A WHISPER IN YOUR HEAD

       We had a short seminar regarding mental health in college today, which brought back the memory of a character who had stuck with me for some time. Laura Wingfield from Tennessee Williams’ play The Glass Menagerie is a reserved yet complex character who, in my opinion deserves a closer attention since she plays a structural role both in contrasting the other characters of the play as well as providing a wider context to the play.       The Glass Menagerie is a one-act drama directed by Tennessee Willaims and is regarded as one of the most iconic Broadway plays for its innovative use of postmodern ideas such as memory, fragmentation and so on. We are introduced to the Wingfield family, a struggling middle class family struggling against the urban chaos and its hardships. Since Tom, the brother of Laura was the breadwinner of the house, he becomes increasingly frustrated with his commitments affecting his dreams of a life of adventure. In the midst of that, we have Amanda, Tom’

       Putting a lot of hours in Far Cry3, the video game, it gives a really deep insight into man’s lapse into evil. It narrates a truly memorable story where the protagonist gets kidnapped with his friends in an island isolated from civilization, filled with savage pirates, native cults and mystical elements. As the story progresses, as he frees his friends one by one, he slowly gets indulged in an ecstasy of blood, violence and the euphoria of the ancient spirits of the jungle, where it reaches a point where he cannot return back to a normal life, living in a world of savage lunacy. Which neatly brings me along to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.        The story is set up in an island where a group of kids ranging from around six to twelve years old crash land from an evacuation airplane from Britain. There are no adults and the children are left on their own to fend for themselves. Quickly leaders are assigned, commanding orders forming groups for division of labor. We hav

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly: what is essential is invisible to the eye.” -       -  The Fox, The Little Prince         A beautiful absolute charm of a novel, The Little Prince by French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry goes way up top of my most favourite reads. The nature of the supposedly ‘children’s fable’ would leave you thinking for weeks at least, with its little yet deeply thoughtful musings about childhood and the hard parts of growing up.         Now although there are many lovely stories told by our Little Prince from the alien asteroid planet B612, I would like to bring you to the attention of the lonely rose that sprouted up out all of a sudden in the garden of the Prince. Although there were other flowers in the small garden, the rose stood unique with its special arrangement of flowers The Prince had never seen in other plants.         As the Little Prince talked to the proud rose, he was more and more curious about it nurturing with h

           I have to say I have a sort of a personal connection with this poem. Reading it brings back memories, which does bring a genuine smile to my face. It was 2016, I think, and my dad had got a new headphone set, with a tiny mic attached to it, nothing fancy but it looked pretty cool, holding it for the first time. Either way, my dad had downloaded the lines for the poem and goes on to record himself reciting the poem on the computer. The amusing thing was this funny Southern American accent he was trying to put in as he was recording the poem. He made us listen to it a dozen times until it was boring my insides out.  Anyhow, he was proud of his work! Now let’s get into the poem. The link for the poem:   https://thehenrybrothers.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/once-upon-a-time-gabriel-okara/                Now most of my readers would have already read this poem somewhere, and you do not want me to say how impactful the lines are right from the first time you finished the poem. It is a

        By no means I consider myself to be a great critic, however the first read of the play was an underwhelming experience for me. Perhaps I had mistaken the play for Major Barbara, silly me. Either way after putting my thoughts together I have tried to jot down an unbiased review of Shaw’s play Arms and The Man.   Synopsis ( skip if you do not like spoilers )      It is the year 1885 in Bulgaria, and a young Raina Petkoff is rejoiced as she hears that her fiancé, Major Sergius, who is fighting at the Serbian front has succeeded a cavalry charge against the enemy. As she romanticizes him for his nobility and bravery, news comes that the Serbs have retreated to their town, and a battle torn soldier finds refuge in her room. Although she was repulsed by his manners at first, she grows curious and fond of his nature, offering him refuge and food. The man explains how Sergius had led an almost suicidal move and was successful only by luck. Later after learning the relationship be

