The New Friends Colony Community Centre

Happy Diwali

2011-10-27T21:41:00.000-07:00

The festival meant little for her. The streets of the old city bordered with cracker shops advertising Cock brand rockets and fuljharis and chakkarghinnis, little shanties done up to their best, laced with chains of little bulbs that would find the light of day when the day would lose his, large commercial complexes with large neon signs that promised to blaze the night red, blue, magenta and turquoise blue. Between these exuberant borders ran a river of people, with bright clean clothes, new or borrowed, with golden buckles and shiny shoes and polished shoes, the surface brimming with freshly oiled hair partings and the anarchic quantum foam of chunnis and ghunghats draped over heads, the air about thick with the smell of coconut oil, imitation Charlie and rosewater. A few stood out. The dervish in his tatters, conversing with invisible djinns by the oldest tree in the vicinity. The beggars, running against the common flow, trying to monetize the common flow for lunch, dinner and the cut the dons asked for, selling toys, candy floss or plain sympathy. And her.

In a stained kurta (water without detergent can only handle so much), her hair matted (it was a choice between the shampoo pouch and the bread – both of which cost Rs. 5), bent under a weight of a heavy bundle of cloth (she had deliveries to make).

While they looked away from her (the disgust), she looked away from them (the shame), she considered briefly that this might be some perverse commerce at work. Ignorance for apathy? But that wasn’t the only trade she was conducting here.

The bundle on her back, if they had brought themselves to look closer, wasn’t just pieces of dirty white cotton. This cloud of dirty white, to the humane onlooker, would reveal intricate patterns of embroidery like he had never seen before, little mughal windows complete with their delicate carvings, ripe mangoes in magical forests, fishes jumping onto the boats of ailing nobles, offering them a fleeting chance at hope and redemption, sonnets by kings and poets demanding justice from Allah and love from courtesans, the wonders of the dying craft of the chikankar, of which she was amongst the last few. The humane onlooker would rush to her, burst out in loud praises of the art she had created, demand that others give her her due. A bubble would be formed in the flow. Encircled by the praising millions, her lowly craft acknowledged as high art, she the heroine of a forgotten age raised on loving shoulders. But no one was humane. And no one looked.

She walked through the space between a shop selling flowers and another selling clothes (import rejects). Finding her way through the renowned phool waali gali, she knocked a knocker on an intricately carved door. A child opened the door, demanded kya hai of her. He wore a new WWE t-shirt, bright pink shorts, and new keds. He smelt of Lifebuoy Gold.

‘Sethji honge?’ she enquired.

‘Ruko’, the child said, and disappeared inside.

The Seth appeared, looking rather flummoxed at her sight.

‘Aaj tum yahaan?’ he asked, peeking about to notice if this disgraceful guest had been noticed by the neighbors.

‘Paise ki zaroorat thi’, she submitted, ‘ghar mein khaane ka nahin hai…Aur kaam bhi ho gaya tha…’

‘Theek hai, andar aao’, the Seth said angrily.

‘Samaan nikaalo’, he demanded.

She opened up her bundle and removed another bundle from it. The Seth took it and handed her a hundred.

‘Ek sau pachis nahin tha?’ She asked.

‘Abhi chutta nahin hai’, the Seth said, ‘agli baar le lena.’

Her work would be sold for close to ten times of what she was getting, perhaps even more. But she didn’t know that and received what she was given with grace.

She gathered her bundle and turned to leave.

‘Ruko’, the Seth said, ‘Rukhmani!’ He called for his wife and asked her to be directed through the backdoor.

On the road again, she passed the sweetshops to the old Nawab’s. His Excellency was given to the selling of horrendously overpriced antiques. His wife, meanwhile, maintained a boutique, which was fair in its equal fleecing of the NGOs that supported it and the chikankars she leeched off their craft.

Led directly into the servants area (there were guests over), she was served chai and mithai in a steel plate and saucer. Peeking past the zenana into the living room, she saw guests served in bone china plates. One day… she humored herself, her face, wry with a smile.

She made her last delivery to the modern home - a new entrepreneur who had recently gotten in touch with her. He was stocking up for his new shop. Sadly, he still operated at the old rates. The sky had started lighting up with fireworks. There were diyas at his door.

They let her in. The child was instructed to bring her sweets. Busy at his Playstation, he asked her to get it from the kitchen herself.

She had just walked in when the grandmother screamed.

‘Malaich’, she screamed. A clear reference to her dirty clothes, ‘kisne ghusne diya is malaich ko rasoi mein?’

She had defiled the kitchen, even more auspicious on festive occasion than its usual self.
Hanging her head low as the matriarch screamed insults at her, she wished she had the money to shampoo her hair and bathe and the courage to steal one of the clothes she had embroidered for herself.

The entrepreneur intervened, taking her to a corner and asking why she was such a nuisance. This was Diwali Day after all, couldn’t she have picked a better day to come and that he was out of cash after all the shopping.

‘Cheque likh raha hoon tumhaare liye, ki tumhaari manhoos surat hafte, do haft eke liye na dekhna pare.’

‘Naam kya daalon?’, he asked as he made her a cheque for a hundred and seventy.

Odd, she thought as she answered, no one had asked that question for some time, ‘Lakshmi’

friends and lovers

2011-05-25T08:22:00.000-07:00

Michael Stipe, Brandon Flowers, Ludovico Einaudi
Orhan, Michael Chabon, Brett Easton Ellis,
Scott Pilgrim, Richard the Third, Rorschach (close, but someone borrowed him)
Bessy (the former cow/buffalo/giraffe (i don't really know (i just have her skull)))
the Six Soldiers (my pearl pet water bottles)
Flurry, my pet soulfish (the screensaver on the mac)
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum (the high back and the ottoman, respectively)
the ghost of you, sitting across, smoking

the last 10,000

2010-12-29T11:30:00.000-08:00

so my lovelies, as much as i hate to admit it, this blog is a bit on the decline.

where there was a tsunami of comments on every post (18, or sometimes even 19), nowadays even 1 is a call for a black label, large and with coke. it's only logical, of course, people move on, there is no constant but change, etc etc, fuck, there are so many allusions to the cliche. but it hurts, not in the overwhelming cascade of tears kind of way but more in a my goldfish died kind of way (often sometimes in the rather tragi-comic my larger goldfish ate my smaller goldfish kind of way). and quite frankly, i am a bit of a sucker for inertia. if i had my way, i'd still be 14, staring out of my classroom window trying to evoke the seventeenth century back into being, writing shit verse for the class bully to try and salvage some empathy out of that profane tiffin stealing mass of khaki and athleticism. and then i wouldn't have met so many of you. or, for that matter, started this blog.

which brings me to a side story, think of it as required reading for the greater story (and not as the thinly disguised narcissism in nostalgia that it really is). there were 3 of us back then - the angel, the fat whore and myself. the blog was started out of my closet in lajpat with the sheer intent of becoming mark zuckerberg at the whore's insistence. the 3 of us were fairly thick, and complete conformists to the kind of immortality such a thickness dreams of. the whore got married and buggered off, eager to satisfy the aspirations concealed behind the reading of jim morrison's biography, aldous huxley and other such pretentious crap. the angel, however, persisted. the blog is named after where he was staying at the time. i could walk into the new friends colony community center any time of the night or day and be assured of serendipity guiding me to him. him moving out of there brought the foretellings of doom. the ground shook beneath my feet. the center of my world was lost. his seat at the cafe, now annexed by a sleazy real estate agent who keeps buying me americanos and inviting me for drunken liaisons with his girlfriend and him. i still go and sit there, hoping for a waft of what it was, destroying myself with caffeine, nicotine and shawarmas.

of late, the angel informed me that he was getting married. on the 31st of december, at rampur. now, for the average human being this presents a dilemma. the 31st of december is normally reserved for newyearsdeparty, girlfrand, shiny disco balls and those kinds of things. going to be with your best friend in what's easily the most monumental day of his life obviously must take second priority, given the scheme of things. now there were two important factors that were determinants of the outcome in this game.
a. owing to the usual mismanagement of financial resources i had a paltry 10,000 at my disposal. the entry to the club we were scheduled to go to had this as the entry fee. a night of dancing would yield harsh impoverishment for the consequent 10 days (i get my salary on the 10th of every month).
b. undertaking this journey would cost a trifle comparatively. also, this would fit in with the ideology of the preceding nostalgic rant (that forms a massive chunk in my narrative on life) and establish me as a man of substance with the added benefit of keeping my self respect and dignity intact.
quite obviously, b. was the preferred option. however, an interesting chain of events ensued that changed everything. the girlfrand threw a fit and threatened to go to the party with a random variable EX and other hot boys of european origin. a friend's friend who worked at the club promised to get us free entry. also, my boss mentioned that it would be highly irresponsible of me to flee the district given that an important pitch that would determine the future of our little advertising agency was due. what dawned, at this moment was that we all had, in fact moved on. only logical, i thought, people move on, there is no constant but change, etc etc,

as i write this, i am on a bus to rampur. if all goes well, i might make it for the angel's wedding. the girlfrand, as per our last conversation, is wearing her hot pink dress for her night out. enclosed in my bag is a suit i bought for the wedding on an impulse before leaving. it's still in the store's navy blue paper bag. the price tag, attached to the jacket's collar, buried between black and black, in the wake of a white shirt dark in the absence of light, by the trail of a tie that is actually red, reads 10,000.

zizi's garden of cruelty

2010-12-25T11:42:00.000-08:00

the scene opens on a lovely garden where zizi is guiding an eunuch about the place. both of them are dressed in fancy pre french revolution garb, with the eunuch pretending to be male and zizi, female.

this be my garden, she says, batting her lovely eyelids.

lovely, much like yourself, mentions the eunuch, but what be this monstrosity you seem to have grown.

the camera now focuses on a man, planted in the gound and looming large on account of being taller than required. his nose is massive, his spectacles thick and his name, max (of the black variety).

oh him, she says, her voice now morose and lacking the efferversence of youth, he's a preserved species, can't get him chopped off.

the eunuch, overcome by sadness at her predicament, puts his arm around her.

don't worry, it says, we can cut it up after it dies. it'll make for lovely furniture.

they make mad passionate love then. but she feels something is amiss.

batman and the gramophone

2010-12-03T00:10:00.000-08:00

I have an hour off from work so I go my old place. This is long overdue.

My landlord, busy getting granite tiles in what used to be a beautiful front lawn, says he’ll send someone upstairs to help me get the stuff down.

