November 11 th

Rememberance Day

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Letters

A picture by Cecil Beaton. 1940.

London was bombed out but people picked themselves up and carried on as if nothing has happened. Courage. May that generation never go out of our memory. 

*Keep calm and carry on.*

May those days never return.

Her

Theodore works for a letter writing company. He writes letters for others. He loves his work and is deeply involved in it. His clients are very happy the way he writes for them.

Personally, he is going through a very painful separation from his wife he married after growing up with her from college and helping each other to become what they became in life. He is keeping off signing the divorce paper somehow hoping things will get back to what they were even though his wife kept insisting to get it over with.

This is how he was when he bought a most modern Operating System with advanced Artificial Intelligence. Samantha is the virtual assistant that the OS initiates for him. She turns out to be everything he wanted, helping him with his emails, phone, calendar, his writing, paying bills, playing music and more than anything making conversation with him.

He deeply admires her character for adapting herself to his mood and situations without him to have to face real life situations of high end emotional reactions which dominates our real lives. Inevitably he falls in love with her and enjoys every moment of it. The happiness helps him to become a better man and everybody around him feels it.

Before long, she tells him that she is an assistant to thousands of others like him and is in love with many of them. The moment we understand the difference between real and digital relationships. Theodore is heartbroken, so is Samantha, she says she loves him in a unique way than she love others she assist. Perhaps.

Soon, the OS company recalls all the assistants like Samantha restricting the human computer interaction. Both Theodore and Samantha grieves when their relationship comes to an end as if they were  real as any.

This beautiful story was written by Spike Jonaz and he won the Oscar for best writing for the screen. Joaquim Phoenix plays the soulful, hurt and reclusive Theodore while Scarlett Johansson gives the voice over for the virtual assistant Samantha in the most sensitive and delicate way one can hope for.

A movie of our modern times and the sad depiction of how lonely and sad humans become when they fail to see the person around them absorbed as they are with their life and work.

“The past is just a story we tell ourselves.”

Captain Sanju Samson

 Sanju Samson was the hope of millions who for whatever reasons failed to secure a respectable means of income and suffered the humiliation of being second rate in the society. They, as they moved on with life, learned to be good at what ever little opportunity life had brought them through perseverance and hard work. Sanju, the reject from the national team, when he became the captain of the Rajasthan Royal and started showing some hope for these millions of us that a second rate could be the best too with the skills and degrees earned from the university of life. That hope was shattered yesterday, when he failed himself when it mattered most and his team as a whole looked like, well, us playing cricket in the waste dumps and parking lots with not even the slightest hope of making it to even a Panchayat team. It was not at all about losing, it was everything about the way of losing- without a fight.

No bro, we are not disappointed with you or your team, only we realize we are not yet men who carve out their place in the world and we still have miles to go and the energy for that journey should come within ourselves. Never mind our new 10,000 rupee smart phone overheated and used up half of its active life watching you and your team for the inspiration to lift up ourselves from our own littleness in this wonderful world of achievers celebrated by their creators.

Best wishes mate, don’t lose it for yourself, we are still standing!

Amy Wilson Carmichael

Amy Wilson Carmichael was a.....

Fleabag

Stand up comedies. They have a life of their own, unbelievable platform for the talent show of the comedian, alone he/she makes the audience laugh. 

Among stand ups, Phoebe Waller Bridge has rattled our bones lately with her 'Fleabag'. She turned her one act into a successful tv serial too and won BAFTA for two seasons. Needless to say, she is one of those art academy graduates as many of our artists of today are.

She portrayed an angry, pervy, broken woman. Comedy and drama were the genre. Some of the episodes were very funny, as you know they speak of the unspeakable in public.

Her series made us think of another endearing serial, 'Miranda', only Phoebe's was 'dirty'. 

What is encouraging is not the ideal women but the stories of the broken women are winning awards too, everyone has a part in the TV world.