Encounters with Reality

 Black Mirror is the poison I look forward to consuming. The ideas of humanity in the increased scope of technology are sometimes so well-portrayed that the mark of philosophical deadlock stays on one’s mind for long. With these expectations, I was bit disappointed with the first two episodes of the latest season (released in June 2023). First one was fine, though utterly predictable for those with long association with series. The second one is not even a Blank Mirror episode. By just being a psychological thriller, it doesn’t even the fit to the theme Black Mirror has explored. Finally, it hit home with the third one. There it is, a question, who we are, staring in our face as the story unfolds. The episode reminded me of a cynical imagination I have nursed for long. While commuting in suburban local trains of Mumbai, I have always wondered about it when I have felt crushed right at the start of the day by a giant wave of increasingly homogenous human existence. What if two...

      There was a small town. Town head used to live in a villa at the one end of the town. The villa was really awesome, everyone used to say to each other. Yet, everyone knew that no other place in town has most acrid stench than the villa. Because the villa had drainage nullah flowing next to it. As one can predict, those who lived in villa had a wall built around the nullah, so no one ever saw it. The room fresheners were regularly used to ward off the stench. Yet, the nullah has a strange property that whenever there was a party or some official function in the villa, disgusting stench will pervade the villa. Since villa belong to the town head, no one really said anything, but everybody smelled it.         As it happens, there was new chirpy lad in the town who started saying that town head must be a dumb one since he allows the stench to emerge from the pathetic nullah. Town people were really surprised at the courage shown by...

            I watch Game of Thrones. I have read the published 5 volumes of Songs of Ice and Fire.             I observe many people of my age; the ones which I encountered in my education do not indulge in TV serials or such books. They are performing things of higher orders and living lives of higher orders. They will deny if it is asked, politely. They are nice people.             I am hooked to narratives, especially in visual forms. Yes, it frequently forces me to neglect some important activities than can have serious bearings on my purchasing power and nuisance value. There is not much I can do which I do not enjoy and there is not much which will give me enough purchasing power while allowing me to enjoy. The problem is I am not bestowed with any skill that can generate alternative enjoyment, barring this writing.  But writing c...

Everything seems uncertain and ambiguous. I might be using two words for the same flux form I see around. But precision of words is not my thrust; I am trying to be precise about meaning of environment around me. is it environment around me, consisting of past, present and future of people, is itself ambiguous or it is my nature reflected on environment? I feel the effect is in space and time around me. The age of absurdity, the age of uncertainty, the age of disintegration of values is taking its toll on me. Let me explain all these three phases, one by one. They are not mine, but now I feel them exactly as their originator would have thought. Meaning has been discussed too much. With growth of media, both in reach and depth, it was expected that human expression will find new avenues, it will find new patterns, and it will find new expressions. But the ease of reaching out made urge of expressions shallow and shallow. The honesty of artist becomes debatable, when it seems that ...