The attractions too hard to resist....

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, many creative musical compositions were apparently composed under the influence of mind-altering substances. The media also advertises high-flying lifestyles and horse racing like a sine-quo-non of life. They conveniently omit the fine print of the danger of living in credit and bankruptcy.

Just how much can an average being can control his urges. One needs to have enormous willpower to remain sane in modern life.

'To Leslie' brilliantly tells us what happens after the money earned from a lottery goes dry. Reality hits the winner when the party lights dim and the money for drugs and booze fizzles out. Lack of prudence makes Leslie live door-to-door in a suitcase, and she loses the only love of her life, her now adult son. The film narrates how Leslie struggles to get her act together, stay sober and get in the good books of her beloved son. In the meantime, she finds love from a soul who truly understands her predicament.

Good acting and a good message, but we have all seen too many similar real-life instances to predict how everything will unfold.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Not quite a flight by night!

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 briefly explained his proposal. He was to issue a piece of paper bearing his name and a promise. If one were to keep that paper till the beginning of the next school year, he could claim his dues. A piece worth 10 cents and would be worth 30 the following year. Wow, 200% returns!

His offer was being snapped up like hotcakes. The proposal appeared too simple. Just by tucking a piece of paper into my wallet and leaving it to rot would earn money. That sounded like a good deal. I paid my 10 cents and patted myself for being smart.

Time flew. Standard Three passed us by. Mr Beh, our class-master, proved to be a tyrant after all. He thought he was imparting wisdom to his students with his secret weapon of pinching the inner thigh, pulling the side-burns and public stripping of students. 

1973 came without much hoopla. I was excited thinking of the thirty cents that I was due to get, counting all the days for school to start. 

All the remunerations' joy came down to zilch when all of us arrived at school on that day. OBK was no more to be found. Maybe he may come the next day, we thought. Nothing. And the next day. And the next day. He had apparently changed school, away to another state. That was it. The promise of a 'windfall', by our own standards, came tumbling down. 

To this day, we were left wondering. Did he plan such an elaborate plan knowing quite well that he and his family were moving? Was it just a scam to get quick cash to finance whatever he was up to? 

Anyway, an experience like this in School of Hard Knocks built our mantle in dealing with the challenges in life as we eased ourselves into adulthood. Parents never knew about it. We just let it be and moved on with life. Smarter!

Come to think of it, Jho Low's modus operandi smells much like OBK's - promise the moons and the stars to clients whilst JL and MO1 have a whale of a time.

https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.