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 Poet-turned-novelist Devi S Las­kar’s debut book about racism in Trump’s America is heartbreaking. But it’s also a devastating story that sheds light on important issues that just can’t be ignored—like bul­lying and terrorism. The book is inspired by a true event in Laskar’s life—the Georgia Bureau of Inves­tigation raided her home and held her at gunpoint, on a legal matter that was later dismissed. This event gave Laskar the idea to write about a woman who goes from being polite and submissive to one who holds her ground.

The story opens with a South Asian woman as she lies bleeding on her driveway. She has been shot. Her life flashes before her in fragments and she struggles to understand the question she has been asked all her life: Where are you really from? The protagonist of Laskar’s novel—Mother or Real Thing as she’s referred to—has what might seem like the perfect life. There’s a lov­ing husband and three beautiful daughters in the picture and she has a solid career as a journalist and aspires to be a novelist. But the color of her skin—the Mother is born in America to Bengali immigrants—doesn’t let her enjoy all these good things in life in peace. Her daughters too have inherited her skin tone and that results in a lot of bullying at school.

The narrative jumps between the past and the present as an Ameri­can ‘nightmare’ unfolds right before your eyes. But the fragments are tied together by several themes and timelines which make it easy to get a sense of who Mother is even when the story moves backwards and forwards in time. Though surviv­ing racism in America is the main theme of the book, you also get a glimpse of the lengths many wom­en often go to, to maintain peaceat home.

Mother and daughter’s refusal to tell “the man of the hour”—as Mother refers to her husband in the book—about the racism they are facing so as not to upset him is an example of that. Laskar has also tried to show how women, more so women of color, have to juggle motherhood, marriage, and ambition, and fight for respect and sometimes even just mere acknowledgement.

Although the topic the book deals with is ugly, the writing is beautiful, almost lyrical. It temporarily relieves you of all the horror that’s going on. Laskar, by her own account, is a poet first and so the book’s structure was inspired by one of her favor­ite forms of poetry—a pantoum, a Malay verse form consisting of three stanzas. ‘The Atlas of the Reds and Blues’ is unlike anything you have ever read and Laskar’s “experiment” (writing prose in poetic form) works to keep a complex narrative crisp and engaging.

First suggestion: Don’t wait for this movie to appear on Torrent or some shady website. Watch it in the theater. Second: Don’t watch it in anything other than 3D. Or you’ll miss out on the whole adventure.

Hollywood goes to Europe in this latest Marvel creation called “Spiderman: Far From Home” and despite the carnage it wreaks in some of Europe’s best-known cities, the world is saved at the end. No spoiler, this: Isn’t this how things eventually turn out in every superhero flick? And we’re safe thanks to the teamwork of Spidey (Tom Holland) and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson).

Fury, the former director of S.H.I.E.L.D, can mobilize the Avengers to save the world at his will, and he does so in this installment too. Holland almost effortlessly continues in his Peter Parker role that he started in “Captain America: Civil War” (2016). Sharing the screen for the first time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is Jake Gyllenhaal playing Quentin Beck/Mysterio.

The film starts with an homage to Tony Stark/Iron Man and the Fallen Avengers as well as the “blip” that occurred in the past two movie editions of Avengers. (We are sure you have watched the biggest blockbuster, ever.)

In the new film, Parker, a high-school student, is out on an educational trip of Europe with his schoolmates, including his crush Michelle/MJ (Zendaya). Like most teenagers with a high-school crush, he has planned an eventful trip and the perfect sequence to declare his love to MJ.

But then, even on vacation, the poor chap is faced with a dubious choice: to woo his crush into falling in love with him, or answering Fury’s calling to save the world. We know what our hero chooses already.

So what’s new in this Spidey movie, you ask? Well, to start with, this is partly a coming of age story of ‘the friendly, neighborhood hero saves the world’ narrative. We see a meek and scared Parker who is ‘not yet 21’ take up the gigantic responsibility. Holland’s Spidey character has always been part of a bigger group of Avengers, with him being cast as a teenager with recently-acquired super-powers who is being groomed by the veteran Tony Stark. In Far From Home, the little, unsure boy has grown up into a responsible man, making important decisions on his own.

Although Spidey gets the whole film to himself on this one, we do at times miss the cocky Stark. Spiderman-Ironman relationship was unmatched to relations between any other Avengers, and it was always fun to watch them together. We also miss the Marvel creator Stan Lee’s (1922-2018) classic cameo. (May his departed soul find peace.) You expect him to appear on screen, at any time. Unfortunately, he does not.

The 3D recommendation is not flippant either. If you want to feel the water churn under your ‘gondola’ in Venice, watch it in 3D. If you want to hover above London Bridge like a bird, correction, a drone, watch it in 3D. If you want to experience the best of modern-day VFX, do so again. 

Who should watch it?:

Men, women and children of all ages. Period. It’s a ‘Marvelous’ PG movie with high-end graphics and a whole load of family-friendly humor. 

Rating: 4 stars

Actors:Tom Holland, Samuel L. Jackson, Zendaya, Jake Gyllenhaal

Director: Jon Watts

Run time: 129 minutes

Seldom do movies celebrate fatherhood. At least not in a way where the loving, compassionate, sacrificing, vulnerable and frail side of a father is portrayed on the big screen without glamorizing the stereotypical ‘manliness’ of screen dads. “Appa” is a movie dedicated to all the fathers. By the end credits, the audience agrees that the common perception of fathers is grossly wrong.