It’s a long walk to the second floor. The place was an open terrace with two fairly large rooms by the side. We spent winter afternoons there reclining on borrowed bean bags and drinking beer. An impolite old man who used to stand there at his balcony in the distance staring at us libertines was dispatched to his private middle class hell one afternoon when a close friend and I made out to freak him out. He went in and was never seen again (and if so, never staring). There were parties here where girls passed out, infidelities played themselves out and A BANDE APART was projected silently on the terrace wall while Noctuary by Bonobo haunted the fuck out of everyone present. We had adopted squirrels as children here and watched them die helplessly and tried making things easier for each other by mentioning they were playing outside in the sun as they dried, dead, covered by discarded half sleeve sweaters. An acid trip here convinced me that my love was an angel and my angel that I was the devil. Paintings and guitars and unknown Rajasthani violins lined the walls. An old music system was the bookcase. There was a kitchen where we never cooked. Inexplicable, untraceable and exotic underwear would be found on the chairs, in the kitchen and, of course, in the bed. You could find a sex toy or two lying about randomly. Sometimes, you’d realize after it was on your finger, demand an explanation and rush off to the washer (complete with malfunctioning shower and exotic soaps and shampoos and a magazine rack with an old New Yorker, last month’s Rolling Stones and all the Time Outs ever published).

As I enter, I realize the terrace has been covered completely. The floor is marble tiles. What was a lovely view is now a window. My things lie in the middle in a mound of concrete. Out of this stack of love and brick and dust, I salvage a gramophone. A batman poster I stole in my second year in college and had framed is damaged but not destroyed. The music system-cum-bookshelf is destroyed. All the DVDs are in an impenetrable sack. The magazines lie in tatters. The instruments lie about in pieces. A collage I made for my ex and her paintings lie swollen and soaked. A kindly old man in a beard appears. He’s my help. He has a quiet smile that comforts. He helps me carry the things down.

‘Everything else is to be destroyed?’ asks my landlord, still getting the tiles down. ‘Do whatever you want with it’, I whisper under my breath. The man with the beard places the gramophone and the batman poster, all that’s left, in my cab.

The winter sunlight is beautiful. I refrain from putting on my headphones.

Strangely, I feel happy. Maybe even free.

Savile Row, 69

2010-08-08T21:50:00.000-07:00

so paul runs to ringo's door and nearabout breaks down.

well hello you feckin cunt, you ruined a near perfect orgasm.

code red, mentions paul and it's off to the yellow submarine for a riveting and physics challenging drive through that golden heart of brittania, london.

i think that's why ol' stew quit, mentions ringo, still grumpy about the ruined foreplay.

no, says paul, they din't send me back from the dead for no reason, you know. it's what we do. it's important.

the wheels of the volkswagen van(given to flight and flotation at random time periods for reasons unknown) hum along the tarmac by beats electronic from a time not yet here.

the beat builds to a crescendo that explodes into the screech of the van outside george's house.

george awaiting the marks on his front porch walks upto the back and gets in.

thank god they called us in time, he says, it's an urgent case.

urgent? screeches paul.

he might die.

the van screeches outside the savile row studio.

john is there.

time machine ready john, asks paul.

vietnamese tantric techno-logy, he says, set your equipment up. i'll get the machine running.

what about you? asked paul.

don't worry, he says, i'll find a cowbell or something.

ringo, still grumpy, says, 'so, we're going through time again?

no, this delivers our song using a psycho-carmic-apple app to the patient.

through time? inquires ringo.

and space, mentions John.

Let's go says paul and they sing let it be in savile row.

sitting decades and thousands of miles away in imt ghaziabad, udayan receives the song.

ten

2010-08-01T10:39:00.000-07:00

in the clinic, patient 1/0 sat in overalls. with trousers, he reckoned, he could look like the doctors.

the doctor entered. sat without saying a word across.

funny, thought the patient, normally he wishes me a good morning.

i'm afraid, he mentioned, you have little time left.

this is fantastic, the patient thought to himself, now i'm going to make a bucket list, then do all those wonderful things. wow, i'll probably freeze in the himalayas and be excavated 10,000 years later when they have a cure for this.

how long, he asked interrupting his thoughts, far too eager.

ten minutes, said the doctor.

fuck, he thought.

is there someone you'd like to call, asked the doctor, you can use my phone.

the patient was quiet.

ten minutes, he thought, be quick you,

can i have a pen, he said, and some paper.

The Hardest Part

2010-02-22T11:27:00.001-08:00

And now we come to the hardest part in a dervish's life.

The djinn finds another dervish to live by. A congenial djinn drops by as witness to the divorce as nature plays out her proceedings

A storm gathers, dark but not powerful, so as not to upset too much. The matter is, after all, personal.

As the djinn commits to her future, the congenial djinn takes his cue. He leaves the dervish. Strange sounds are heard. The wind grows fiercer. There is the mysterious sound of doors you cannot see closing.

The right music finds a way to play itself.

In a gentle suddenness, the dervish finds himself united in a common moment through time and space with others like him. Touching without touching he feels the painful hopelessness, the consequent inebriation and the jaded happiness that flowers there after.

He is left with echoes. Shadows of memories flash by his eyes. He breathes what was, forever and forever.

(the title comes in the end)

2010-02-18T23:59:00.000-08:00

a hulk of a guy brushed past him on his way out.

he stopped for a bit, but only in thought. this was the way the city was. people hurt you and moved on. no apologies. no remorse. nothing.

his second had just broken off with him.

'it's getting too tough', she had said.

'i'll set it right', he had offered, 'just go with me this one time. we'll be okay.'

she said no. he finished his coffee. left the muffin half eaten. paid at the counter. hugged her one final time and left.

he looked back. she was on the phone. her face betrayed no emotion.

he wrapped his jacket closer against the winter chill.

there was no reason to take this badly. this had happened before.

the ecstasy. the agony. the deja vu.

thinking about it, he let out a laugh. a dark little smirk that laughed at everything bad the world had to offer.

he bought a cigarette at a nearby store. just one as opposed to a pack so he wouldn't chain.

an auto passed. he waved a hand but it didn't stop.

he stood around. an auto came round. slowing down by the side. he asked if he'd go by the meter. the driver refused.

he got in, muttering a profanity under his breath.

he got off near his place. bought another smoke. went up. unlocked his place. went to the bathroom. unwrapped a wilkinson double sword razor.

looked in the mirror.

'why so serious?' he asked his face. paused for a bit. the idea seemed nice.

The Secret Origins of the Joker

INT. APARTMENT (ROOM 49) – MORNING (with a minor edit)

2010-02-18T06:01:00.000-08:00

INT. APARTMENT (ROOM 49) – MORNING

THREE YOUNG GUYS, obviously in over their heads, sit at a
table with hamburgers, french fries and soda pops laid out.

One of them flips the LOUD BOLT on the door, opening it to
REVEAL Jules and Vincent in the hallway.

JULES
Hey kids.

The two men stroll inside.

The three young caught-off-guard Guys are:

MARVIN, the black young man, who open the door, will, as the
scene progresses, back into the corner.

ROGER, a young blond-haired surfer kid with a "Flock of
Seagulls" haircut, who has yet to say a word, sits at the
table with a big sloppy hamburger in his hand.

BRETT, a white, preppy-looking sort with a blow-dry haircut.

Vincent and Jules take in the place, with their hands in
their pockets. Jules is the one who does the talking.

JULES
How you boys doin'?

No answer.

JULES
(to Brett)
Am I trippin', or did I just ask you
a question.

BRETT
We're doin' okay.

As Jules and Brett talk, Vincent moves behind the young Guys.

JULES
Do you know who we are?

Brett shakes his head: "No."

JULES
We're associates of your business
partner Marsellus Wallace, you
remember your business partner
dont'ya?

No answer.

JULES
(to Brett)
Now I'm gonna take a wild guess here:
you're Brett, right?

BRETT
I'm Brett.

JULES
I thought so. Well, you remember
your business partner Marsellus
Wallace, dont'ya Brett?

BRETT
I remember him.

JULES
Good for you. Looks like me and
Vincent caught you at breakfast,
sorry 'bout that. What'cha eatin'?

BRETT
Hamburgers.

JULES
Hamburgers. The cornerstone of any
nutritious breakfast. What kinda
hamburgers?

BRETT
Cheeseburgers.

JULES
No, I mean where did you get'em?
MacDonald's, Wendy's, Jack-in-the-
Box, where?

BRETT
Big Kahuna Burger.

JULES
Big Kahuna Burger. That's that
Hawaiian burger joint. I heard they
got some tasty burgers. I ain't never
had one myself, how are they?

BRETT
They're good.

JULES
Mind if I try one of yours?

BRETT
No.

JULES
Yours is this one, right?

BRETT
Yeah.

Jules grabs the burger and take a bite of it.

JULES
Uuummmm, that's a tasty burger.
(to Vincent)
Vince, you ever try a Big Kahuna
Burger?

VINCENT
No.

Jules holds out the Big Kahuna.

JULES
You wanna bite, they're real good.

VINCENT
I ain't hungry.

JULES
Well, if you like hamburgers give
'em a try sometime. Me, I can't
usually eat 'em 'cause my girlfriend's
a vegetarian. Which more or less
makes me a vegetarian, but I sure
love the taste of a good burger.
(to Brett)
You know what they call a Quarter
Pounder with Cheese in France?

BRETT
No.

JULES
Tell 'em, Vincent.

VINCENT
Royale with Cheese.

JULES
Royale with Cheese, you know why
they call it that?

BRETT
Because of the metric system?

JULES
Check out the big brain on Brett.
You'a smart motherfucker, that's
right. The metric system.
(he points to a fast
food drink cup)
What's in this?

BRETT
Sprite.

JULES
Sprite, good, mind if I have some of
your tasty beverage to wash this
down with?

BRETT
Sure.

Jules grabs the cup and takes a sip.

JULES
Uuuuummmm, hit's the spot!
(to Roger)
You, Flock of Seagulls, you know
what we're here for?

Roger nods his head: "Yes."

JULES
Then why don't you tell my boy here
Vince, where you got the shit hid.

MARVIN
It's under the be –

JULES
– I don't remember askin' you a
goddamn thing.
(to Roger)
You were sayin'?

ROGER
It's under the bed.

Vincent moves to the bed, reaches underneath it, pulling out
a black snap briefcase.

VINCENT
Got it.

Vincent flips the two locks, opening the case. We can't see
what's inside, but a small glow emits from the case. Vincent
just stares at it, transfixed. Inside, we see two PVR tickets to Wolfman, starring Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins for the nine thirty show at Select Citywalk Premiere (not Gold). Vincent continues looking at the tickets, still transfixed.

JULES
We happy?

No answer from the transfixed Vincent.

JULES
Vincent!

Vincent looks up at Jules.

JULES
We happy?

Closing the case.

VINCENT
We're happy.

