Sentry Tower

What is society? Studies have shown that; evolutionarily; animals that live in social structures tend to have a ‘memory of acquaintances’ i.e. a maximum number of individuals that each individual is directly interlinked and related to. This number within a group varies according to the need for cooperative survival as well as with the intelligence of the species in question. In a pack of wolves, while the alpha male is recognized and deferred to by all the pack members, however among themselves, the relationship between two individuals may be limited merely to their hierarchy in the pack order. Chimpanzees, after humans, have the largest social recognition memories of up to twenty five individual relationships. The number for humans is estimated, based on the cognitive capacity, to be somewhere near twenty -thousand.. Even today, in the information age, there is a need for the individual to be part of a larger social network to meet and satisfy al...

It is getting dark. S stands on the porch of the tea-stall where he is idly swirling the last dregs of his cup. His cigarette smokes away by itself in his other hand. He flicks it away. The lit tobacco detaches from the filter and falls to the ground still smoking. Idly he observes that the butt looks oddly headless. The ash is still smoking. Like the last breaths of a dying man. A headless man. Shaking his head he walks away. The road is bleak and has little sign of life. It is a chilly winter evening. The dogs are shivering, even curled up in their cozy nooks. His breath steams out in front of him. He remembers blowing it out like a cigarette as a child. To feel like he was smoking. It was a short term pleasure. Oddly like smoking. Every child does that. He blows out to see a stream of his breath fogging over. It gives him some satisfaction. He lights another cigarette. Why substitute when one can have the original, he wonders, his thoughts wandering. Smoking is oddly cathartic. ...

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely my personal opinions and deductions, I do not mean to offend the sentiments of the members of any religious community. Let me first examine the premise: religion. What is religion? Let's go back to the basics, the How. Religion began when cave men saw the Sun. A magnificent ball of fire that gave warmth and if too hot, killed. Also they saw that the plants that grew where sunlight reached and the barren patches where it didn't. All early religions worshipped the Sun and in turn the earth whom they venerated as a Mother. Later these primary forms developed and expanded and consequently, more complex representations evolved. Having an initial monotheistic origin i.e the Sun or the Earth, later evolving to polytheism and finally back to monotheism (i.e Judaism, Christianity, Islam) religion traced a full circle. Now the Why. Humans are evolutionarily adapted towards information. This can be confirmed by examining two of humanitie...

What differs verse from prose? In verse, we have imprinted in words the momentary flash of thought that chooses to illumine our minds. Admittedly in the process of characterization, in the very act of writing it we are destroying the innate nature of the thought i.e the fleeting and completely porous trajectory that it follows in our mind, veering from tangent to tangent as it traces a course from the middle of something prior to the beginning of the next. In essence, the nature of a thought is its non linearity and it's impermanence, its almost purely sensory information. To prevent the confusion of the reader, let me add an interlude: 'thought' here does not refer to the conscious collected assimilation of logically organized data that we do while we 'think things over' or 'ponder'. In my text I refer to the thought as being innately sensory in nature. A carrier of a momentary sensation, a perception, an ephemeral glimpse of a truth that in itself will f...

It is night. J walks the intermittently lit streets of the city. He is not thinking anything in particular. Thoughts flit randomly across the landscape of his weary mind. It has been a tough day. Not so much tiring as wearying. He is searching for the answer to a very important question. It is a logic-altering question. One that has plagued perhaps every mind since the dawn of time: identity. What is it? Does something like a true identity exist? However, he is not really thinking. The thought is running in a constant rhythm through his mind, much as the drone of a machine. A few steps ahead. A streetlight is flickering on and off. Each state endures for a few seconds and is accompanied by an unusual rustling noise. J is intrigued. He walks until he is directly beneath the light. There is an alleyway leading off to the right. By the light of the flickering lamp he is able to discern a human shape seated on a pile of nondescript boxes. He stands still and waits for the next flash of i...

She is sitting for her usual cup of coffee in the evening, at the usual place; B____'s; and at the usual time 6pm sharp. However there is something different about her usual place: the desolate corner she is used to occupying is filled with a strangers presence on the adjacent booth. He is a an...unusual man. She watches his face hungrily, surreptitiously, furtively, but she struggles to remember details of what he LOOKS like. She sees the sharply angular, high cheek-boned face and the angular jaw. She thinks he is all angles and edges. Then she sees his eyes. She remembered very little about them afterwards. Almost nothing except that they hold her gaze for an infinitesimal shard of eternity. It is an instant that spells oblivion. He gets up, wipes his mouth with his napkin and walks off. He is unaware of what he has caused. She finishes her coffee and for the first time, in the strict routine she has followed for the past 5 years, she sits idly in the coffee booth with her empty...

Friendship is hard to come by in the real world. Yes. I've said it. Before you wonder whether I'm making epigrammatic statements just for sheer impact, let us concur upon an agreeable definition for friendship. What is friendship? 'A friend in need is a friend indeed' is one of those irritating sayings that everyone parrots without understanding or even trying to understand the theme or connotation behind it. Adding that fact to the already limited scope of the aforementioned homily and one has a very big misconception about the entire concept of 'friendship' in general and 'friends' in particular. Let my essay now take the form of a dialogue for the sake of ease of comprehension and brevity: WHO IS A FRIEND? Q: Someone whom I meet everyday and work/study with? A: No, that is a colleague. Q: Someone whose number I possess and contact for information. I may chit-chat with and greet them when I come across them, depending upon the time and circums...