         What’s stopping you from committing the perfect murder? The idea of murder is not for the sane, the meticulous planning before and after the act is not for the complacent, and the disposal of the corpse is not meant for the weak hearted. But what happens if you do all these three perfectly, yet give yourself up to the cuffs at the home stretch? There we have The Tell-Tale Heart , Poe’s ever sinister short story.            A man convinced that he is not mad takes us through his journey of the act of murder of an old man and its aftermath. The motive is simple, he just cannot bear the sight of his pale blue eye with the film on it. He proudly explains the patient and dedicated planning with scrupulous attention to detail. The joy of the murder and the ease of his cause of pain explained by the murderer makes the reader truly question his sanity which he was desperately trying to prove in his first entrance.         Now what went wrong? Even with a relatively quiet deat

                     I’ve heard about this play ever since I’ve read the play The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. Now that I have watched the Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman (1966) starring Lee J. Cobb, I cannot wait to share my thoughts. Firstly, I would like to comment on the stunning performance by Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman, the protagonist, the delusional salesman. I had previously watched him in the film 12 Angry Men (please watch it, you’ll thank me later) and here too he does a great job in depicting emotions that I feel I would have never realized had I read the play.  The link to the play on YouTube:   https://youtu.be/Y7lGIUzUKOE?si=wmecuYXAsknxNt8X        I shall try not to spoil it too much for you as I give you a brief summary of the play. The play introduces us to an ageing salesman, Willy Loman who has just returned from New York to his middle-class apartment in Boston. His two sons haven’t found much success in business as he hoped for, and

       The other day I was playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, a video game that had a beautiful part in mine and many others’ childhood. For those who doesn’t know it’s a first-person game where you go around completing criminal activities for shady men while you try to uncover who betrayed you in the beginning, in an 80s themed city.        Now I find myself in this sudden love for everything that is 80s, Michael Jackson, Gung ho action flicks, Miami Vice, colorful people and cars, box computers and whatnot. It cannot be considered nostalgia, since I was born nowhere close to that time. However a feeling came about that made me wish I lived back then, a different era, where things seemed hopeful and beautiful than it is right now.         And I found the right word for it, Anemoia, a fairy new term, coined by John Koeing in 2012 in his project The Dictionary of Obscure Shadows. Nostalgia for a time or a place one has never known. Fairy recently the word has attained a pretty

       If you ask me and several others what their favorite film is, Rocky (1976) is going to pop up eventually in their top 5 list. Why? Because it is a beautiful work of art crafted with tons of heart and lots of sweat that kicked of Sly Stallone's star studded career complete with enough bicep curls, bullet casings and one liners challenged only by Arnie himself.       Even the trivia behind the film itself has more motivational stories than the film itself. Sly finding himself in great debt with just 106 dollars in the bank, having sold his dog just to get out of debt, worked on a script that was offered 350,000 dollars. However taking the bold step by choosing to act with no payment for the script, today here we are, the great actor, the lord of the ring, the protector of American Prisoners Of War on screen, Sylvester Stallone!         Watching the absolutely charming movie for the first time, you see the actor is only living his own life, the ageing underd

        My classmate Alan gave us a great presentation in class today on what is considered to be a piece of art? He gave us an example of a pianist playing gibberish notes of cacophony at a concert asking us whether one could classify this as art. Well dear reader, this got me thinking. Having written pages and pages of random thoughts in this blog, what does qualify as a piece of art per se? Look up modern art in YouTube and you shall find videos such as this.   https://youtube.com/shorts/WLTVfvMszjc?si=5ubfmLozZkymBK36      And the comments are exactly what you expect, everyone yelling at each other and no one listening anyone at all. Now let’s look at it this way. I take a bucket of paint throw it on a man, and then force the man into a corner of a museum. Now does it qualify as art? If it does, then doesn’t everything qualify as art? If it doesn’t then you sir are not smart enough to deduce the hidden depths of my gravity generating genius. It’s the classic case of the Emper