People I Know

2010-02-16T21:38:00.000-08:00

How many people do you know? No, don’t go for a number or anything. I’m not looking for a statistic. The way to do it isn’t running a fast rewind of your whole life, setting up a mathematical counter for every humane interaction, etc.

It’s looking for the people who stay with you. Who’re in the room with you as we speak. Who tell you what to do, how to say it and what to think.

Let me tell you about the people I know.

I never really knew his name. My mother might have mentioned it when she told me his story. He lived in Lucknow and loved this girl. She had a retarded sister. Then her parents died and she had to get her sister married to someone who could take care of her.

So she asked this man she loved to marry her sister. He said no but she insisted. He relented. They got married then. She couldn’t live with the fact and killed herself.

Mr. Agnihotri taught me Hindi straight through middle school. He drew accents at forty five degree angles, looked for parables for them in nature and stressed their enunciation as next to godliness. He was born rich but let go of everything, refusing to take part in the bitter legal battle that ensued after his relatives got greedy. He started off as a radio announcer for the BBC but left because it was too much of a journey to the radio station. He started teaching in our school then. He had a profound interest in dogs and kept close to twelve of them with him. He assembled his own radio, motorcycle and car. He even had a Luftwaffe aircraft built to scale which he hung in his drawing room from the ceiling. Also in the drawing room were pictures of African tribals, people he knew and King Edward the seventh (who he used as an example of financial, aesthetic and moral vice). He knew a large number of languages which he could speak fluently which included Sanskrit, French and Russian. His first wife was Russian but she left him and ran away. His second wife, as he once mentioned in public, wanted to poison him. His son remembers the tea parties he organized for which the who’s who of the city would turn up. He would then introduce his dogs and his son(toddling around in this canine density) in no particular order. He taught in our school for over sixty years. Then, one evening, in the annual middle school function, he took to the stage over a minor outrage, called the principal a eunuch, the librarian a whore and left for his house to get his elephant gun to shoot the vice principal. The next morning the principal announced Mr. Agnihotri’s retirement. We heard later that Jagdish Gandhi, who runs the largest school in the world and has Nobel aspirations came personally to his house to offer him a position. His job profile would include visiting various school branches at his leisure and giving suggestions to improve quality. The emoluments offered were jaw dropping. Mr. Agnihotri asked him to fuck off. He died in a hospital ward talking to the founder of our college, a French bounty hunter (who had also died close to a hundred years earlier) asking him why things were so unfair.

Our principal, Elton De’Souza, spoke in a sophisticated manner which was mistaken as homosexual in the city. He had this old car which he used to go to official functions and survey the school estate. He used to work day and night to make sure the choir sang well. He once caned a boy at the assembly because he was smiling too much. He developed a case of blood cancer and chose to stay on as principal instead of going to get himself treated. He was still there the last time I visited (too sick for an audience). The choir, I hear, keeps getting better and better every year.

Amrendra Uncle, balding and ever so helpful, had a girlfriend, let’s call her P, also balding and ever so helpful. They couldn’t get married for some important reason (which skips my mind right now). He never married and stayed alone all his life. He was found dead in his bathroom where he had slipped into cardiac arrest. Apparently, he had called for help but there was no one there.

Sumeet Agarwal never talked in class, read the short stories I wrote for him and, I was sure, never saw porn.

Sean Fox Holmes , also in school with me, mysteriously appeared out of the grey in Class 11. He played the lead guitar with a special metallic claw he had invented for himself. When I was doing a stage adaptation of Pulp Fiction, he magically resurfaced. I got him on as Lance, the drug dealer but he ended up playing Vince Vega, the lead. He had a girlfriend but was in love with Mia Wallace. After the play bombed and everything fell to bits, he disappeared, never to be seen again.

Playing Jules in Pulp Fiction was Riyazat. The first time I saw him, he was being reprimanded by someone inconsequential for wearing anti-anti-wrinkle trousers. He explained that the Presswala’s wife had run away and he was doing his level best to empathise with the poor man. I’ve been in love with him since.

The other person I love is Ankita. She sings me songs and plays the guitar very well. The more time I spend with her, the more beautiful she gets

Patrick Bateman met me when I was reading American Psycho. He was a black hole that sucked in everything you were and replaced it with his bleak nothingness. His diet included whisky, cigarettes and sex. He told me the only way to survive was to do things his way. He can convince you of anything.

He tried to get me to kill a girl I knew once. He’s not very pleasant company and I avoid him whenever I can.

I had a dream this afternoon. I was in this old house I’m in in all my dreams. It has high ceilings, antique furniture and all my books. Elton was around, putting on his dinner jacked and telling me I should go hide somewhere. Amrendra Uncle was walking out in his suit, taking a dog he never had out for a walk to the lawns. It was then that I knew it was a dream – Amrendra Uncle was dead and he couldn’t be walking around with a fictitious dog, much less take the dog out for a walk. It was then that I forced my eyes open to an empty bedroom. They were all there, the people I know.

1st & 2nd

2010-02-16T03:19:00.000-08:00

So there was this boy who always came 2nd in class. STRAIGHT THROUGH. All the way from Nursery to Class 12. And not for lack of trying. He put everything he had in it. He read stuff that wasn't in the syllabus. He gave the most expensive gits on Teacher's Day. Fuck, he even tried cheating.

But the guy who always came first just kept coming first. Unabated.

So when he was done with school, this boy went psycho.

He topped his IIT entrance exams. He made new records in all the papers when he was studying there. He made it through the country's best MBA colleges. He decided to study in the best of the lot. He topped all his papers there. He got the best placement in that college's history. He shot up through the ranks setting new standards in the industry. Once he was global head, the company shot to the top of the industry. Once that was done, he quit and started his own thing. The startup established a whole new industry, with his thing ,quite obviously, floating right on top of the game.

then one evening, he was back in his hometown, doing the whole nostalgia thing because he was bored of everything else. He was sitting in this open air cafe enjoying a lovely hot chocolate. When all of a sudden he saw this bum walk by.

He paused for a moment. Put his coffee down. And ran after him.

The bum didn't try and flee. High on his smack trip, everything was a blur to him.

This guy grabbed the bum and pushed him against a wall.

'How could you?', he screamed, 'How could you do this to me. Everything I've done, I've done it for you.' Tears streamed from his eyes as he said this. Wiping them, as he could feel another sob build up around the back of his throat, he said, ' Everything I've ever done is to get over coming second in class. Everything...'

'Funny', said the bum from his pedestal by the dusty, broken column where he had fallen, 'Everything I've ever done is to get over coming first.'

Vile

2010-02-04T03:50:00.000-08:00

Monday

I’m standing by the lift. It’s the ground floor, about 9 in the morning. I just got to the office.

There’s a beautiful girl standing close to the lift. She’s waiting for it like me. The green neon goes

from 3 to 2 to 1. With a cling the doors opens. We go in. Another man in a white sweater follows

us. He works in my office.

She’s beautiful.

I look at her, look at the man in the white sweater, look at the neon go up from 46 to 47 to 48.

The lift stops and she steps out and is gone.

At lunch, Muktesh is belligerent about a deal his boss messed up. Harmit sits by the corner and

stares out at the grey sky. I’m thinking about the girl. Out for a smoke, I smoke downstairs

hoping for her to walk out. Five minutes down the wait, I open up my communicator and run an

image search. Picking a girl with her hair, I set up an appointment for the night. There are

skyscrapers all around us.

‘Go for Mita’s’, Muktesh says, ‘they’ve got everything. Got a light?’

With a taste for the unusual, Muktesh fucked shemales, children and hamsters. Mita’s supplied

the first two.

I pass him my lighter and we stare at the fierce concrete ahead. The streets are clean here.

There’s no public transport here, everyone’s got their own cars.

After the sex, she asks me if she can use the bathroom. I refuse for health reasons and tell her
about the public toilet at the ground floor. The sun is cold and blue through the tinted glass. I

can see all of Gurgaon behind it. Square, rectangular and triangular skyscrapers cover all of it

and disappear down the horizon.

I speed back to the office. A message appears on my car terminal. It says they’re charging me a

fine for speeding. I select OK and the window disappears. Now that I’ve paid, I have legal

authority to speed to office. Everything’s legal now, subject to payment.

At office, Rana is telling us about his latest acquisition, an arranged wife.

‘Isn’t it too retro?’, the cocky new kid asks.

‘My car’s retro too’, Rana humours him, ‘I like retro. It’s cool. Not everyone can afford P.C.’

Everyone at the table laughs, including the women.

P.C. is short for Permanent Cunt, the going slang for arranged marriage.

For a short duration, I contemplate P.C.

Middle class parents cultivate and auction cunt for pay packages. MNC six figures get you top

listings.

I’m thinking about the things I can do with her when it suddenly strikes 2 and I have to get back

to work.

I check out Mita’s hoping to find the girl I saw near the lift. I don’t find her. However, I do locate

a boy who looks like a girl in my class in school. I pick him for the night and pay the fine. He’s

underage.

He’s a nice kid, I think as I see him putting his pants back on.

‘You in school?’, I ask smartly from behind a cigarette drag.

‘Company regulations don’t allow me to answer that.’

I choose not to speed on the way to work. Gotta start saving. I plan on building up a corpus to

invest. Buy a house, sometime, plan for my retirement, etc.

They’re serving chocolate truffles with lunch. It’s from the bakery at the Trident. The chef is

French. The truffles taste exquisite. The chocolate melts in your mouth.

The rest of the day is a lot of work. I nod off twice while driving back home. I’m thankful for not

killing myself. I pass out as soon as I hit the bed.

I wake up with the cramps of a man who’s slept with his suit and shoes on. The hot shower feels

better than usual. An old tune comes back to me but I can’t remember the name. I can hum it

though. I hum it to my terminal and it finds it for me. I play it while getting dressed.

‘Believe that today is going to be a beautiful day’, I tell myself as I head to office.

‘Try two’, says Muktesh during a cigarette break, ‘then it’s more about skill.’

‘Didn’t work for me’, I tell him. It was just money wasted.

‘What do you think about marriage?’, I ask him.

‘P.C.?’

‘P.C.’

He makes a face.

We laugh at Rana.

The next night, I order a special package. She arrives with a small box containing a blindfold,

handcuffs and a riding crop. She’s also wearing boots and black leather underwear.

The box has a small booklet with instructions. It’s too complicated and I keep getting them

wrong. I feel like a fool the next morning.

I hear Muktesh saying Mita’s is passé. He’s right. There’s only so much of that you can take.

Lunch is some Italian shit. Despite the five star tag, it tastes like shit.

I go home early and catch a film. I switch it off and sleep halfway.

