Kantara? Can!!

(an edited version of this review appeared in Tabla! 21-Oct-22 Page 12; screen grab at the end of the post)

 Kantara - The Legend - Kannada - 2022

One must say that Sandalwood, hitherto considered as the poor cousin of Kolly- and Tollywood has grown up. Over the last few years some notable movies such as U-Turn, RangiTaranga, Ulidavaru Kandanthe, and well, the KGFs (yeah...) have caught the pan-Indian (!) imagination.

So, when the wife’s Bengaluru college WhatsApp group went gaga over Kantara, we decided to check that out too. No better way to gain some brownie points, you say? Absolutely!

Kantara was, as they say in Hindi, paisa vasool!

What do you get when you grind mythology, crime, folklore, indigenous sport, caste exploitation and environment sustainability together?

You get, Kantara - The Mythical Forest.

Oh, I forgot a few other key ingredients: fantastic locales, unobtrusive yet hard-hitting cinematography, distinct & original music, and a fantastic climax picturisation.

Beneath all the veneer, Kantara is a revenge thriller. Villagers in a remote corner off Dakshina Karnataka (think pristine forests near Mangaluru) live a carefree life bound by their traditions and associated superstitions. They live off the forests surrounding them in a sustainable way. However, they are troubled by two elements – one in the form of a Deputy Range Forest Officer (DRFO) (played by a strict Kishore) who wants to establish the rules of the government and the other in the form of high-caste land usurpers (a syrupy Achyuth Kumar). Hero Shiva (Rishab Shetty) stands in between the baddies and a peaceful existence of the villagers. Throw in the villagers’ belief in the local demigod Panjurli (a boar-shapedVaraha incarnation) and how Panjurli will save them from all troubles, you get a heady concoction of a movie which ends with a predictable yet spectacular finale.

Three things stood out in Kantara.

Rishab scores 3-in-1

Rishab Shetty has poured his heart and soul into the movie. To have given something from the Sandalwood cinemas to fight the gargantuan PS-1 is a wonderful achievement. But this is not a token fight. The way Rishab has scripted the story as a fabulous interweave of mythology, current day politics and social exploitation, revenge, and rural sports augurs well for Kannada cinema.

Yes, the lines were quite raw – the only beings that don’t cuss in the movie are the buffaloes; the love-angle was contrived; the DRFO’s character swings like a yo-yo; you can predict the flow of incidents easily; But those are not deterrents, as one was able to sit and enjoy the 135 minutes of Kantara without checking the phone! Success, indeed!

In front of the camera, Rishab brings the right amount of nativity in his portrayal of a happy-go-lucky youth, who is ready to pick up fights and is troubled by visions of his priest-father vanishing when he was young. He ably treads the line between naivete and indifference – especially in the caste discrimination scenes. 

Hero-centric movies thrive on making the ‘transformation’ scene of the hero memorable (Remember the ultimate Baasha, the exotic Viswaroopam/Salangai Oli, the 'therikka vidalaama' Vedalam et al.? Okay, fans of other heroes can open the can of worms!) Here Shiva’s transformation in the end was expected all right, but the depiction was top class and therefore will be talked about for some time. 

Colourful Music

Ajaneesh Loknath has scored a fantastic mix of traditional (Kundapura folklore), classic (Varaha Roopam; video below) and breath-taking background music during the last 20 minutes heightening the excitement with an excellent mix of modern and conventional.

Ajaneesh’s discography of about 25 films is not that huge. But if he continues to produce such seminal work, we will hear more about this young man.

Mesmeric Cinematography

I thought that Girish Gangadharan’s cinematography in the Malayalam movie Jallikkattu is a tough act to follow. But Arvind Kashyap has truly excelled himself here.

Firstly, capturing the entire essence of Bhoota Kola (Festival of Spirits), an annual celebration of local demigods in Dakshin Karnataka; then providing an immersive experience of the Kambala Buffalo race, an annual rural sporting event where intrepid men race a pair of buffaloes in a slushy, water-filled field (check the video below on the making!); and rounding up with the resounding climax where a chaotic skirmish between hundreds of people ends in that primal dance-cum-punishment by the hero.

