even though ferrying rich guys from points A to B is basically what a paid chauffeur would do, being a pilot brought so much dignity. Parents soo...