The weekend passes quickly. I meet a girl. Things really don’t get going. We get drunk and are

still unable to get a conversation started. We apologise to each other for the boredom and go

home. I drink more at home. When I wake the next day, it’s already evening. I have a horrid

hangover. I think about Mita’s but don’t feel upto it.

There’s nothing on on T.V. either. Briefly, I consider suicide. I take more alcohol and I sleep. I

wake up late and have to speed to work. Bad news for savings.

The lift door opens with a cling. There’s no one in the lift today. I travel to my floor alone.

Muktesh

Muktesh is checking out some equipment on the internet.

He notices me notice and beckons me over.

‘Check this out.’

It’s a steel dildo which he can strap on to the top of his penis.

‘Interesting.’, I say.

‘Hold on’, he says, ‘see what happens when I twist this.’

He clicks on a section on the middle of the thing. And the top of the thing snaps open, turning

into a huge and hard metallic claw.

‘That can kill’, I say.

I realize he’s looking at me, his mouth drawn to a manic smile.

Muktesh’s house is like a giant device built to the sole end of a fuck. His bedroom closet opens

up into a small room with red walls, hooks on the ceiling, a chair with straps, a love seat the

shape of a horizontal s, an operation table, a wall with a variety of interesting dildos, gags,

masks, pipes, chains, belts and the customary handcuffs, a large plasma screen and a naked

Ukranian woman in a cage by the side.

‘Nice mask’, I say, pointing to her face.

‘Yeah’, he says, ‘keeps her mouth open all the time. So she can’t shut it even when she’s

choking.’

The girl seems to be in her twenties. She’s blonde and malnourished, lying listless by the side.

Her hair is matted and she stinks. He doesn’t let her out to use the loo.

‘Isn’t she dirty?’

His jaw arches backwards, stretching the botoxed face over his skull like a plastic balloon. The

eyes remain as wide as ever. It’s the same smile he gave me in office that day.

He was checking out equipment on the internet when I happened to be passing by. The metallic

dildo was one of them. He showed me more and invited me over to his place on the coming

Friday.

Muktesh is into snuff. For the unacquainted, it means killing the person you’re having sex with

before, in the midst of or after intercourse. It includes slitting his/her stomach before

intercourse, strangling him/her while you’re at it, hanging him/her on top of your bathtub and

slitting him/her like a halal and, of course, using devices like the one he was purchasing over the

internet.

This is the Friday and I’m happy I came.

Upstairs, the guests have started to arrive. Men and women dressed in suits in Audis and BMWs

and S Classes. Some bring bottles of wine, some bring their beautiful young wives.

‘You should have asked me to dress up’, I whisper to Muktesh as he goes around, receiving his

guests, ‘this is like a black tie affair.’

‘Wait till they get to the hall’, he whispers, ‘they’re like animals.’

A small boy in a mini tuxedo walks in with a couple. The gentleman is wearing a traditional India

silk kurta with pajamas and a shawl. His wife, thin, tan and chiseled is wearing a revealing saree.

‘They’ve brought their son?’ I ask Muktesh.

‘That’s not their son.’

And then there’s that smile again.

P.C.

Two months later, I’m done with Muktesh.

He does it all to see the expression on your face. If he was into it for the experience, he’d be as

bored as I am.

I had a chat with Prince Anwar, one of his other guests, and he was as bored as me.

‘It’s more of a social get together’, he said, ‘nobody gives a fuck about the fuck.’

Prince Anwar is graduating from Columbia and therefore discourses on the polemics of the

situation.

Apparently, I had noticed one of the older gentlemen do something gruesome with the boy and

had said, ‘how did we get like this?’

Prince Anwar informs me it had started with the youporn revolution. Sometime around 2007,

amateurs around the world had started putting their videos on the internet. The literati, led

mostly by the libertarians, had celebrated what they thought a milestone in the freedom of

expression. The revolution would herald the collapse of the porn industry and a new age of

greater social freedom.

The industry, however, had protected itself. Pornstars got themselves forked tongues, bipenes,
rectal implants and a dozen other biological upgrades, becoming living, breathing sex toys for

money. Pornstars were the new rockstars.

As a corollary, prostitution had been legalized. The sex industry was now out in the open.

Instead of reforming itself, as the legislators had said it would, it reformed society.

Free market capitalism went well with the new social dynamic. Tele-marketing was now the

worst crime and a fine the worst punishment.

Prince Anwar rounds up his monologue by asking me to consider saving for a fuck with a

pornstar.

‘It’s something else’, he said.

That was my last afternoon at Muktesh’s place.

Realizing that sexual excesses weren’t helping I went to 32/4 Sector C, Patparganj, New Delhi to

meet Nalini’s parents.

Nalini’s profile had been put up on a marriage website.

To get to it, I had to choose between fair, not fair, had to put in my preferences for height,

ethnicity, caste, age, education and had to put in my salary package. I got 209,000,000

responses. She was the third. Her picture looked good.

Her profile had said

Fair, good looking, tall, English speaking, M.A. educated girl, 23, looking for well to do Hindu

boy, working in MNC, executive position with high salary, benefits.

The parents, an old man in a white kurta pyjama and heavy plastic frames and his wife, as old,

saree clad, with a smile pasted on her face, asked me to sit in the living room. There was a

wooden sculpture of Krishna playing the flute in a corner. On the wall were some framed

certificates. In another corner, in a vase, were some plastic flowers that kept changing colour

from blue to green to red. There was a wooden table between us which had a scale model of the

Cutty Sark (‘My nephew, in U.K.’, she had explained). There was a sofa in the room, at different

ends of which the couple sat. There were two other chairs (of the same make as the sofa set),

one of which I sat on.

I had talked to them earlier, setting up this appointment.

Here, I repeated what I had said on the phone, quoting my salary, my age and lying about my

family background.

They asked me to repeat my salary.

They laughed after for no apparent reason.

‘Nalini’, they called out then.

Nalini appeared, carrying a tray with tea and expensive biscuits. She was non descript and

pretty. She didn’t make eye contact. I could discern a smile on her face.

On the wedding night, I pulled out a bottle of scotch and asked her if she wanted some.

She said no.

I held by her hair and forced her to drink it. Then I hit her until she started crying.

I pulled a chair and watched her cry. As soon as she stopped, I hit her again. I kept taking shots,

neat, while I was at it. I don’t know when I passed out. She was still there in the morning.

It’s been two years since we’ve been married.

Over time, her crying has grown quieter.

She doesn’t resist when I rape her. Often, I think she’s been bred for submission.

I feel nothing for her.

Her parents haven’t been in touch since we got married.

One evening, I pay four men to burgle my flat, gang rape my wife and kill her.

I watch it in slo-mo on my security tapes.

It does nothing for me.

Her parents come for her cremation. They offer me their condolences.

Action

In Babylon, Celia smoked on the balcony. A pot bellied Belgian businessman lay, cock subsided,

on her hotel bed. He had come thrice last night. At his age, that was a miracle. She’d get her five

star rating. The surgery had worked.

Her phone bleeped to life. The reminder would always come on, even if you switched your

phone off. She was required to be gone. The client had paid for a wet dream. Girls from these

dreams aren’t smoking on your balcony when you wake up.

Her Alfa Romeo, parked downstairs, took her and its chauffeur down the cobbled streets to

what she called home.

Stopping out at the canal, where an old man walked his dog after a night of pissing down a 12

year old’s throat and slitting it later, she made her way to the second floor where the security

system would scan her retina and let her in.

‘What if someone took my eye and passed it through’, she thought, past her living room and

panties as she made her way through the living room.

Later, as her shower breathed medicated steam, not water (after the implant water was

dangerous) her answering machine read messages to her.

Murli said, ‘Celia, later in the afternoon you have to fuck him. The formalities are done. He’s

paid up. He’s from home and stuff.’

In the steam she cursed Murli for the tight schedules. But she’d been doing that for thirty years

and she had known him longer than anyone. And she knew that. A couple of more jobs, and

they could pack funding for her latest film.

Later in the afternoon, after the medics had said that her blood was still clean. She made her

way through the town square to the basement at the Café Voltaire. The staff was there. They

stripped her and strapped her onto the wheel, leaving as they always did in a cold professional

silence.

Around fifteen extremely long minutes later the door creaked.

He was alone.

He got around to it, using her on the wheel then letting her loose and taking her to the

bathroom.

Finally, when he was done, he lit a cigarette.

She could see tears streaming down his face.

‘You know’, she said, ignoring the black irony that was the blood and semen on the bed, ‘I’m

from India too.’

‘I know’, he said, ‘mother.’

nation under dog

2009-11-18T08:36:00.000-08:00

Into the great machine B, popped D, like the mandatory 1 rupee coin but with 6 duffel bags and a recycled mineral water bottle. Delivered from the suburban constituency of G to the great railway station of B, he was packed into a giant air tight human mass that propelled him past the samosas and the stench onto the road where it dispersed into buses and taxis and the assembly line that traversed the great B footpath – stretching from office to market to home to
miscellaneous. His taxi delivered him to a large municipaltic block where it subtracted half his financial corpus. Green lines between the cheap mosaic took him to a rusty lift door that left him at the fifth where he gained entry subject to verification of Rs. 50,000 deposit and Rs.7500 monthly rent by roommate. Following which he was on the assembly line with portfolio as lubricant, seeking entry and achieving ejection like a rogue VHS does from a moralizing VCP.

After not making it to the position of advertising executive for a tolerable time period, D sought exit. His application, with razor to wrist, was approved.

This was the exact moment the pug from the H advertisements had achieved exit on account of a piece of bone too large for his oesophagatic function. The resultant dispatch to the H office led to the emergency meeting function being operated for the second time that day. Here, the points of the MD’s syphilitic predicament, cockroaches in the coffee machine, the hot new intern and the dead pug were tabled and discussed (in that same order). The resolution that the concerned advertising agency locate the solution was delivered to the advertising agency with ‘the deadline was yesterday’ as appendix.

Following the protocol of 3 Navy Cuts, 2 coffees and seventeen crumpled sheets of unrecycled paper, the advertising executive gave ‘I can’t do this’. After receiving a ‘Syntax error. Does not compute.’ from H, he operated the mentor function on his telephone which gave ‘Yeah, we had to bring a dead celeb to life once. Try this guy.’, providing a logical spiral that led him to an underground city beneath a carpet shop with attending necromancer demanding cadaver with ‘fresh and suicide’ as added attributes. On further inquiry, the necromancer gave, ‘I don’t know. Try the fucking yellow pages.’ Following up on the fucking yellow pages, he was routed to a BPO facility in Shanghai, which forwarded him, via underwater trans-atlantic fibre optic wires, to a low cost facility in the Ukraine, which forwarded him to a lower cost facility in Harare, which forwarded him to a yet lower cost facility in Memphis, which forwarded him to a lowest possible cost facility that was half a block away from his present location where D’s former room-mate provided service. ‘I need a corpse’, gave the advertising executive, ‘should be a fresh suicide.’