Whether it was the lighting – mostly natural, or the movements through the forests, or the colours – vivid and yet gloomy reflecting the mood of the film, Arvind was to the fore!

In all, Kantara was an enjoyable watch made poignant by the focus that it brought on almost-forgotten traditions and culture, man’s avarice, and exploitation of the poor through a masala pot-boiler.

Kantara?  Can!!

#sriGINthoughts #reviews #Kannada

PS-1: Not a postscript

PS-1: Not a postscript

(an edited version of this review appeared in Tabla! 14-Oct-22 Page 8; screen grab at the end of the post)

Four of us watched PS-1 last weekend.

My mom, who got more up to-date through the incessant promotion on social media; a Telugu-speaking friend, who was curious about all the hullabaloos; wifey who came with a blank mind ready to absorb what is thrown at her; and finally, myself – a two-time PS reader with a decent idea of what to expect and of course extremely curious on how the book has been adapted to screen.

At the end of the movie, the reactions were:

Mom: Nice. They have worked hard and well.

Friend: PS-1 means ‘Pothumda Sami – 1’ roughly translated to ‘Enough dude – 1’

Wife: I liked it; but Baahubali was catchier. The movie ran in a jerky fashion.

And then yours-truly: I loved the movie. 

As usual, here is listicle of five thoughts:

How could a movie look so understatedly grand?

The comparison is inevitable. With Baahubali still fresh in people’s minds, PS-1 will be a let-down for people who were looking for CGI-produced huge palaces, mountains, waterfalls, weird animals etc. PS-1 scores so beautifully by focusing on giving the right amount the grandeur that is necessary for the scene, and it looked so real – which they were. #AuthenticArtPS

How could the female characters look so gorgeous?

The female leads Kundavai (Trisha), Nandini (Aishwarya Rai), Poonguzhali (Aishwarya Lakshmi), Vanathi (Sobhita Dhulipala) – each of them looked like million bucks with those fabulous hairdos, real gold/diamond jewellery, pleasing costumes… #SplendidSartorialPS

How could the dialogues be so insipid?

While the faithful-to-the-book screenplay worked for me despite its jumpy nature, the lines were… sorry Mani and Jeyamohan. Didn’t work. Movies are a visual medium. But to move the story, one needs dialogues that are strong and sharp. Unfortunately, Mani Ratnam resorted to his staccato style of dialogues; it worked partly as it did in the scene where Vanthiyathevan (Karthi) meets Kundavai. But to colloquialize the dialogues in the name of making the frontbenchers understand? Sigh! #DepletedDialoguePS

How could so many stars be assembled under one roof and yet not enough light?

If one were to look at the cast of PS-1 (and 2), the sheer number, as Wodehouse would put it, boggles the mind! Yet, only a few stick to mind. Vikram as Aditha Karikalan lives the character, Karthi rides, jumps, flirts, fights, carries the movie with elan, Trisha, despite her anglicized-Tamil diction (dubbed by Krithika Nelson I understand - then why not make it a bit cleaner!) sways in and out efficiently, Aishwarya Rai with a smouldering mind behind that serene visage… Again, no over-the-top histrionics. Just what is needed to move the story. (The acupuncture scene gets a special mention where Prakash Raj tolerates the pain of both the needles and his ministers' treachery!)  #SubduedThespianPS

How could the music be so sublime – well, for most part?

AR Rahman devotes special attention to Mani Ratnam’s movies. PS-1 is no different. The background music here is outstanding: scenes of Nandini, Trisha-Karthi combo; the action blocks etc., are just a scream. 

Yet the songs are a bit of a damp-squib except the peppy Ponni Nadhi; and a different Devaralan Aattam (the choreo for this was on point and reminded me of Veera Pandi Koettaiyile from Thiruda Thiruda!) #NearPitchPerfectPS

***

Ponniyin Selvan as a novel by Kalki Krishnamurthy is a tome of more than 2500 pages. Some people compare it to Game of Thrones – in terms of complexity, number of characters, the intrigue, the tension and what not – all for the sake of attaining the throne. It is a meandering story – much akin to the Ponni aka Cauvery River, with so many key characters that vie for one’s mind space.

