Meet Dawood Ibrahim’s Rabid Dog: Abu Azmi

Quote, unquote Abu Azmi: “Dawood Ibrahim is not a terrorist.”

Finally the beans are getting spilled out of the bag. It is not a secret that Fascist honchos (like Abu Azmi, RSS or Khap Panchayat) can get away with anything in this country. They have a cult following by impressionable masses and, most importantly, blessings of intellectual community. In a country where people’s sentiments get hurt over trifles, Abu Azmi not only stands up for the country’s nemesis with pomp, but also chastises those who oppose him.

For years Dawood’s rabid dogs like Abu Azmi have used snobbery to defend him by foisting indoctrinations like “if you don’t like him, you are racist”, “if you don’t support him, you are not cool” etc. Ibrahim’s brother carries out his illicit trades in India, while rest of the country watches passively like couch potatoes. Moreover, the spineless western countries — that usually throw fits over soaring immigration — distribute visas to his family like prasad, allowing this canker to strengthen his grasp all over the globe.

Abu Azmi also has hot pants for rapists. He blames women for getting raped; he calls for a strict moral code for women, yet our great intellectual honchos say nothing. This Tartuffe considers himself an authority of morals but has no qualms about the ageing pervert’s lecherous lifestyle of getting laid by a virgin every night. Snobbery sells after all.

‘Headhunters’ — Rearing Its Ugly Head

Original Title: Hodejegerne (2011)

The effete bellyacher, which we are supposed to endure as the protagonist, is embarrassed of its height (and perhaps “size”); the milksop has oodles of inferiority complex because its wife, Diana, is too good for it; it is also equivocal to her desire for procreation, which we are to sympathetically ascribe to its various dysfunctions. In a quick shift of scene, it is copulating with another woman (Lotte), whom it only treats as an object of concupiscence. It exploits and dismisses her as per its sick needs, yet the over-sensitive moral gurus raise no qualms over the pervert’s glorifications. We are supposed to accept, with compassion, that it behaves this way because of its inferiority complexes.

The director, Mortel Tyldum, instantly gets in the tempo. True to the title, he conducts an interview that examines the importance of reputation. We get a sense of profundity in the beginning. But in self-contradictory moral panic, Tyldum looses his clarity. The stench of putrid innards, packaged as an art thief, goes to rob a painting from a house. In a ludicrous change-of-heart moment, it sees children from the window and decides to have children; consequently, it abandons the robbery. But instead of absconding, it makes a phone-call to its wife to break the “good news”, right there. So, as per the director, procreation is the key to perpetual redemption.

We are supposed to root for this pantywaist dissembler, which despite having a fling with Lotte, gets in a moral rage when it stumbles upon its wife’s cell-phone at Clas Grave’s (played effortlessly by Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau) house. We are to cheer for this ungainly rapscallion that obdurately refuses to take its dying crony to hospital. Of course, the director expects us to embrace the “shades of grey”, yet he gets moralistic with an utterly cheesy, saccharine sweet climax, accentuated by Diana’s pot belly.

Aksel Hennie is obviously an awful miscast. How could someone so ineffectual, with the appeal of coughed-up phlegm, be entrusted with this role: perhaps as a mascot to ward-off the evil eye? When it opens its mouth, you expect — at your impartial best — a grotesque, cartoonish voice. But you hear grating recitals of a bellyacher, trying to sound like a tough guy. But it’s just a lion of sand, a kick away from getting scattered.

In an attempt to evince its breed, this faecal sausage disguised as an actor, threatens to dismiss Clas Greve and render him unemployable. Its persona as an intimidating corporate magnate is a giggle. It gets downright laughable when the director tries to pass this rickety eyesore as a John Rambo and a James Bond-archetype who wrestles out of every peril laid out for him — herein a faecal sausage that refuses to flush down.

Still Waters Run Deep

In an empty arena, from an unspecified duration before the contest, a pugilist contemplates in solitude, getting acquainted to the ambience, envisaging success. It is a scene from a video-game, with soft music in the background. One year later, the player enters the empty arena and reposes, savouring success — though this scene wasn’t in the game. Such moments are profound, serene and meditative. 

At Cricinfo, writers described the best and the worst of cricket in 2012, Sidharth Monga chose something different:

It was a warm Adelaide afternoon. Australia had completed a 4-0 whitewash of India hours ago. The stumps had been taken out, the volunteers had finished cleaning the ground, the broadcasters had moved out with their equipment. Anyone with any sense had left Adelaide Oval, except for the lazier journalists. And the Australian team. Every now and then an Australian player would come out of the dressing room to take telephone calls and then go back in. A year ago they were hammered all over on their own grounds by England; they were now staying back to celebrate the end of a remarkable series. 

Four hours after the last wicket was taken, Peter Siddle came out to an empty ground, still in his whites. He went to the top of his run-up at the Cathedral End and bounded in without a ball in hand. With the same intensity with which he bowls in Tests, Siddle went through a delivery, turned, appealed to an imaginary umpire, and then celebrated an imaginary wicket. What joy.

[Source: Cricinfo]