RIFLE RANGE BOY

To Leslie (2022) Director: Michael Morris When you laugh, everyone laughs with you. When you cry, you not only cry alone, the whole world laughs at you. You also know that winning a lottery only solves a few of your problems. On the contrary, it creates more issues and shows who your real friends are. No one becomes rich after winning a lottery. Another thing. The whole architecture of modern society is set up to make your life a decadent one. It makes partying enjoyable. Extragavance is revered. Alcohol is hailed as an indispensable social lubricant. The media promotes, and society encourages its usage. Nobody talks neither about its addictive nature nor of its destructive potential. But still, when a country is red and needs money, booze and cigarettes are the first things to be taxed under the heading of sin tax. Society glamourises smoking as if it spurs the creative juices but fails to mention the respiratory ailments, the dependence and the expense that ensues. To top it up, ma...

The House of the Rising Tikam. A ruin of many a poor boy. It was 1972, and we were excited to be back in school. Unlike the previous years, our Standard Three class was in the afternoon session. But like the year before that, we also had a fierce-looking master as our class teacher. It was just the second day into the schooling year. Formal teaching had not started, and everyone was so excited about seeing each other after the long end-of-year break. As in the previous year too, OBK seems to be the most popular student in the class. Like ants to sugar, everyone was pulled to his table between lessons. The loud conversations and the exclamatory remarks naturally drew me to OBK's corner. I was wondering what tall story was he up to this time. There he was, collecting coins and returning the balance. Naturally, I was drawn in, curious in wanting to know what all that money translation was about. In between pocketing the money and answering to his 'clients', OBK brief...