To bring it all together; make it into a cogent screenplay; assemble an almost-right cast and crew; work through the pandemic; shoulder the extra-ordinary expectations of the legions of readers; and fight the nay-sayers who were cross with Mani Ratnam for interpreting the epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata in a different manner – it is a fantastic achievement.

But for a few shortcomings, PS-1 is a worthy watch for bringing a much-beloved classic to screen beautifully. I am confident that this and the second part scheduled for 2023 will not be delegated to the PS of Indian movie history.

Go watch!

#sriGINthoughts #reviews #PS1

(From Tabla! 14-Oct-22)

Vikram: Baby's Night Out!

 It is the age-old story.

Drugs are a menace. So, one can do anything to gain control of it. Good Side (GS) and Bad Side (BS) fight over it. They do everything. Target families. Don’t let cousins use toilets in peace. Don’t let infants sleep in peace. Don’t let wives pack in peace. All hell breaks loose. Kill at will. ‘Yada yada hi dharmascha…’. ‘Satyameva Jayate’. ‘Vande <insert your country’s name here>’. Read the first sentence. Subham.

Of course, it is a medical movie. 😉

Kamal keeps checking his pulse in the movie with that e-watch of his (no, it isn’t an i-watch!). Even VJS sports a tattoo of Caduceus – symbol of doctors & spouts IUPAC names and chemical formulae (C12H21…) of drugs to his illiterate family (power of education, anyone?); LK and his team have worked hard to raise your BP to dangerous levels. Drugs are a cancer to the society. Someone does a CPR – although after about ten minutes since they’d flatlined.  People talk about bone replacement surgeries. Pathala song lyrics has references to COVID. So, in that spirit…

🔫#NormoTensionMessage: (Kamal’s movies can’t NOT have a message) It is not about drugs. It is about ‘catching them young’. Children learn by induction. If you smoke, they start with pens as mock-ciggies and graduate soon to the real deal. I am sure you are carrying some habits that you learnt from your parents when you were a toddler. If Amudha from Kaithi is all innocence, (remember Karthi’s பெற்ற தாய் தனை மகன் மறந்தாலும் #revisit), the infant plays with the guns here - with his namesake. The fact that the kid is afraid of sudden noises and sounds & had to wear ear muffles is symbolic of how we as parents want to bring up our children in the Gandhian way (See/Hear/Speak No Evil) – there is even a juicy reference about how drugs will convert us all back to monkeys! Of course, the message is not Gandhi’s 3 Monkeys here…

🔫#RacyAction: There are some fantastic set action pieces in the movie which really raises the pulse of the audience – but not Kamal’s, (that e-watch again!) It is one of my pet peeves that all shield carriers are safe from all bullets, even though their legs are exposed. (Remember that Beast scene?) Thankfully after almost three hours, BS realized that one can shoot some one’s legs as the 3.5 feet shield can cover only that much. 😉

🔫#PalpitatingMusic: Anirudh is definitely on a roll. The BGM (songs don’t get any screen space; thanks.) just rolls on and on with almost no respite and respect towards our tympanums. The EDM version of ‘Porkanda Singam’ in the 735^th action sequence of the movie was fun.

🔫#TachycardiaInterval: I hate watching movies as two parts. And Singapore has helped alleviate that by having no intermissions in movies. In India, it is always a Tale of Two Halves. So, the audience will have to hit the urinals and popcorn vendors, not necessarily in the same order, on a high. Vikram achieved that fantastically. The movie, which was slowly building Kamal’s character until then, suddenly shifts gears and runs at Mach2. It was almost as if LK suddenly realized that Kamal must be brought to the stage-front-and-centre. So, those ten minutes do raise the pulse like crazy. I would have preferred the editing to be a bit crispier there.

