of one and many...

Let's talk about the 2017 film War Machine . It's quite a good film! There, I let it out right here, at the very beginning. It served up a little seat-grabbingly intense action, a few wow-that-was-amazing-acting moments and got a LOT of laughs, all the while being firm in its identity of a "satirical film", as Wikipedia calls it . The one thing it didn't get from me is the feeling that I'd watched a mediocre film. Because it's a pretty damn good one. There are a ton of reviews out there, like this one , and this . They say stuff like "A caricature of a military leader, but not an insightful one", and that the film is trying to portray the actions of said leader but its buried under "fluff". Dude, seriously? Whoever wrote such a review doesn't understand film, or satire, or perhaps reviews. War Machine's caricature of General Glen McMahon is deliberate, and Brad Pitt does quite a good job (in a scene towards the end, Pit

I watched a movie trailer this afternoon. Poignant, exciting, teasing Promising the thrill of a two-hour sabbatical. I read of an author writing a trilogy. He’s just starting on the third book, Promising an epic, nerve racking climax. A new game will be out soon on Xbox. Sometime next year, probably. I like games, I want to play this one. I met a girl last week, she gave me her phone number. Told me to call her sometime. She wants to go to college, live a life of dreams. They say there’ll be a man on Mars someday. Someday, all the fighting in the world will stop. Someday, we’ll find a cure for global warming, Famine, corruption, terrorism, Maybe even the common cold! We can all hope, I suppose. I wish I could see it all. Watch that movie, read that final book. Play that game, Maybe fall in love with that girl from last week. I wish I had the time. I wish they’d found a cure for cancer. The doctors gave me six months. I wish I could have lived longer.

It was a Wednesday morning. Sitting in an autorickshaw, waiting at the traffic lights, I was late for office. Constant glances at my watch didn't help abate the tension either. Frustrated, I looked out into the street. There, on the pavement, lay scattered some pieces of glass. Probably shattered from the window of some car, I thought. The rickshaw inched forward, a little, and the glass caught the sun. A flash of light. It was as if the glass had imprisoned the sun's brilliance, and trapped it into a smooth, luminous reflection. The immense light burst forth, enveloping the cruel, jagged edges of the glass in a softness endowed by illuminance. The rickshaw moved another inch. The vision shifted. A rainbow of colours now greeted every eye, but there were none to attend. Drops of colour were held still in an embrace of time, unknown, bizarre colours, one blending into another, so fast they were nothing more than a blur. The cosmos shifted by in that one frozen shaft of time. The

He sees the hundreds of eyes, Watching him like a hawk, As if he is nothing but a prize, To soothe the hunger of the flock. He knows they will judge him, Flay him for any mistake, For he is at the mercy of their whim, and their juvenile justice. He takes a deep breath and steadies the mike, preparing for an onslaught of attention; he refuses to give in to fright, And the possibility of rejection. A half hour later, he stops, the lecture finished, the lesson done, Now he awaits the verdict, and drops his guard, vulnerable, nowhere to run. His fate is in their hands, As on his future they sit and decide, Will he in their respect stand, Or, in indifferent disdain, be cast aside?

The darkness isn’t complete, it is hazy. Outside, you know it is night, but in here, you can’t tell. It’s been hours and hours, but Einstein’s time is cruel, and it has been eternity. You are alone in here, your phone doesn’t work, your voice isn’t your own, hoarse from shouting, hollow, your fingers are deadened with spent effort, your legs gave way long ago. The air is stale with a million breaths, The mind is numb, thought turned sluggish by panic. The morning bathes the building with light, But the lift still stands in darkness, dead.

It is late night as I return. The darkness is complete, having taken over the reins from half-hearted twilight. Time has never been a friend; I close the door on a day never to come again. The night begs me to submit —— The empty house, with the stale odour of a dead day leaves no room for choice. I stand on the threshold —— A blank epitaph to an absent presence. I have left time outside the door, and there is nought to do but await the next moment.