‘My room-mate just offed himself’, gave D’s former room-mate, ‘I was planning to sell his organs, so if I could get a sum that qualifies I’d get his corpse across to you.’

The former room-mate’s estimate, visible on hand scrawled piece of paper with hidden cost incurred by advertising executive for the purpose of purchasing delirium, was tabled and discussed with the intern’s compatibility with double penetration, the thriving cockroach colony in the coffee machine and the MD’s travel plans (in the reverse order). The resolution that the money be paid with the appendix ‘this had better fucking work’ was sent via quick footed secretary to Finance which prepared a cheque to be added to the package to be delivered to the
agency.

The agency, on receipt, delivered it, via flyer equipped with helmet and bicycle to a money launderer who converted it to hard cash in duffel bag (Rs. 5 per hour on returnable basis) and delivered it back to flyer busy operating his groin scratching function out in the sun. The flyer, as per his preset program, delivered the hard cash in duffel bag to advertising executive who, post subtracting his cut, proceeded to the proposed rendezvous point with D’s former room-mate who converted the hard cash in duffel bag to empty duffel bag and cadaver in large black plastic packet. ‘Why’s it so twisted?’ gave the advertising executive. ‘Rigormortis’ gave D.’s former room-mate, ‘and the fridge was too small.’ Following which the cadaver was delivered to the attending necromancer who gave, ‘fuck, you actually managed’, and made application, via mini axe and happy goat, to the netherworld to operate an ectoplasmic lever meant for such reanimations. D popped back into B via pug substituting ‘Fuck. I’m a dog’ for the former ‘Mama.’

‘He’s talking’, gave the advertising executive, ‘why the fuck is he talking?’ ‘Maybe because of too much proximity in their time of deaths’ gave the necromancer, ‘It’s been known to happen.’

‘What do I do now?’ gave the advertising executive. ‘I don’t know’, gave the necromancer, ‘try the fucking yellow pages.’

The added property of sentientality gave the pug a decision operation which it didn’t have before, which D had access to on account of the possession. Using it, he accessed brand opportunities beyond those offered by H using an economic model which provided it co-equity in the added brand spaces, activating a realignment that supported a favourable monopoly. The activation switched on a resistive mechanism run by a reactionary coalition between SRK and AB (constituting the predominant power dynamic). The mechanism pushed artificial clamps on demand, using the vaccum created to set up microcosmic revenue structures for the coalition.

On adequate dissipation of financial corpus and consequent lack of prostitutes willing to do it doggy style, D operated the mentor function on his telephone. ‘Fuck dude, I thought you were dead’, gave mentor. ‘No yaaar’, gave D., ‘acha, tell me how to deal with this predicament na. We’ll talk about your short film later.’ ‘The resistive mechanism is dependent on the coalitions’ influence in the film industry’, gave mentor, ‘this in turn is a function of a third world construct such as ours where advertising works as a derivative of cinema.’ ‘Why are you speaking like
that?’ gave D, shocked at the response. ‘To keep this short story short.’ gave the mentor.

Accessing a global cinematic archive provided D with the answer that a format with a non speaking comic as USP was possible and covertly delivered the final residue of his revenues to a debutant director for conversion to film. The film overrode the clamps on demand, which had exponentiolised on denial, eroding the coalition to zero and achieving the status ‘big hit.’

In the consequential circuit, AB left for offshore colonies to access a nostalgia function by converting limited budget art house productions into currency flows, SRK sought exit from the eighth floor applying to concrete floor downstairs with possible heart attack on the way and D found himself on the receiving end of an affection impulse while on PC’s lap, en route to a felicitation ceremony at the Governor’s residence. Transported, in close proximity to PC’s diva like mammaries, he was granted free mobility on the Governer’s front portico past the stairs. On
interaction with a tall colonial column, his nervous system involuntarily switched on the excretement function as a result of which he raised his leg and started to pee to which PC gave a delighted giggle, D’s soul gave a silent ‘shit! This is embarrassing!’ and the left side of the pug’s cranial muscle gave ‘I fucking own this place.’

dead professors

2009-11-18T08:26:00.001-08:00

I had a strange disease.

Not to say there aren’t stranger diseases. My mother once mentioned a man who got an asthmatic attack every time he saw a cat jump over a cupboard and walk along
a carpet, another time an acquaintance claimed to have suffered from a bout of madness (the neighbours called it possession) after he took a piss on a grave. I could go on, but that would be deviating, not to mention boring (Anumitra sips on her coffee pretending oh so politely to look interested).

This is about my disease.

I kill professors.

I don’t know exactly how. It happens like this. Over 10 years ago, Ma’am B. Bobb gives our class a lecture (Class VIII C with an asbestos roof in what used to be a mad bounty hunter’s exaggerated crypt) on the moral inadequacy of theft. Seven years later, as I present an idea I stole from an intern in a client meeting, Ma’am B. Bobb dies.

Similarly, around 3 months ago, I notice a mullah sitting next to me in the airport lounge (Aeroplane crashes into WTC on a 21” colour screen, thank you Rupert Murdoch) and I go and report him to security. 2 guards walk upto him and drag him, indiscreetly, to a security kiosk. There, they strip search, humiliate and arrest him for a can of shaving foam and a razor (quite like the one in my bag).

3 years ago, Professor Deo is giving a lecture on how ethnic discrimination is malevolent to the concept of public spaces (‘take Peer to Peer software’, he says, ‘closing out a community might mean closing out an entire pool of material.’). 3 months later, at roughly 3 in the afternoon, while eating lunch at the high table, he dies. ‘His body just shut down’, said the doctor to the sister to her friend to a reporter. That was around the time I reported presumed Osama Jr. to
the cops.

Till date, I’ve killed at least 7.

And I say at least 7 because a lot more have died.

The 7 I’m sure about, I’m sure about because of Venn intersections in taught curricula and my inaptitude in the same in a real world environment.

For instance, because of the event mentioned in the above diagram, my Economic Development Professor, Mrs. Leema Prakash Mohan died.

So, in no uncertain terms, we’re talking about 7 murders.

7 complete universii destroyed.

7 sets of possibilities, tending to infinity, rubbed off the board.

Not that I’d give a damn. It was just that there was this really hot Politics Professor who taught us a sectional on Ultra Left Radicalism and wore a red lace bra, the straps of which were often visible behind her white shirt (top two buttons left undone).

I was born to graduate in English. Family, however, decided that the course was for girls and forced me into Economics. I used my instinctual understanding of the Arts to good effect, throwing around ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ in Macroeconomics, Milo Minderbender in General Equilibrium, Orwell in Systems, Beckett in Statistics and Marx in Math (I obviously mean Groucho here).

Nobody fell for it.

That is, nobody except Anumitra.

Anumitra, half French, with light grey eyes, skin as white and soft as milk, a Paris Hilton haircut that looked its best when she was naked, a frame that had found and kept its niche when she was thirteen and a bastard heavenly cocktail of marijuana and whisky as breath, was my politics professor.

The hormones had kicked in in my first tutorial with her. In the nervousl flowchart that mapped fight/flight, my adrenal gland followed the synaptic straight line to perform. If my natural talent had been singing, I would have broken into song, if it had been Math, I would have proven Bernoulli wrong (or was it Fibonacci). Given that mine was talking, I simply talked her into bed.

We’d avoid eye contact during classes and have the tutorials in her quarters on the kitchen table, in the shower or with her blindfolded and tied to her bed posts. Somewhere, between orgasm and orgasm, she unwittingly gave me a lecture on the Naxalite movement in Bihar and its importance in a socio economic context such as ours. I asked no questions, eager to move the discourse to more relevant topics.

After graduating, my marks were good enough for absolutely nothing. A brainwave said
Advertising. Another couple of them agreed.

In the business, I was a roaring success. I was the toast at Cannes, New York and wherever else they celebrated triviality. I was exchanging numbers with the hottest film stars and sexual favours with contracts.

Unbeknownst to me, all this while my mind had been working on the algebraic equation of my life, taking the vast and swampy material that constituted the autonomous (what happened to me) and the exogenous (what I did) and differentiating it with respect to what was happening around me.

One night, with the suddenness of a coupon popped out of one of those railway weight
measuring machines, it shot out a result.

I woke up to the realization that I loved her and was going to kill her.

If my career in Advertising had killed my Economic Development Professor, it was only natural to presume that my Politics Professor was already dead.

My arterial muscles shattered against my cardiac walls, giving the sensation of falling to a hundred pulpy bleeding pieces.

I went across to a nearby 24 hour pharmacy and bought a carton of cigarettes. I smoked and smoked till the night dissolved to day and my tally stood at 7 20’s and 3 (N.B. I had stopped smoking since I had started believing the 1 cigarette for 5 minutes statistic, so this was me committing suicide five minutes a time).

I felt the nicotine move in my blood. The tar from the No Smoking TV Commercial moved like worms in my veins. I swallowed hurt, thick, mucousic, slowly. There was an ache in my stomach that said ulcer, a heaviness in my lungs that said lung cancer and a sting in my mouth that said mouth cancer. I was a discarded cigarette packet that I was tossing into a dustbin with the used tissues, the crumpled balls of paper and the pubic hair. Thankfully, shortly it was 10 and I could stop pretending to be Saul Bellow.

A large number of kilometers and a few traffic lights away, a phone rang in a college office.

Hello, said Michael Bannerjee, with Gandhi glasses and long sideburns.

Is Anumitra Breuiller dead?

No, she is alive.

The roof above me opened up and there was a pillar of light stretching from DX-12, Kendriya Vihar to the heavens. The angels of high surrounded it in a symmetrical spiral that resembled a creeper. I believe, there in the sky, I saw god, smiling at me and saying, ‘she’s all yours, go fuck her.’

But I knew this was just the joy.

I couldn’t let her die.

I’d leave my life, travel to the war torn districts down south and start fighting for justice, for socialism and (what was infinitely more important) for her.

Around a year later, I was out there in the wild, gun toting and a lot less fatter than I was in the city. Ripe in my mind was our last conversation.

‘No, I’m not in Advertising anymore.’

‘Oh’, she said, ‘so you’ve moved to the client’s side.’

‘No’, I said, ‘I’ve moved to a jungle in central India where I’m a terrorist. I work in the typewritten threats and general nuisance department’ (delivered like Eddie Izzard without the cross dressing).

We made love then.

It worked out. She, the academic with the cause for a boyfriend, me, a freshly sucked cock glistening with joy.

I tried to make it at least once in 2 months. Camp fires became UV, mineral water became beer and Navy Cuts became Camel Lights.