Written and directed by Darjeeling-based filmmaker Anmol Gurung, “Appa” has Kollywood’s own Daya Hang Rai playing ‘Birkhey driver’ and ‘appa’ (father) to Siddartha (Siddhant Raj Tamang). Birkhey, a happy-go-lucky driver who ferries tourists around the treacherous Siliguri-Darjeeling road, causes a fatal accident one day, partly because he is drunk. The accident kills a whole family of Bengali tourists with only Sid and Birkhey surviving the crash. Ridden by guilt and with natural protective instincts, Birkhey gets close to Sid, who in turn starts calling him ‘appa’. What follows in their lives is what “Appa” is all about.

The plot is simple and organic, so is the casting and the production. Rai as the loveable Birkhey finally makes an impact he had initially achieved in “Loot” (2012). After a string of movies that had him in repetitive and forgettable roles, Appa provides his fans a breath of fresh air. Birkhey, despite his drinking habits, is an affable chap, someone you’d love to know in real life. Rai has put so much life into the character that you feel every bit of emotion with him.

Also commendable in their roles are the youngsters Lama and Allona Kabo Lepcha as “Kavya,” his high school love interest. The couple look cute together and the best part is that they do not overdo the romantic bits. The innocence around ‘first love’ is rather sweetly maintained. Legendary filmmaker/actor Tulsi Ghimire also makes a comeback on the silver screen as a catholic priest/teacher with suiting dignity. Albeit in a supporting role, Aruna Karki as the friendly “anggie” (auntie, in local dialect)—a Sherpa woman who runs an eatery on the highway—is another kind-hearted, caring and immediately likeable character you’d want to meet for real. She’s a veteran and that’s how veterans should act. (Pun intended post-Dal Bhat Tarkari and Kumva Karan.)  

The best thing about Appa is that the young filmmakers from Darjeeling manage what most seasoned producers and directors in Nepal fail to—capture the essence of their location as well as of the local dialect. The cinematography is amazing and proves why Darjeeling is called the ‘Queen of the Hills.’ But more admirable is the characters in the film internalizing the ‘Daarj lingo’, which is quite popular even in Nepal for its unique diction and embedded humor.

The hills of Darjeeling resonate with music and director Gurung, who also takes credit for the film’s soundtracks along with Saikat Dev, has been able to capture the musicality that nature has given them. The songs in Appa are beautiful and the background score just fitting.

The film is evidently a low-budget production but Gurung has done a commendable job of holding together the screenplay for 1h 40m. The second half does get irritatingly Bollywoodish and at times lacks creativity, but all the good things about the film make up for these minor lapses.

Who should watch it?

Daya Hang Rai’s fans who have never lost their faith in him since “Loot” will definitely be proud of his role in “Appa”. Also, this is a family entertainer with an important message. It’s thus for everybody.

Rating: 3 stars

Genre: Family/Drama

Run time: 1 hr 40 mins

Director: Anmol Gurung

Actors: Daya Hang Rai, Allona Kabo Lepcha, Siddhant Raj Tamang, Tulsi Ghimire, Aruna Karki

In the geopolitical competition between global powers, it is hard to differentiate democracies from dictatorships. The Americans, the supposed global torchbearers of democracy, have repeatedly intervened in other countries to remove democratic governments and install their own puppet rulers. In this they are no different to the totalitarian Soviet Union that in its heyday dotted the world with its own puppet communist regimes, or the modern-day China trying to ‘buy’ influence abroad. By the same token, nor is the democratic India’s desire to maintain its absolute hegemony in South Asia out of place.

This is the central thesis of ‘How They Rule the World: The 22 Secret Strategies of Global Power’, a new book by Pedro Baños, a Spanish army colonel and an ex-member of the EU’s counter-intelligence corps. With the help of his knowledge gained working for various security organizations, Baños says powerful democracies and dictatorships alike use one or many of the same 22 strategies to get a leg-up on their competitors. He argues that on the global stage there are basically two types of countries: “the dominant” and “the dominated”. The first group “exerts control on a regional or global scale” while the second group is “controlled… in various ways—militarily, economically, culturally or technologically”. As the big powers try to get even more powerful, to avoid being devoured by this rivalry, the comparably smaller powers have no option but to fall in behind one of the big powers, or to join an alliance of like-minded countries.

But what are the strategies the big powers use to remain ahead of the pack? They may use the strategy of deterrence (‘winning without fighting’) or the strategy of encirclement (‘outmaneuvering adversaries’). Or they may feign and conceal (‘mastering deception’) or sow seeds of discord (‘defeating enemy from within’). The bottom-line is that these powers have the military and economic strength to compel smaller powers to do their bidding.

Baños says every geopolitical decision, from forging alliances to declarations of war to imposing economic sanctions, has an ulterior motive. “Concepts such as ‘human rights’ may be referred to, but countries will always act out of self interest.” What is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is highly subjective in international relations, he says, and wants us to know of how we are being systematically manipulated. The author’s end-goal, however utopian the idea, is to build an international order “that strives for and prioritizes human security over national security.”

It’s an interesting, breezy read for anyone interested in big power politics. But the book is also a little disorganized. The 22 strategies comprise just one of the four parts of the book and they don’t always mesh well with the other three parts, each of which analyzes this politics through its own framework. A useful primer on the subject though.