RIFLE RANGE BOY

Over the past few years, a couple of my childhood friends had the misfortune of having lost their spouses to cancer. One of them fought the deadly disease tooth and nail, but unfortunately, after three long years, the disease got the better of her. He lost the good fight. My devastated friend went awol for an entire year, deciding that solitaire was the best remedy for a broken heart. The societal expectation for the grieved to open up his emotions and replay them like a broken record was not for him.  One year after her demise, at 60, he introduced his new other half to the world. Conversations and felicitations on his plunge revealed that it was a necessary indulgence for him. Even though his children were married and he was a grandfather three times over, he felt the need for intimate touch and passion. He is a happy man. The memory of his old wife is very much alive, and he will cherish them till the end of time. Another friend with a couple of late teenage, young adult daughte...

Marriage Story (2019) You start a family appointing yourselves as the nucleus and the other appendages as equal partners and essential requirements of the cells. You do your part thinking that they would do the same. You assume that even though the nucleus is the first pre-requisite, the others would take their place and do their part for a balanced multifunctional cell.   You think that everything is fine until it hits you one day. The nucleolus, which is an integral part of you starts telling you that you are evil. That you are gaslighting her. That you think that you are the only one that matters.   Before you can realise what hit you, you are bamboozled with examples of your so-called ‘misdemeanours’ as if you did it for your own selfish reasons. You thought it was for a harmonious internal milieu, but it did not appear so. You thought every organelle was in concert with that - to maintain zen. Suddenly your every action is against you like you are some kind of...