new hope. He filled generations of old, beleaguered hearts with a new belief - we can be champions!

And like a Bollywood hero, he fulfilled that promise with a six over long-on.

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A few weeks ago, I couldn't bring myself to watch beyond the first few minutes of a tamil movie, Visaranai, in which a group of immigrants are tortured to plead guilty for a crime they didn't commit.

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After years, I sat down today with coloured pens and an unruled notebook - as lines interrupt fluidity of thought - and meticulously built a mind-map. Names, phrases, ideas, thoughts... Neatly linking to each other, hopefully to make sense when I revisit these pages in a few days.

Armed with the right stationery, the immersive experience of learning from a definitive textbook is unparalleled. I was particularly pleased with the restraint I exercised today; I didn't reach for my phone for three whole hours.

In fact, I'm so pleased with the day's outcomes that I'm making this a habit: put away all digital screens, sit patiently with a wise, old book and learn.

Sundays have become great, again.

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Social Media incentivises us to amplify that personality-sliver we want others to see, and hide large portions of the true self; even if you chose to reveal these large portions, gatekeeper-algorithms will limit your ability to do this as the masses aren't interested in such truth. It's boring.

If you can thus be termed a "personality" on such platforms, having invested time and effort to build content and sell your slivers on these platforms, you will notice that this sliver you choose to showcase grows and all other parts can more easily be hidden.

This happens until a point when you believe that this fascinating veneer is indeed you, and the rest of you - the part that still makes up a majority of your offscreen life - is less true.

Isn't it scary that tools built to simplify communication now empower millions of phony faces, constantly at conflict with themselves as soon as the camera is turned off?

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My name is Balraj, and I have been a security guard at Ansal Mall for the past two years. I have an 8-hour shift, and usually nothing happens. The life of a security guard is quite boring.

[Full story in caption]

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A baby-monkey cries, stranded on a sun-shade, separated from its mother on a tree a dozen feet away. Between them: empty space, and a three-story fall.

The mother's grip tightens on her branch, as she prepares to jump. No other humans or monkeys around.

I'm scared. And I wonder if this sort of empathy for members of another species is uniquely human, or if a monkey would feel similar fear and pain watching a human or a puppy in this situation.

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2014: I walked along Bandstand with my Sudanese friend, Douglas.

We dodged joggers, and were careful not to stumble upon interlocked bodies of couples in love. But soon, I realized everyone was turning to look at us.

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#HumanityIsDead

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Is it not strange that one fake $20 bill

As green as all the others you've spent

Can result in an officer kneeling on your neck

If you're black like the other thieves he has met?

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What is happiness but the quality of mental states we're in consistently?

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