Spy Game (2001)

Watched ‘Spy Game’ (2001) on Netflix.

A Tony Scott film starring Robert Redford and Brad Pitt.

Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt) is an undercover CIA agent who has been arrested in China by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), as he was trying to free a female prisoner from an army prison in Suzhou, in an unsanctioned operation he started in his own personal interest. He will be executed in 24 hours if the US government does not claim him and bargain for his release.

In CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, a group of CIA executives gather to discuss the case. The President is due to visit China for a major trade deal and if they claim Tom Bishop as their man, it could jeopardize the deal.

They summon Nathan Muir (Robert Redford), Tom’s Bishop’s mentor, in order to understand the details of Bishop’s history. While appearing to be looking into his arrest and the next steps, they actually seek to learn something in his history that will give them the pretext not to abandon him.

Nathan knows these men, their cunning and their machinations. Its his last day at work before retirement, there are less than 24 hours left and Bishop is being tortured even as they are speaking about him.

He must outsmart these men and circumvent the system to have Bishop rescued…

Interspersed in between Nathan’s agile moves in CIA to realize his rescue plan are flashbacks of Bishop’s work in Vietnam, East Germany and Beirut.

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Lines noted…

‘When I was a kid, I used to spend summers on my uncle's farm. He had this plow horse that he used to work with every day’

‘It was a tip of the sword deal out of Beirut intended to be clean and efficient in a place that was anything but. By 85 the place was a nightmare’

(An American idiom commonly used in military operations to mean the first soldiers to go into a war zone)

‘Sheikh Salameh was our target. He ran a large terrorist faction that had taken out a number of American targets including at least one of the embassy bombings. That left 212 people dead. Mostly civilians’

‘His cover was as a photojournalist. Bishop did a day-in-the-life spread on the doctor that we got printed in the Times’

‘Will you join us?’

‘Maybe just for a minute. I don't want to be a third wheel’

(A third wheel is someone who is unnecessary to a group and is tagging along. In this case, the group usually consists of a couple and the third, superfluous person)

‘We have some fucked up barometer for success don't we?’

‘Give me bottom dollar’

Bottom dollar - the last of one's money; all of one's money; a sure thing. This idiom describes something that is sure or certain to happen.

Dear John Letter - A Dear John letter is a letter written to a man by his wife or romantic partner to inform him that their relationship is over, usually because she has found another lover. The man is often a member of the military stationed overseas, although the letter may be used in other ways, including being left for him to discover when he returns from work to an emptied house. It is usually sent after time-away on holiday.

#westerncinema

Peace Comes After War

Wrong. Ramayan and Mahabharat wars were fought. They had to be. Part and parcel of life. There are dharmic and adharmic wars, yes, that discrimination can and should be made.

Pacifists are morons. Usually low IQ or diabolical leftists.

My Baby

26 Feb 2016

Missing my baby. Seeing her in my dreams everyday. On the verge of crying...

Saree Love

Feb 26 2017

Sharadhi's love for the sari. Just like her aunt's when she was a little girl... 

That Red Man in a Nuclear Reactor Accident in Japan...

26 Frb 2018

Over an year ago, I read, on fb, of this youth who suffered fatal burns in a nuclear reactor accident in Japan.

I was warned of disturbing images and yet I clicked the continue button and immediately regretted it. 

There was the picture of red flesh resembling a human body that had been freshly skinned. 

All of the limbs had been suspended from the roof of the white bed only the torso and head were on the bed. The limbs looked longer than they were because of how thin they had become with the layer of skin gone.

The insane hospital had kept him alive in that state for 80 days, instead of letting him go. He was allowed that privilege after pleading for it.

I was in California at that time, and all alone in my hotel suite, with no white lights but dim yellow lights. For a few days after, I continued to feel dull and depressed. 

I don't know why, but last week, with absolutely no provocation, the memory of that image came back and stayed for a while. What made it worse than before was, it was a family member in that state. Don't know how and why my mind conjured up such an image. But I felt sick again. 

The thing about having good memory is, you are unable to dislodge even unpleasant and disturbing images from your mind and the result is, recursive suffering. 

Or, is everything alright with me?

Small Town or Big City?

My uncle. My favourite person in the whole family. God give him long life.

For all those who flock to big cities because they offer ample opportunities for growth, education and recreation, here is someone who lives in a small town and lives a very big life.

