Crude writings of a novice writer

A deep-dive into Get Out: A series in five parts - Quintet Part 5 - The metaphor everyone missed I still distinctly remember my first viewing of Get Out and how I vacillated and contemplated in the hours that followed in my hostel room and later at the canteen upstairs, trying to peer deeper into the film's message. I just couldn't settle down until I felt like I had nailed it down. Due to an unknown why, the film had strangely struck a chord with my own life experience and this was still so without me ever having been black or in a room full of white people. Of course, as I've already pointed out I vicariously experienced those through the film and it constitutes a significant part of the reason why I appreciate the film as much as I do and why I've rewatched it as many times as I have. But even beyond that there was something about the film - more precisely the Coagula transplantation and hypnosis procedure - that spoke directly to my own experience and not...

Why Nuclear is NOT the path forward and why reactors ought to be scrapped Radiation Ghost Towns in Fukushima  Of course, we've all heard it by now - how nuclear energy was touted as the energy solution to a population of 7 billion, as the panacea to a world overly dependent on harmful fossil fuels, as the revolutionary piece of tech to finally usher us into an energy surplus utopia, as the energy too cheap to meter. For all the exaltation, for all the promise, what has come to be the fate decades later for this proclaimed messiah of mankind? The pro nuclear zealot quickly unleashes the fact in your face that today 10% of humanity’s energy needs are met by nuclear plants at the staggeringly cheap rate of 2 cents a kilowatt-hour. Impressive one may say. Impressive that is if that was all there was to it. Are things in life ever quite that simple? Any reader with average cerebral equipment must already be mightily uneasy at that curious figure of 2 cents. Similarly curious...

Fat people are... well... People too. So, Why Do We Forget? In Reflections of a fat girl , an autoethnographic paper by Lisa Spinazola, the author walks us through her life as a regular woman who perceives herself as ‘fat’ – a word attached with a slew of other judgements. The paper acts as medium which offers vivid glimpses into her inner world. It let’s the reader peer into her raw, inner stream of thoughts which would otherwise stay inaccessible through this ordeal. The point of it being to bring home her experience so that the reader can relate and hopefully empathize. Articulating her experience in this manner also serves her as an exercise in mindfulness, helping her transcend to higher levels of clarity and perspective about her situation. As she reflects about her reflections in the mirror, therefore the pun in the paper title, she explores through use of ways of autoethnography the origins of her body dysmorphia, her relationship with food and exercise and her per...

A deep-dive into Get Out : A series in five parts - Quintet Part 4 - Uncanny Parallels Then on a dimension above the ones I have discussed in the preceding three parts are scenes the viewer will need a keen eye and a well-informed mind to be able to pick apart and extract the profound kernels of truth and brilliant parallels to real-life social phenomena. To me they make for the most mind-splattering parts of the movie and qualify it as ingenious. I’ll list some of my favourites in this category too as I simply love talking about this movie and would love for more people to develop an appreciation for what makes this movie so wonderful. The movie reflects heavily on the precarious and eerie race relations and dynamics in contemporary America, in particular the experience and plight of African Americans. One theme Peele draws constant attention to is that of being the lone person of color or being a minority in a white dominated and white majority space. The viewer gets to ...

#ControversialTakes: Making a case for infidelity: Arguments for Cheating - Part 2 The first in this two part series saw us lay out the central case for why most find cheating so objectionable. This part will see if this case holds to scrutiny. To summarize the objections put forth: the feelings of inadequacy that will inevitably be forced upon your partner and how this may exacerbate their mental health, the irredeemable sin of breaching the faith your partner has in you, the prospect of diseases and if you're religious the incompatibility of cheating with holy scripture. Let's deal with them one at a time. What does it mean to make your partner feel inadequate? And why are these feelings of inadequacy triggered? A relationship or a marriage entails (unless in an open one) a promise to exclusivity - both physically and emotionally. In other words the people to a relationship will turn to no one else than each other to gratify their physical and emotional needs. Now...

