This is a collection of Short Stories (some prize winning) written over a period of some thirty years presenting a wide ranging perspective of life. They portray experiences of individuals who in the course of their daily humdrum existence come upon momentous circumstances which jar their smug self complacency and change their entire outlook on life. A common strain which runs through all the stories is the utter vulnerability of the individual when pitted against the overpowering clatter of the machinery called life. There is a massive gush of apathetic mechanical activity out there which can anytime douse the tenuous flicker of one's own emotions. The Characters are drawn from various strata of society be they a daily wage earner, a smug sophomore, a confused young couple, a sexual pervert, a beleagured single woman, a nave teenage lover or a fling-seeking damsel well past her prime. Thrown into the cauldron of life each frantically struggle to keep their ends up. Some just succumb, while most finally resign themselves to the nebulous drift of existence, as undecipherable as the inexorable cycle of birth and death of stars.