Speaking of Camp fires, a funny thing happened around one once. We were sitting around smoking some Malana Cream someone had sneaked in.

‘So’, said Commandante Maya, ‘what made ‘you’ decide to join the ‘cause’.’

The ‘you’ here was indicative of my academic inferiority to everyone about. They were all PhDs.

I was a yuppie Copywriter.

The emphasis on ‘cause’ was purely satirical and indicative of Commandante Maya’s incapacity for Copywriting (you can’t emphasise 2 things in a single line, it’s like praying for a baby with two heads).

‘It’s a funny story’, I said, and before I knew it I had told them everything you’ve read up till this fullstop.

‘Hey’, said Maya, ‘that happened to me.’

‘Oh’, I said, ‘you were in Advertising.’

‘No’, she said, ‘the dead professors thing.’

‘Me too’, said someone else. And then everyone kept saying it till everyone was saying it.

‘Very funny’, I said.

I went back to my bunker annoyed.

I hated ridicule.

Later, at night, the paranoia crept in.

What if one of them told Anumitra. What if she took him/her seriously.

She’d just have to put 2 and 7 together and I’d be found out.

And what then?

Would she be grateful, disgusted, dismissive, what?

I resolved to tell her myself to find out.

After, when the girl’s just starting to get in the mood and the guy’s trying hard not to nod off, I told her.

It turned her on and we made love again.

The next morning, we decided to go to McLeodganj, a nearby hill station.

On the way, she bought a blonde wig. Wearing it, she looked like Scarlett Johansson. I loved it for the enormous erotic potential.

We stayed at a place called Nick’s which only served vegetarian food. We weren’t vegetarians but it had the best view in all of McLeodganj.

The last night, she tied my hands to the bed posts and blindfolded me.

‘So, now you’re going to take my clothes off’, I asked (like Jude Law from Closer).

‘No’, she said, ‘I’m going to kill you. I can’t live hinged on your love.’

‘But I’d never’, I protested.

‘You’re only human’, she said, and tore me open with my pocket knife.

‘Does this hurt you?’, I asked.

She didn’t hear me, and I realized I was dead.

This is it.

2009-11-18T08:22:00.000-08:00

Someone close died recently. Someone close to all of us. The funny thing is no one noticed. There was no column in the newspapers, no mention in the little rolling bar beneath the news, not even a damn epitaph on his tombstone. And since I’m the only one who noticed he’s gone, I’m going to allow myself the privilege of a eulogy.
He was called the Eighties. And given that we spent most of the nineties recovering from the mullets, the plastic and the shiny pants, we could well say he was alive even then – pulsing and throbbing in our rabid disapproval of him. An introspection, however, offers that he wasn’t all that bad.

Sitting right next to the 60’s and 70’s is obviously doesn’t make him look pretty. But think about it. Fine, everyone dressed up in the 60’s but the hippy sack cloths of the 70’s more than made up for it (not to mention the smelliness). Okay great, the idealism of those drug addled years is aspirational, but just what did flower power achieve. Sgt. Peppers, Woodstock, Warhol, who gives a fuck. What remains? The sheer presence of Metallica negates everything the Beatles ever did (and let’s not even get into the Trent Rezners, the Marilyn Mansons and the Jay-Zs here, that’d just be profane).

Onto Woodstock and the Flower Children. You’ve seen fear and Loathing in Las Vegas right? It wasn’t the deep rooted urge for a better world that drove it. It was excess. Sex and drugs(1). The world has done more of it since, why do the 60’s get all the credit.

And Warhol. Okay, hear this. An Art Director friend of mine is in love with him. Not for his ability to create art but for his ability to create MONEY. Face it, Warhol blatantly subverted art to commerce. The kind of patronage and salability he received off the 60’s expresses the period’s inability to recognize him for what he truly was – an advertising guy. Pretty damn daft for a generation claiming to have seen the light etc.

Now, the enlightened might mention, what gives you eighties kids the gumption to pick on us. For starters, we destroyed the Berlin Wall. More has been done for humanitarian relief from the 80’s to the present than ever in human history. The invention of the internet – the closest we have ever got to the global village hippies ever dreamt of. And Michael Jackson. The Maharishi said that the Beatles were angels because when they made their first appearance on American TV, on the Ed Sullivan show, there was no crime in the US for that one hour. Fuck that. My illiterate Man Friday who hails from 110 Kuchlibari, Post Bajejama, dist. Koochbehar (read backwaters), cried when Michael Jackson died. Led Zepplin, The Beatles and Queen combined didn’t acquire the kind of reach this guy did.

That the profound import of this time isn’t blindspotted by history is, quite frankly, too much to ask of this eulogy. A bit of a reminiscence, however, shouldn’t be a problem.

So well, here’s to Jughead Jones, Michael J. Fox, U2, Kurt Cobain, Jack and Rose on board the Titanic, Tina Turner, R.E.M, Bret Easton Ellis, George Michael, Madonna, Baywatch, the T-1000, Michael Jordan, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Gianni Versace, Forrest Gump, UB40, Trey Farley and Muriel the talking dinosaur, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Elton John’s glasses, Beverly Hills 90210,the X Files, the diplodocus appearing on the damn 70 mm screen with John Williams on Dolby DTS, the shapeless white t-shirts, the long curly hair, the cologne, the happy ending, the dreams, the hope, the hope, the hope…

(1)“People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around -- the music and the ideas.” Says Bob Dylan. Don’t blame him, Shakira sells more today than he does. He has to feel nostalgic.

there's no getting out of here

2009-11-18T08:19:00.000-08:00

no

no

sorry for the anti climax

but this story is far from over

i'm still trapped in nfc

and it's only legit that we follow this story to it's logical/illogical conclusion.

_

2009-09-30T16:08:00.001-07:00

Uday,

2009-09-10T05:01:00.001-07:00

I think we're the only two who read this.

Uday,

2009-09-10T05:01:00.000-07:00

I think we're the only two who read this.

_

2009-08-31T01:11:00.001-07:00

to put things in perspective

2009-08-31T01:04:00.000-07:00

Your job sucks.

Your clothes and shoes are made by overexploited underpaid children in a sweatshop in China.

Your feelings were cast, directed and produced in a dingy studio in Bombay. Your first love whored herself out in this very place.

Your aspirations are second hand American. So is your idea of feeling good.

Your favourite film is ripped off from somewhere.

The guy who sang your favourite song was just pretending.

Your education was at the hands of cynical discontented failures.

Your Diet Coke is part poison.

Your god is dead.

-

2009-08-12T00:28:00.001-07:00

There’s this one shot in a Wim Wender’s film called ‘Wings of Desire’. It shows an angel standing on the roof of a tall building. He’s on the edge and leaning forward ever so slightly. You can see the skyline in the background, but it is blurred and indistinct. Everything looks slightly grimy, as if a dust storm is brewing. The wings, however, retain their delicacy - they are white, almost transparent.

Whenever I see this image I feel a strange kinship. I keep getting this feeling that he and I are in some way similar. We are both in purgatory. He is condemned to saving souls, but instead wants to live a normal life. I am stuck with a shatteringly normal life, when I’d rather be saving souls.

He’s on the edge. So am I.

He’s leaning forward. I am too.

_

2009-06-30T10:47:00.000-07:00

The strange new things

2009-06-26T02:50:00.000-07:00

The clean bathroom,
The neat and clean,
The order as I see,
Is that mine?

The less for me,
The most for her,
The new way of things,
What is it?

The turning of the time,
The change of things,
The new language,
Do I speak?

Free of thoughts,
Full of doings,
Short of me,
Do I long for it?

This is nice,
Simple with rules,
One for me,
And isn’t that simper?

No friends to meet,
A few of hers,
She is the centre,
But where am i?

Catch me soon,
Where I will be,
I’ll be the same,
But without me.

delhi/gurgaon

2009-06-17T12:50:00.000-07:00

so i walked out of allnut gate, talking on my mobile phone/so i walked out of the office, talking on my mobile phone.

before we'd mentioned how we loved each other more than we had loved anyone/before we'd mentioned how we loved each other more than we had loved anyone.

we had talked about moving in together, about how we'd do the house up/we had talked about moving in together, about how we'd do the house up.

i saw no issue with that, she was home to me/i saw no issue with that, she was home to me.

i promised her breakfast in bed, despite an incapacity to cook/i promised her breakfast in bed, despite an incapacity to cook.

i promised her i'd clean up/i promised her i'd clean up.

she hated dogs, so there would be no dog in the house/she loved dogs, but she knew i couldn't take care of one. so there would be no dog in the house.

her parents wouldn't know/her parents wouldn't know.

the conversation was still fresh in my memory/the conversation was still fresh in my memory.

this conversation was different/this conversation was different.

i sensed something different in her voice, something alien/i sensed something different in her voice, something alien.

she said she was worried about moving away. about how we'd be after/she said she was worried about moving away. about how we'd be after.

i felt my heart lurch. it was then that i knew how much i loved her/i felt my heart lurch. it was then that i knew how much i loved her.

things change. people change. she said/things change. people change. she said.

i cried, silently to myself/i laughed, silently to myself.

_

2009-06-15T07:52:00.000-07:00

Earth 2523 A.D

2009-06-13T00:55:00.000-07:00

You couldn’t have missed him.

Like some vision of an apocalypse that had already come to pass, he sat wrapped in his stained Bedouin apparel, his gas mask a small hole where his face should have been.

Perched on probably the last rock on the planet, he quietly sought his peace with the destruction.

Mr. Knight, I presume.

Funny, he said, as he tore open his mask, no one’s called my by that name in at least a couple of centuries.

I’m guessing that’s as long as it took me to find you.

Immortality’s a bitch, he mentioned, his face scarred, not wrinkled. It’s not what they made it out to be. I mean I could always slit my wrist or jump off a cliff.

But you never had the courage to.

Smart kid.

It’s always the cowards she chooses for immortality.

Who?

Destiny.

Oh her. Yeah.

You know, I have a theory, sort of. Self ingratiating really.

Let me hear it. I sort of like self ingratiating.

Yeah. That it’s like vertigo. You know, how the people most afraid of jumping off are the ones who most want to.

What? Immortality?

No. Cowardice.

At that he laughed a lot. Betraying that he hadn’t heard a joke in at least a century.

You’re funny. He said. I like you. What’s your name?

Max. I said. Max Black. Got a light?

Stick it to the earth. The planet’s almost burned down to the core.

Sure enough. The tip of my cigarette lit up as soon as I touched it to the surface.

Smells funny, he said. What’re you smoking?

Menthols. Want one?

I don’t smoke.

I laughed now. Not convulsively like him. My quiet cynical laugh.

Once you get in the business of manufacturing doom, you get off the idea of buying it.