🔫#ArrythmicActing: Except for Fahadh Faasil, all others could have done better. Sacrilege! How about Kamal? Well, apart from the occasional tear and an unwanted ‘Maiyam-induced’ sermon on drugs, he wasn’t at his best in my opinion. VJS was reprising Bhavani from Master including punching people to glory and munching drugs like ‘Irumugan’ Vikram (the real, other one 🙃) to gain instant energy. Suriya? Well, apart from increasing the sales of fake Rolex watches & fake Marshall speakers, not much to write home there. (But the dude looks menacing though!) One other scene which had a potential to be a powerful one was when FaFa meets Naren (‘One man’s revolution is…’) but it fell flat. Both of them were perhaps still in a Mallu movie scenario. The scene required a bit more oomph and explosion and the timing was off. LK had a ready reference in Kuruthi Punal…

  🔫#RestlessGunSyndrome: Of course, guns, Guns, GUNS! Even a cannon! And it is the old men who wield the armoury! It is indeed a country for old men! 😊

🔫#DeepVeinWriting: In one of the interviews LK had said that he spent more than two months after the initial one-liner to prepare the bound script (with all his 16 assistants). It shows. Lot of care has been taken to make the movie cogent, intelligent, and with never-a-slack moment. You almost always feel that every scene/frame has some meaning or other. So…

🔫#FinalDiagnosis: Kamal’s, strike that, Lokesh Kanakaraj’s Vikram is not a fanboy ‘sambhavam’ about his love for Kamal. He has weaved his love and affection through the characters and dialogues than making it a crass ‘Petta’. One small thing: Don’t do the sequel immediately. You will be labelled as a ‘one-trick-pony’.

Vikram is worth a watch in the theatre (no, not OTT!). If you like some intelligent writing and enjoy the many ‘wow’ moments & some hidden nuggets, you can do it twice also. I will.

#sriGINThoughts #reviews #Vikram

PS: Oh, don’t look for the much-touted anti-ageing technology, unless it was the kid himself who is a anti-aged Kamal! LOL!🤣

Storming Thomas Cup #IndiaStyle

 

When I was completing my secondary education in that great school - N KrishnaswamyMudaliar Higher Secondary School, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India, 'PE periods' as the 'physical education' sessions used to be called, were both a terror (we were made to run and do stuff in the hottest of days!) as well as a relief (how else can you live down a dreary geography lesson?).

The PE teachers (a wiry Loganathan Sir & a bulky Dakshinamoorthy Sir), used to make us do some mandatory stretches and then ask us to choose our games. Cricket was a strict ‘no, no’! So, it used to be Volleyball, Basketball, Football, even Softball and if we are lucky, Ball Badminton!

While all the other games had just one or two implements, Ball-Badminton required a few racquets (almost always the strings were gone!) and a sorry-looking spongy ball.

Yet, for the remaining 30-odd minutes, we will play BB: smashes will end up in the ball smashing the smasher’s face (we miss the aim, you see!), drops will invariably be dropping in our own side of the court, points scored were celebrated more vociferously than the EPL goals…

And then the annual Teachers' Day used to happen with some of the teachers showing off their hidden talents in a fantastic manner – high serves, spinning serves, deft drops, exploding smashes... Oh! that was the first time I saw girls squeal with glee on some young able-bodied men smashing an yellow ball around. #ToSirWithLove

In those days, shuttlecock (usually pronounced as ‘sattil cork’) used to be a really rich man’s game. Well, I had seen the shuttle then; but never seen it being played. Reason? No indoor courts! In the outdoors, the damn thing would fly away! All of that was due to the impact that Prakash Padukone had (90’s and 2K-Kids: that is Deepika Padukone’s dad!) – newspapers and radio made us to memorize his exploits against Liem Swie King, Morten Frost etc., and that All England victory!!

Only after coming to Chennai did I get to see the game being played live; naturally, the game was still too expensive and anyway in Santhome Higher Secondary, Cricket took a more centre-stage due to some stalwarts including the great singer P Unnikrishnan. Cricket’s Loss. Music’s Gain!

Fast Forward to Singapore. Singapore has numerous fantastic indoor badminton courts that have kept most of the pot-bellied and sometimes fit young/old people honest in their attempt to keep it going. However, until LKY took the shuttle world by storm recently, no noteworthy player surfaced.

