Reek of Steel

The ancient battle between good and evil is fought in the heart and mind, carried over into social institutions, and pegged there. Institutions like the law, education and culture are the places where values are clarified and upheld for social good. When vices creep into universities in the form of alcohol and drug abuse, lax moral values and lackluster commitment to high principle, then these hallowed places begin to reek. Juma is a young father who works as a conductor in a public service vehicle. His wife is uncomfortable in the lower class urban residential place they live and requests to be relocated to their rural home. He reluctantly agrees and she leaves with the children. He now finds himself with the opportunity to carouse with his mistresses, cheapening, even if not breaking, his marriage. He makes friends with university students and sells them drugs. He is, however, also a hard-working man, though he is on occasions dishonest with his employers. This sometimes brings him perilously close to real tragedy. In a big urban place bustling with people, communication is scant, and it is a decadent popular culture that prevails. Judgment and values are distorted. The individual is thrown back to his own moral code and centre to navigate a way out of the wide and spreading madness.