What shit. I said. You’re afraid of the cancer, aren’t you?

Are you mad. Look around you, I breathe cancer day in and day out.

Day in and day out, I said. Explain day out. This galaxy has two suns, there’s no night here.

Day out sounds cooler. It’s funny how all the phrases I knew are slowly losing their meaning.

From one liar to the other. I said. It’s always about sounding cool, isn’t it?

Yeah. So how did you find me?

I don’t know. I didn’t even know I was looking for you.

Huh?

Yeah. I just let serendipity guide me. It sort of sorts things out.

Well. So how does this sort itself out?

The earth is dying. I think you could save it.

I already did. Once.

I know. I think someone wrote about it.

Something good, I hope.

No. they know everything, you know.

The internet man. It sucks. Though I thought it was pretty cool back then. Whooping Andromedan ass and all.

Oh it was. Despite, well, your inconsistencies. And do you know we’re all one now. Humans and Andromedans and Altarians and everyone else. We’re all a Federation now.

That sucks.

Sucks?

Yeah. Now you don’t know who’s the enemy.

Yeah?

Yeah. Always been my issue with multiculturalism.

So, you’re going back with me or what?

No. too much of a cause man. But I do know of a fantastic café around a nearby star system.

Really.

They’ve got only one sun. And you catch the most beautiful sunsets there.

Sounds cool.

Unless you want to go back and try saving the earth on your own or something.

Are you mad?

So let’s go then, he said, with some luck we’ll catch happy hours.

Sleeping with the Fishes

2009-06-10T07:56:00.000-07:00

Early in the night, he woke up in a cold sweat.

He knew what was wrong.

There were silver fish in the water supply. He had avoided drinking from the taps, purchasing cartons of bottled water instead. His fridge was just bottles of mineral water now.

It was close to the end of the month. His bottles were almost done.

He had, of late, employed a new maid.

The maid had found an empty bottle. In a fit of empathy, she had taken an empty bottle and filled it with water, placing it in the refrigerator for a pay hike.

He had come home stoned. His throat parched, he had opened the fridge door and gone for one of the three remaining bottles inside. Serendipity had ensured that his hand reached for the relevant one.

Silver fish, exclusive to Gurgaon’s water supply, are microscopic piranha equivalents. Once in the blood supply, they start biting. They don’t stop.

A clinic reported discovering a silver fish in a post mortem. The creature had fed itself to the size of an eel (a growth of over a 1000 times). The doctor said its eyes reminded him of a greedy and fat Chinese minister from the 70’s, also of his wife when she woke up in the middle of the night.

Now it’s interesting to note how these silver fish feed.

While an ordinary predator will try and ravage his prey, the silver fish tries to preserve it. For instance, while a piranha, once through your skin, will cut through your veins, a silver fish will consume the vein and instantaneously substitute it, rearranging its biology to form a surrogate vein that keeps the blood flowing. This keeps the blood flowing until there’s none left, giving the silver fish a fresh supply of meat for the longest possible duration. This necessitates the silver fish to secrete an anesthetic to camouflage the substitution against the nervous system. Otherwise the host would choose suicide over the pain and hence compromise the quality of the silver fish’s feed.

That means that it’s a painless sort of death. Once infected, doctors recommend that you just sleep it through.

He knew that.

I’m not doing that, he thought. Getting up, he started stripping for a shower. Then he’d go to the Saket 24/7 and pick a chilled beer and a pack of smokes. He’d play his favourite playlist on his ipod.

Oh bondage, up yours!

2009-04-29T20:10:00.000-07:00

'Some people think little girls

should be seen

and not heard

but I think

OH BONDAGE, UP YOURS!'

Yes, really

2009-03-16T23:12:00.000-07:00

Non-profit. Altruistic. Emotional. Relevant.

Sell-out.

The Further Adventures of Max Black and Charlie the Talking Dog: Plan B

2009-03-04T22:43:00.000-08:00

it's a crowded road. it's close to that time of the afternoon when schools get off so everything looks like a traffic jam. max is sitting beneath a bus stop fanning himself furiously while charlie sits drooling, with tongue extended.

charlie: what're we doing here again?

max: this is our last chance to save humanity

charile: save it? from what?

max: i don't know. from itself maybe...

charlie: hmmmm....

(they sit in silence)

charlie: you know, max, i don't think we're at the right place

max: why do you say that?

charlie: i mean there's not much happening here... like there was a jam here sometime ago, there's an old man sitting staring into space next to us, there are two kids waiting, for i don't know, the bus or something, there's a man selling water across the road, there's a fat woman crossing the road. i mean, there's no black hole or monster or anything here. is there?

max: no no no, that's how it happens, it's a moment thing, there's no build up to it, the event happens, and you have to react to it then and there. you know, there's no weighing the pros and cons. the event wants your natural response to it, and it gets that by marginalising your response time...

while max is in the thick of his explanation, a maruti van stops near the children. two burly types get out of it and grab the children and get back into their wagon of doom. the van drives off. people just stand around looking.

charile: fuck, what now...

max: over to plan b

_

2009-03-03T03:34:00.001-08:00

The Further Adventures of Max Black and Charlie the Talking Dog: Introductions

2009-03-03T02:51:00.000-08:00

max and charlie are lying on the terrace basking like strays in the sun. max is trying to light his cigarette using his cool zippo. however, his efforts seem curtailed by the fact that the lighter is upside down and the flame, following the order of conventional physics, is headed the opposite way.

charlie: dude, what's with the name?

max: the name?

charlie: yeah. max black?

max: oh that...

charlie: yeah.

max: i'm into typo, you know...

charlie: typo?

max: typography.

charlie: oh...

max: alphabets, the fonts they're in, words, the way the words are arranged, the way sentences are arranged...

charlie: yeah...

max: and i love black on white, you know, i sort of dig the simplicity to it

charlie scratches his ear

max: and my favourite shade of black is maximum black

charlie: ohhhh!

max: yeah

charlie: you could've just said that, no

max: yeah. and also i read this short paper on bullshit

charlie: on bullshit?

max: yeah. not the cow derivative...BS...

charlie: okay

max: yeah, by this harvard professor...

charlie: havard (makes a dog variation of an 'impressive' face)

max: the guy's name was max black...

charlie: hmmmmm...

max: also, i think it sounds cool...

charlie: yeah, why am i called charlie?

max: charlie... yeah... oh, now i remember

charlie: yeah?

max: charlie's slang for cocaine

charlie: it is?

max: yeah, and i have this friend who really likes dogs

charlie: likes dogs? that's really nice of her man...

max: i named you after her cocaine habit

charlie: fuck you

The Further Adventures of Max Black and Charlie the Talking Dog: No Logo

2009-03-03T02:32:00.000-08:00

charlie's taking a piss on a brown esprit bag. max enters the scene.

max: just look at you. that's horrible. it's...it's so uncouth.

charlie: i don't like multinationals.

Burning Safari

2009-01-03T01:22:00.000-08:00

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=X0UmVrKC9hA&feature=dir

Mr. Fairfax

2008-12-02T22:02:00.000-08:00

Pointed like a compass,
In an awkward geometry of time;
Brownian in its motion,
Calculous in its crime ~

_

2008-11-14T19:16:00.000-08:00

69 cures colds

2008-11-14T19:06:00.000-08:00

69 cures colds
threesomes help with loneliness
blowjobs work wonders for the flu
It’s hard to believe but it’s true
porn is, porn is, porn is good for you

priests says no
feminists say way to go
mother might misconstrue
it feels so bad but feels good too
porn is, porn is, porn is good for you

is that your ex
with her new banker friend
you’re sitting there crying, you can’t move
could have been anyone, could have been you
porn is, porn is, porn is good for you

when a cigarette’s too distant
alcohol’s too expensive
and a j’s too enthoo
nothing’s better for your decrepitude
porn is, porn is, porn is good for you

what they taught you was wrong
biased
untrue
this is the option, the in lieu
porn is, porn is, porn is good for you

your job sucks
she’s not here
you spent the whole day in a queue
look at the camera baby, close your eyes when he shoots
porn is, porn is, porn is good for you

Dehydration

2008-10-25T01:47:00.000-07:00

A troupe of tap-dancers did their hoppy thing. Their feet were a blur of shamrock green. The smile on their faces belonged in tourism brochures. They made an amazing amount of noise - clattering, clapping, tapping, stomping. Their feet beat out a tattoo which which found an echo in my heart, and quickened its beat. The camera panned out a little, and I saw that there were only ten of them, not the two hundred they sounded like. Then the camera panned out some more, and I realised that they were not really dancing in front of me. They were in my head. Or on my head. I can't be sure. Everything's strange this morning.

The morning brought with it memories and memory loss. It also brought with it turmoil in the stomach, eyes that wished the sun would turn itself off and inexplicable shooting pains down the length of the arm. It forced you to hydrate, but to hydrate one has to move, and every step was a small death. It forced a music change - rock 'n roll for violin strains that seemed to waft down from heaven. It served to remind me that somewhere in the world was goodness and beauty, and if I survived this morning, I should dedicate the rest of my life to searching it out. If I survived.

Bad hangover. Bad fucking hangover.

_

2008-10-21T11:21:00.000-07:00

Squirrel semantics:

2008-10-21T02:20:00.000-07:00

Art of a maniac,

Sloshed in shame,

Robbing realities,

Fermenting for fame.

Magic in the making,

Molotoves in the mind,

Milf on the desk,

May he find.

House of a hag,

Hats of a hound,

Hire for hire,

The harrowing sound.

Tease of a fly,

Tart of a tamarind,

Toss of a coin,

Tap of the wind.

Wailing willows,

Waiting windows,

Wafting wants,

Whiling in woes.

Calculus colours,

Crafting cold,

Curious cats,

A clean fold.

Leaning lights,

Laurels of lac,

Lieing lepers,

Lying on their back.

dusts of sunshine

doing of a deed

doling daisies

Deep in weed.

Sighing in silence,

Severed in swoon,

Sliced up in dices,

Feathered to be soon.