As for India, after Prakash Padukone, there was a long gap. Academies came up. Bureaucratic lethargy crept in. Then P Gopichand happened early this century. Yes, it takes that long for organic growth 😐 

And then slowly the stream started getting bigger and bigger. 🌊

Sanias happened; Sindhus leapt up; slowly but surely the rabbits multiplied. 🐰🐰🐰🐰

And after 73 years of hegemony by Indonesia, China, Malaysia, Denmark, and Japan, today, India has made that Elite-5 into #Elite6. Well, did a wag say that it is like entering the Badminton Security Council? Perhaps true! 😊

A fantastic shot-in-the-arm for the Badminton fraternity in India –  en route the title win, they had to beat Malaysia (5-time winner), Denmark (1) and Indonesia (14) to achieve Thomas Cup,  the ‘Unofficial World Cup’ in Badminton - in style!

Great work by Prannoy, Lakshya, Reddy&Shetty and Kidambi to have managed this. Plus the entire team. Of course the coach is Gopichand!

Indian sports is reflecting the new India – confident, bold and never-say-die. Be it the over-powering IPL in Cricket, the gungho way that Neeraj Chopra won the unlikeliest javelin Gold in Tokyo Olympics last year and now this set of ‘saattil corkers’!

In a world that is polarising by the minute, this is a uniting silver-lining that we all deserve to have.

 

GBUF - 16Jan22

 

Happy New Year! Happy Pongal/Sankranti!

Here is our latest edition of Good/Bad/Ugly/Fun of what happened over the last week around us.

CYA: Views are mine 😊

#sriGINthoughts #GBUF

 

#Good 💚

·       Next time you take a bus at the bus stop near Fu Lu Shou complex in Bencoolen Street, look carefully at the green advertisement box there. And don’t be surprised to see some kalian or cabbage or lettuce growing there. #GIC has embarked on this initiative to raise the profile of urban farming in Singapore by having these boxes in seven bus stops across the island. Well, the wife has a mini farm in our block from which we get a frequent supply of bananas, curry leaves, flowers etc. Where is that next piece of land? #SuperbanFarming

·       Next time when people buy coffee from one of the ~37000 Café Coffee Day vending machines in India, spare a thought to an entrepreneur VG Siddhartha, who took away his life unable to take the burden of mounting debts. 18 months later, his wife Malavika Hegde helming the affairs at the beleaguered company has managed to reduce the debts by over 75% (from about USD 1Bn). Granted she has sold most of the non-core businesses; maybe she had help from her politically-connected family. But got to say, she ensured the coffee #SmellsGood

#Bad 💔

·       King Kohli, the fire behind India’s many wins over the last seven years has stepped down from captaincy. His aggression, energy and in-your-face attitude burnt down many an opponent; at the same time, they affected people who weren’t seeing eye-to-eye in his own dressing room, as Ashwin-supporters will vouch for. But do not take away the fact that Kohli was the main man behind building an India team which these days enters most of the contests as favourites, domestic or overseas. There in lies his legacy. #LongLiveKing

·       We spoke about their predicament a few weeks back. Now Sri Lanka’s problems seem to have been exacerbated more. If debt obligations of USD 29 Bn are not met, the country of 22 million will go bankrupt this year. That is less than 10% of Elon Musk’s net worth, to put things in perspective. A country caught in between the machinations of an indifferent northern neighbour and an ambitious far-off economic giant. Hope they survive this and comeback good. #TroubledEmerald

 

 #Ugly 😡

·       Kollywood and Tollywood have taken a few extra(!) regressive steps recently. First it was actor Siddharth (who?) baiting India’s ace badminton champion Saina Nehwal with a sexist, innuendo-filled tweet, just because she supported Modi. Then the latest Telugu hit Pushpa has gone onto ensure that the female characters (including a O-Oo so ‘philosophical’ Samantha) do stuff for money, all the while spouting mother sentiments. #ThaggedeLe 

·       World is suffocating under the stress of omicron. Governments world over, are struggling hard to ensure normalcy returns based on vaccination of its populace. Then you have someone like Novak Djokovic upping the ante in the reverse direction. He tries to enter Australia with NoVac, claims his agent made a mistake, says he got Covid in December, probably broke his own country’s isolation rules. All for what? To risk hundreds, perhaps thousands? #ChampionJoker

#Fun 😆

·       World has so far revelled in spewing four-letter words right, left and centre. Enter Joseph Wardle, a software engineer (who else?). He created a simple, addictive game called #Wordle where you are expected to know ‘good’ five-letter words. Like I said, the game is quite simple. You can play it only once a day. You get six tries to guess the word with some clues. It probably takes about five minutes to indulge in some mental calisthenics. Play it. #PowerWordle