#ControversialTakes: Making a case for infidelity : Arguments for Cheating - Part 1 Before I even begin writing I suspect the reader may already be attributing certain motives to me (whether consciously or subconsciously) writing this essay. I extend neither blame nor judgment to them for doing so. I'd be doing much the same, perhaps worse, if someone turned up challenging a core personal belief of mine that not only is closely intertwined with my sense of morality (of what is right and what is wrong) but also has behind itself the weight of centuries of societal backing. To this concern I beseech the reader for a few moments to dispassionately indulge in the ideas that I will present in the following passages and hold back the impulse to label me a degenerate or worse an agent for mass social upheaval. My aim has been simply to reexamine certain unchallenged positions, that appear to be universally held, without any motivated reasoning. I let my inquiry into views on...

A deep-dive into Get Out : A series in five parts - Quintet Part 3 - Something's wrong, but what... Another hint comes in the middle of the next scene when the Dean, Missy and Rose are having brunch out on the patio with Chris and they eventually end up talking about some upcoming shindig on the weekend. Rose’s parents mention it was some tradition started by Roman Armitage and they had kept it going after his death. CHRIS: What’s the get-together?  MISSY Rose’s grandfather’s party.  DEAN: My Dad threw a shindig for his friends once a year. Bocce ball, horseshoes, badminton. ROSE: It’s basically a bunch of rich old people playing lawn games. Why didn’t you tell me? MISSY: It’s the same day every year sweetheart.  (To Chris) We kept it going after they died. Makes us feel like they’re here with us. Missy’s last line here is a haunting double entendre. Of course, you might have realised it already what I’m getting at here. The real reason behind the p...

A deep-dive into Get Out : A series in five parts - Quintet Part 2 - Portending Evil As Dean is showing Chris around the house, he leads him down a hallway with a portrait of the former’s late father, Roman Armitage, hanging on the wall alongside other pictures of his family. The portrait depicts a young Roman Armitage crouched into the starting pose for some race, which Dean reveals in a bit is the one for the qualifiers to the 1936 Berlin Olympics and where he lost to legendary Afro-American sprinter, Jesse Owens. Hitler was part of the audience to the race that day and Dean remarks how Owens’s victory stood in stark defiance to everything Hitler was an advocate for. To this Chris nods in agreement and adds that the defeat must have been tough to swallow for his father. Dean offers a cryptic and strange response here that leaves the viewer puzzled and without being able to make any sense out of it. CHRIS: “Tough break for your Dad though.”  DEAN: “He almost got o...

Kate Webber for freelancer denuding dystopian realities of blockaded J&K Ahmer Khan (27) an independent multimedia journalist from Kashmir, who has been unwavering this past year in his admirable efforts to cast light on the plight and suffering of the Kashmiri locals during the state's prolonged ruinous lockdown, met the mid-february announcement of himself as the to-be-recipient of the 2019 AFP Kate Webber prize with grace, composure, humility and gratitude. The communications blackout which kicked in, 5th of August last year, as part of the Delhi-induced clampdown meant not only that foreign journalists w ere barred passage into the region but also that all internet communications and cellphone and landline services had been wiped out, essentially blinding the rest of the globe to whatever that were to transpire there. It was at this juncture that Ahmer Khan and his "resilient colleagues from the Kashmir journalist corps" dared to fill in the information v...

A deep-dive into Get Out : A series in five parts - Quintet Part 1 - The opening 10 minutes In the upcoming quintet of posts about the 2017 Jordan-Peele directed film Get Out which was nominated for four Academy Awards in 2018, you’ll see me do a very thorough breakdown of nearly all of its scenes. There is a lot to go over and to be frank I’m still not very certain that I have denuded all the richness contained in every detail of the film. Every successive watch I grasp something I had not before. This among many other elements keeps the experience of rewatching the movie several times over very far removed from stale. It has this tendency to smack you in the face with your incomplete understanding of the film from your previous watches. The film compels close attention both to itself and the daunting message it assaults your delusional conception of contemporary social reality with. Equally as well it always leaves you with a strong urge to ruminate upon what you have just...