I had read in an article years ago that most of living in big cities only means having access to abundant options, though very little or no actual availing of those options. How often do you attend the music concerts in the townhall or watch a play in the theater or attend the book club or cycling or gardening club, or go to lalbagh or cubbon park, the availability of which made you choose this city over others for permanent settling?

This uncle lives in a small town in Coorg and has a dozen events or plans up his sleeve, spread over a number of domains. 

He exemplifies the saying, don't try to add days into your lives, add more life into your days. 

And what more, unlike other men in the family who delegated the wife to the kitchen and washroom, he took his partner along with him and educated her in every domain he dabbled in. A true gentleman. 

For security reasons, I will not reveal further specifics about him...

Jallikattu

Right wing or left wing, national or anti-national, will never ever support Jallikattu or the similar sport in Spain. 

Its barbaric, morbid, dangerous, voyeuristic and cruel. A mockery and trifling of animal life.

War of the World's (2005)

Watched ‘War of the Worlds’ (2005) on Netflix.

Sci-fi by Steven Spielberg based on a novel by H G Wells.

Lots of sound of fury. But significance absent.

The same old fear of the unknown and never ending chasing and dodging dressed up in new gear. 

Giant metallic tripods tall as skyscrapers with probes, who annihilate everything in their way and drink human blood. All of US army tanks and airplanes cannot destroy them and when they fall of their own in the end, it is because of microbes in our blood, for which their immune system is unprepared. 

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Usually dystopian movies, movies of catastrophe are a pain to watch. Grey and dull and desolate and squalid. 

This one has some interesting litter. Debris from plane crash. Engine and wheels and the body with all the seats intact and wings spanning the large area...the kind of debris you haven't seen before. 

But in the end it seemed pointless. Without meaning and purpose and motives explained. 

It was just one long chase. Running running running and then, just like that, being saved, without having done anything about it, without fighting, without even understanding what it was for, what just happened, what hit them…

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Lines noted…

‘What's the matter?’

‘Got a splinter’

‘Where did you get it?’

‘On your porch railing’

‘Lightening doesn't strike twice in the same place’

‘I have been around death plenty. I used to drive an ambulance in the city. You know the people that make it? The ones that don't flatline before the hospital? It's the ones that keep their eyes open. They keep looking at you. Keep thinking. They're the ones who survive’

#westerncinema

Saving Snakelings

Last week, I was in Gaza on a UN mission.

I saw a boy wearing torn clothes roaming on the streets with a teddy bear 

I asked him, "Are you a Muslim, Jewish or a Christian?"

"I am hungry" he said, "How does religion even matter in such a situation? Make humanity your religion."

I was deeply moved and gave him a packet of chicken biryani.

The boy asked, "Is the chicken Halal"?

360 Degree Feedback. IT Industry Could Learn from Uber

An FB post from Feb 2018

Uber, a taxi services company is far superior to any software firm/scum. (Look how well they rhyme.) 

A few days ago I received an email from Uber intimating me that my rating was 3.5 out of 5. 

Curious, I read on. 

Just like customers were allowed to rate drivers, drivers were allowed to rate customers. 

The messaging was so subtle. 

'it may be the small things like the way you close the door, or slam the door unthinkingly, polite treatment of the driver, etc. Higher your rating, slower the wait time for a future ride ... And so on. 

This is 360 degree feedback in the true sense. 

Ratings from both customer and driver accepted, no questions asked. 

The underlying principle is, the rating may be based on reality or perception. 

If it is reality, make corrections where needed. 

If it is perception, then do what it takes to change the perception.

Most of the software firms don't have 360 degree appraisal. Meaning, mangers get to evaluate their team members but team members don't get to rate their managers. 

Even where there is 360 degree feedback, it is a sham. Mostly. 

Most of the managers get away with the help of their 'connections', having acquired them over a number of years they have spent in the firm.

To understand why you should be allowed to rate your managers, you must know two bits about these managers. 

Most of the managers, at least in the services industry, became managers because they couldn't become anything else. Most of them. 

If they were excellent in technology, they would have become tech leads and then architects. 

If they were good at analysis and understood businesses and processes, they would have become business analysts and consultants. 

Since there was nothing they excelled in, and spoke poor to okay English, they became managers - supervisors. All you do then is to learn how to use a few tools and remind other people to do their work, while you... 

(mis)Manage, demand subordination, play politics, engage in power struggle, favouritism, pass the buck, cheat the client, show delinquency in establishing processes, discredit performers, misogyny, tight fisted during appraisals... 

Their nuisance is unending. 

Like I said, a taxi service business is better than software scum.