·       While Darwinism proposed that humans evolved from monkeys, science has found that the pig organs are remarkably less likely to be attacked by human immune systems. It took a significant forward step when a team lead by Dr Muhammad Mohiuddin from University of Maryland transplanted a genetically modified pig’s heart to a terminally ill David Bennett, (who is well), the health frontiers have opened up. Imagine David being ribbed for being pig-hearted instead of being pig-headed! #HeartFullOfVaraha

 

Sources: The Straits Times, Lowy Institute – The Interpreter, The Nature, ESPN Cricinfo, Amazon Prime, powerlanguage.co.uk, Tamil Murasu

Three Patient Tries!

 

Patience is key to success in life.

Even the most impatient over-achievers were patient at some stage.

In Tamil, you have the saying: பொறுத்தார் பூமி ஆள்வார். (The patient ones shall rule the world).

Hindi also has it: सब्र का फल मीठा होता हैं (Fruit of patience is sweeter).

By a quirk of end-of-year fate, we watched three movies over the last few days - all of them extolling the virtues of patience. The choice was random. The coincidence uncanny.

Jai Bhim [Victory to Bhim]

[Tamil; Prime]

Loosely based on a real incident about the trials (literally) and tribulations (too literally) of a tribal woman belonging to Irular community (who live/d a life of catching snakes and doing other menial jobs). It is about one intrepid lawyer’s (Justice Chandru) struggle to find her husband and his friends after they disappear from police custody. Police brutality is common across the world. Degrees vary. But the depiction of the same in this movie has notched it up a few levels. Not for the faint-hearted. 

The court scenes are like Sehwag’s batting – playing to the gallery. Messages are hard-hitting. But what was really heartening was to see how patiently the case is unraveled – step by step, knot by knot. If it were a Vijay/Ajith movie, there would have been a few action sequences introduced to settle the matters then and there 😊 All the brouhaha about caste misrepresentation/change etc., simply misses the point in my opinion. The first five minutes of the movie simply hits the nail on the head and that is that. Jai Bhim is the rallying slogan by Dalits in India to remember Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar. Apt.

#StrongBhim 🌞🌞🌞⛅

Yara [Butterfly]

[Italian; Netflix]

Another movie based on a real-life incident that rocked Italy from 2010. It is the story of an investigator who goes to great lengths to find the culprit responsible for the disappearance of a teenage girl. How she goes about it methodically, amidst mounting political and departmental pressure, self-doubts, insecurities, mistakes et al., forms the crux of the movie. The scientific details are unobtrusive, and the super-methodical nature of the investigations hook you to the proceedings. 

What could have turned into an emotional mush has been handled deftly. The cinematization of events in certain portions – politician’s Sehwag-like (that man again!) proclamations, Bhagavad Gita moment for the heroine – they were probably added to make us feel for the story; but superficial since the premise was strong enough. Of course, the very patient sifting for the proverbial needle in the DNA stack was what ‘wow’ed us. Just went on to prove that real-life is often in a sllllloooow motion when compared to the reel life.

#FlutteringButterfly 🌞🌞🌞

Sardar Udham [Leader Udham]

[Hindi; Prime]

Indian Independence struggle is truly historic. In a protracted fight spanning more than a century, the largely non-violent approach was interspersed with some violent mutinies of various sizes. People still refer to the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny as the first struggle; but there have been several even before that.

Fast forward to 1919. The British government ruling India passes Rowlatt Act empowering the gahmen to try certain political cases without juries and permitted internment of suspects without trial. Tough. Protests sprang up all over the country and more so in Punjab. On 13^th April 1919, a large, peaceful crowd of men, women and children gathered in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar. Rest, as the cliché goes, is bloody history.

This movie is about Udham ‘Ude’ Singh, one of the affected people from Jallianwala Bagh/Amritsar massacre in 1919. He becomes a revolutionary (a lovely definition by Bhagat Singh on what differentiates a revolutionary from a terrorist 💓); gets caught; escapes from the prison; travels through Afghanistan, Russia and reaches London; waits patiently like a vulture and assassinates Michael O’Dwyer, the Governor of Punjab who gave a carte blanche to General Dyer to ‘instill fear’ on that fateful day. Well, his wait was for almost 21 years to seek revenge! That is some patience, one might say!

Movie worked largely due to wonderful casting & excellent period setting. Vicky Kaushal as Sardar Udham, the investigating officer Stephen Hogan, Shaun Scott as the remorseless Dwyer – all of them carried the movie exemplarily.

The massacre scene was quite gory. Again, not for the faint-hearted. But that was nothing when compared to the next 20-odd minutes which were excruciating to say the least. Probably that was needed. In fact, in a tribute to Attenborough’s Gandhi, the first few shots of the massacre resembled the ones from Gandhi; but then it veered full left, right after that – after all, this is a movie about violence, right?

Thankfully, the movie was not jingoistic (unlike Uri – Vicky got a India National Award for acting in that!) to the large part and stuck to the known facts and figures.

#OdeToUde 🌞🌞🌞⛅

#sriGINthoughts #reviews #movies

 

GBUF - 19 Dec 2021

 

Hello all, good day!

Here is the weekly roundup of Good/Bad/Ugly/Fun of what happened.

#GBUF #sriGINthoughts

CYA: Views are mine.

 

#Good 💚

• Connectivity and communication are key to modern day life. Bharatiyar, a great visionary Tamil poet whose 139^th birthday was celebrated last week dreamt of such things in his poems (joining rivers, telecoms, global trade and knowledge transfer – India PM Modi referred to his lines last week, again!) Along that line, we have the new Portugal-Singapore longest train journey – 21 days it shall take to cover the 18750 km route changing trains in Paris, Moscow, Beijing, Bangkok and a few others. Well, if only omicron isn’t there… #TrainToOrient

• There is something about those initials, I think. Maybe he was named after the great man. Singapore’s Loh Kean Yew has booked his place in the BWF World Championships final, where he will meet India’s Kidambi Srikanth later today. In the form of his life, Loh has beaten higher seeded players consistently and is on the threshold of creating history, again. Good luck, young man! #LKYftw

#Bad 💔

• KL is flooded. Philippines is typhooned. Kentucky is tornadoed. Australia is being LaNinoed. Yet, Indonesia’s coal lobby is up against the government’s COP26 green commitment. It keeps happening. Are we listening at all? #BurnAndDrown

• In the recent British movie, Boiling Point, Stephen Graham, a chef at a popular restaurant will be beleaguered by a host of problems. Well, his PM Boris Johnson is also in a similar situation. Breaking his own tough covid rules through parties at 10 Downing, having a close ally resign a sure-Tory seat after being disgraced etc., are causing more bad-hair days for Mr Johnson than England’s poor Ashes showing so far! #GritItOutBoris

 

 #Ugly 😡

• 30 years ago, logging what happens when the computer program executes was limited to a few messages on the screen. Now, logging – just like living your life on social media - is a separate industry in itself. Last week’s boiling over of #log4j security problem seems to be deadlier than the latest Greek alphabet variant of Covid. While a ‘security patch’ is available from Apache, vaccinating all the systems is not so easy and will take time. Just be careful with where you go on web. #logjam4j

• Putin has a pet project: Annex Ukraine. Crimea was done so in 2014. Now, he has gotten his troops near the Ukraine border. Experts say that there is a high chance of a war in Europe before Sankaranti. West is wringing its hands; pulling its hair; making threatening noises. Putin continues to call their bluff. Problem for west is that they are caught in a conundrum: Is Ukraine worth a fight when China is looming large in foreground? Is antgonising Russia good for their energy imports? #ZapadOffensive

#Fun 😆

• Two lions who were in transit at Changi airport decided to check on the duty-free shopping goodies. They seem to have gotten out of the container and one of them even was found atop the container. While NY Post sensationally called them to be ‘roaming around freely in the airport’, SIA managed to tranquilize them and even had the cheek to say that the lions’ ‘safety is key’. A worthy tagline for the Singapore Tourism Board to consider: Singapore – Where Lions Roam Without A Fine! #LionSinghs

• In what was a super-fun Sunday last week at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi, the Dutchman Max Verstappen managed to pip Lewis Hamilton to claim F1 crown for the year. The race was full of drama and in a straight slap to those who crib about F1 races being driven just by machines, this year’s championship was dictated/decided by a human decision by the race director to make it a 1-1 race after the safety car was deployed. #MaxVroom

 

Sources: The Straits Times, Tamil Murasu, CNA, The Guardian, The Hindustan Times, NZ Herald, NY Post, Bloomberg, Top Gear

 

 

GBUF - 12 Dec 2021

Hello all, good day!

Here is the weekly roundup of Good/Bad/Ugly/Fun of what happened.

#GBUF #sriGINthoughts

CYA: Views are mine.

         #Fun 😆

• They were lauded as the cutest by everyone. Social media was flooded with the smooth mammals jumping in and out of water; crossing roads; Otter Watching Groups were created; Singapore is called the #OtterCity. Life is good. Until a rowdy group attacked a man and caused 20 wounds, butt-bites included. Now, tables have turned. People want the population to be curbed. Soon we may call them as OT – #OtterTrash 😊

• For all those who swear by technology, the first Ashes test served up what it was like in the not-too-distant past. No snickometers, no automatic no-ball detection, no power in the stadium – so no DRS, no spider cameras tracking everything from captain’s nose-digging to early-balding batsmen to teaching kids the latest cuss words. It was the good old game where only the 15 pax on the field were involved. Lack of tech surely affected the umpires – 14 on-field no-ball calls were missed in a span of few overs. #TechAshes

        #Ugly 😡

• China’s Evergrande has defaulted. We knew that it would happen eventually. Apart from almost half-a-trillion debt mountain that is out there, the bigger issue is the contagion of bankruptcies that this will cause in small and medium enterprises who are still hoping that these failed/failing conglomerates would pay the bills for anything from supplying tiles, plumbing, electrical works, cleaning services… #WorseThanCovid

• India is doing great on several fronts – Covid management, better infrastructure etc. But the indoctrination also seems to be getting ‘better’. Ahmedabad court censured its municipal corporation for targeting non-vegetarian food carts only against encroachment (‘Don’t dictate what I can or cannot eat!’) & worse still, the CBSE 10th Standard English Reading passage attempted by 2+ million students yesterday seems to have set an appalling standard on gender stereotyping (‘emancipation of the wife destroyed parent’s authority over the children’/’male chauvinist pig’) #SlowGoebbels

#Bad 💔

• I thought that it is a season of giving. What is given is the giver’s prerogative. Well, you could give pink slips, for all you care. BCCI gave it to India’s most successful ODI captain (%), Virat Kohli who by switching off the phone expected that he would not hear it! 😉 And then Vishal Garg of Better.com did it for 15% of his employees over… a Zoom call – ‘If you are on this call, you belong to that unlucky group!’ #SameShitNewZoom

• Losing the head honcho of any organization is bad enough. Losing the Chief of Defence Staff in an accident is definitely worse. India lost her premier soldier and a host of others in a helicopter crash a few days back. What was galling was the way the media handled it – it was actually business-as-usual – in your face, laden with innuendos of conspiracies, sensationalizing every morsel of info. Where has the nuance vanished? #OneMinuteSilencePlease

#Good 💚

• Omicron seems to be a mild variant. Governments are opening up the vaccine regime to kids now. More VTLs happening now. Cheaper Antigen Rapid Test kits ($4.90 vs $10+ per kit) made available. Antibodies from Ostriches used to coat masks to detect Covid under UV light. One step at a time. One jab at a time. One test at a time. Slowly, but surely. #ConstantHope

• Watched Bunty Aur Bubli for the first time yesterday. Survived. No, that isn’t the good news. There is a dialogue which Bunty spouts: ‘What is the use of sending two reformed souls to prison?’ The Dutch seem to have taken it to heart. They have reduced their prison population to such a degree that they are now turning the prisons into other useful structures. Prison chapel becomes the school theatre. Cells turned to Hammam. #KajraRe

Sources: The Straits Times, Tamil Murasu, The Guardian, New Indian Express, Positive.News, TikTok