Angry Tree

2008-09-23T22:24:00.000-07:00

There was no fall for the leaves that day,
sunning their way, the prophets of end and a half,
the angry tree bellowed and burned right to the ground.
His was the sun, his were the waters below,
yet he wore no tears, might they moisten
his arson dream
Mostly muttering and sometimes whispering with intent
the wrinkled priest followed suit;
burning his altar to the ground and then his dream of god,
his jesus slowly falling from the worm-eaten crucifix.
Looking down from way above the bluest skies
and the darkest cloud, there he was,
my god with sunken, reddened eyes, sloshed
on one prayer too many.
My eyes were mirror to the all the apples on fresh
dew,
which were once in his eyes like I was in my father's. Perhaps.
Wide awake with his flaming lips, he spoke to my eyes,
'smother some mothers, steal all the clocks and watches you can,
sell all your dreams until they reek of the same, till they smell
like the decade old bible your hands clasp'
And all the while there was a wooden stairway,
many falling on their way to heaven to
descending upon this land as a milkshake
of a cupid, a jesus and silence.
White clouds came pouring down,
grated like cheese upon earthy bread, flowers all
deranged in fragrance.
The wind came down, caressing the old man
with iron claws,
He was finally going to make the grave. The one
he drew on asymmetrical toilet paper as a child, with
crayons and blood,
he had his way; persuading the molehills to adorn
cloaks of snow-tipped mountains, their beaks all
piercing the cotton sky, his pen with him sat meek.
And there was day!
The wooden jesus shriveled into a smile and forgave
all in a day's work while the shredded clouds
fell upon these pages praying for endless neon night.
Bringing the moon to the sun, burning to the ground
cotton-fields of the boldest hue and cry,
the angry tree churned embryos in his dreams
into a fine thin thread of silk;
dubbed silence.
In repose, looking as the angry tree narrated his
familiar story of being a worm-eaten wooden jesus in a past-life,
the haggard, hungry silence spoke;
of a time when he was never born, never needed,
just like eye do.

harami c******* waale/dear diary

2008-09-08T09:29:00.000-07:00

recently the c******* people announced a 'flash writing competition' or something of the sort offering unimaginable quantities of wealth as prize for a 500 word story. it was a tie up with some l***journal place and required you to register before you entered the competition. in a fit of naivete, i did. also, the topic, as presented by the c******* people, was journal (read corporate sell out). the whole affair was touted as a special sort of thing because they had extended the deadline by a day (because of the overwhelming response, i'm sure), giving the whole thing a garb of destiny. so after i was done with the 'formalities', i pressed the next button and VOILA! 'the page cannot be displayed', which was followed by 'the page cannot be displayed', 'the page cannot be displayed' and 'the page cannot be displayed'. also, the slimes censured a line of encouragement (cleverly diguised as a marriage proposal) for a fellow writer. so BAH! in fact, double BAH! anyways here's the story.

Dear diary,

I fucking hate you.

Dear diary,

What’s with you?

Will you please stop stalking me!?!

Dear diary,

You’re a drug. You’re a bad fucking habit. You do nothing for me. You’re tearing me down, one fucking blank line at a time.

Dear diary,

You’re killing me. I don’t need to need you. I don’t need to be different. This is catharsis. Nothing more. I’m using you. I’m banging you like a cheap college slut. This relationship means nothing more. Now turn the fuck over.

Dear diary,

In a perfect world, we could have been together. In a perfect world, we could have been possible. In a perfect world they would have heard us, loved us, revered us. Well guess what bitch, the world isn’t perfect.

Dear diary,

It’s just you and me. No one else. No one else. No one fucking else.

Dear diary,

I can’t pimp you. I mean, I could. I’d write about engineering colleges, middle class wet dreams and happy endings. But that wouldn’t be real. That would be like everything else.

Dear diary,

Was Jack Kerouac fucking D******** Bank Vice President, was he, huh, huh? Was Brett Easton Ellis an IFS officer? Do I write, do I eat, do I write, do I eat, do I write, do I eat? Middle path, everyone’s talking about some fucking middle path, tell me, look me in the eye and tell me, where is this fucking middle path?

Dear diary,

What am I supposed to do? Tell me. Retards, the fucking bottom of my class makes more than I do, there’s apology in my mother’s voice when she tells people what I do, everyone sits with me and gives me advice (if you met IIT scholar, MBA, Management Trainee in fucking G****** S****, will you give him advice, no, you save advice for those you pity, you save advice for me), the software engineer next door went to London, what did I do? Is being talented a sin, is wanting to write a sin, is there a problem, hello, I’m talking to you Mr. everyone, is there a problem?

Dear diary,

And it reflects in us. A nation’s literature is a nature’s consciousness. N******* M*** rapes and kills women and children in G******, R**** T*** orders murder in W*** B*****. And we, as a nation don’t get it. M*** is re-elected. T*** is an icon. Why? They got the numbers. G****** has one of the highest growth rates in the continent. T*** contributes so fucking much to industrial GDP.

That’s because our nation only gets numbers.

There’s no literature around to get.

Dear diary,

This is it. Our liaison ends here. I’m going to go do an MBA and work in a bank and make pots of money off an extracurricular career writing about some freshman’s first blow job. You’re going to be left here, on a bench in an underground train compartment.

How does that song go, yeah, ‘just that the time was wrong, Joo-leee-et’

ding di-ding ding ding ding ding di-ding ding

For me who loves this garden:

2008-08-22T06:01:00.000-07:00

For me the beautiful garden is real. It’s not imagination.

For me watching the beautiful wisteria first thing in the morning is magical.

For me waking up on a rainy day is peaceful.

For me imagining blossoms on the bare cherry blossom is easy.

For me the Christmas cactus is snow.

For me the Gooseberry is drama.

For me the spring is life.

For me being laid back is being purposeful.

For me the clouds and the gloom is sleep.

For me being an idiot is being home.

For me being nothing is being me.

For me being me is being worthwhile.

love

2008-08-18T12:15:00.000-07:00

What are we supposed to do
After all that we've been through
When everything that felt so right is wrong
Now that the love is gone ?

love is gone

What are we supposed to do
After all that we've been through
When everything that felt so right is wrong
Now that the love is gone ?
There is nothing left to prove
No use to deny this simple truth
Can't find the reason to keep holding on
Now that the love is gone, love is gone

Now that the love is gone, what felt so right's so wrong
Now that the love is gone

I feel so hurt inside, feel so hurt inside, got to find the reason

What are we supposed to do
After all that we've been through
When everything that felt so right is wrong
Now that the love is gone ?
There is nothing left to prove
No use to deny this simple truth
Can't find the reason to keep holding on
Now that the love is gone, love is gone

Got to find a reason, got to find a reason,
Got to find a reason to hold !

Love, there's nothing left for us to say, yeah !
Love, why can't we turn and walk away ?

What are we supposed to do
After all that we've been through
When everything that felt so right is wrong
Now that the love is gone ?
There is nothing left to prove
No use to deny this simple truth
Can't find the reason to keep holding on
Now that the love is gone, love is gone

Love is gone !

couples dance to this in gurgaon.

Cowasjee

2008-08-14T00:53:00.000-07:00

it was a joke when zubin dara cowasjee ran his car into a cow.

in the wake of the great real estate boom, the farms in gurgaon had turned to vast wastelands punctuated by giant yellow machines, giant embryos of rusty rod and concrete and roads.

the roads were beautiful - large, steeled miles of flashing concrete befitting the superstructures they were access to.

it was all so beautiful.

not for the cows, though. the cows got jacked. the new roadmap failed to register in gurgaon's thick bovine mindset. bessy, martha and june would cross the wastelands to the roads, their minds, given a genetic conditioning that had come to pass over the last three hundred years or so, would register 'cool shade of a tree next to acres of wheat crops' and they would sit. the concrete, burnt white by the sun, would scald them, there would be horns, traffic blockages and the occasional violent driver, but to them these were just hallucinations, paranormal intrusions into their conception of reality, material for a bovine x files.

therefore, for the cow that zubin's car ran into this would have been a UFO attacking.

for zubin, on the other hand, it meant 5 lacs in dead loss. the car had just been bought a couple of days ago. even the license plate said a/f. and then there were the jokes, how cow had gotten a cow, instead of the much deserved (in zubin's opinion that is) motions of pity, sympathy and offering to help with the dead loss.

the event, like all such events, was forgotten. buried by the cumulative of his first lay, promotions, new cars, children and a new cupboard for the living room. then, there was also the invasion.

the z'entradi invaded earth in large airborne fire spitting spaceships.

'we've persevered worse', said president obama, now serving his fifth re-election, 'we had to beat the apes and we invented fire, we had to beat the neanderthal and we invented the wheel, we had to beat the romans, and we invented the huns, we had to beat the british, we invented industry, we had to beat the soviets, we invented hollywood, we had to beat the orientals, and we invented globalistion. now it's all a question of waiting till we invent something to beat these guys.'

that was three seconds before a z'entradi footsoldier pushed a little yellow button and destroyed all of america.

the rest of the world quickly surrendered.

the z'entradi wanted slaves and land for industry. all of humankind, therefore, found itself gainfully employed, and all of earth found itself industrialised. outsourcing entered its intergalactic age.

as it worked itself out, earth found itself divided into large industrial sectors - factories the size of countries, connected by superhighways to ports where spaceships would fly to the z'entradi homeplanet with the produce. mankind resolved itself to slums around these roads.

in a little shack by one of these roads lived the cowasjees.

zubin, wrinkled, hunched and old, had been put in a closet. he had been driven to madness by the destruction of his house (while his wife was still in it) by the z'entradi. it was nothing personal, the aliens were just working on the superhighway, the cowasjee residence had been one of the thousands destroyed on that particular drive.

an asylum was now a luxury. and zubin was too much of an embarrassment to be kept in the room. so he knocked, cried and hawed in there while the others got used to it.

one day, zubin was unusually silent.

'is he dead?', asked young nauzer.

'my god', said zenobia, 'he's gone.'

the house hadn't in fact been destroyed, thought zubin as he tramped through the slums, this is all a big ploy to trick me.

he walked discreetly through the slums.

this is devendar vihar, sushant lok 4 should be a couple of miles in that direction.

the people looked at the old man strangely. there was something weird about him and someone ought to have stopped him and reported him to the marshals. people, however, are busy.

barack's going to be the first black american president, thought cowasjee, the world's going to the dogs. he wondered how his nephew in california was. he wondered whether he might go visit him.

suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks.

he saw his wife in the garden, putting out his clothes to dry.

with whatever life was left in him, he ran.

she spotted him and smiled. she dropped the clothes and ran to the gate.

he leapt forward, when suddenly he felt the soles of his feet melting. in the minute of sanity that pain affords, the heat on the z'entradi superhighway jolted zubin out of his delusion. the house and his wife faded. he saw himself in the middle of a great road. he sank on his haunches, trying to bring back the house, trying to bring back his wife.

he sat there, praying for an illusion.

he sat there, waiting.

Zombie Zoo

2008-08-13T10:02:00.000-07:00

Zombie Zoo

By Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne

All down the street they're standin' in line
With white lipstick and one thing on their mind
Hey little freak with the lunch pail purse
Underneath the paint you're just a little girl

Dancin' at the Zombie Zoo, dancin' at the Zombie Zoo
Painted in a corner and all you wanna do
Is dance down at the Zombie Zoo

Cute little dropout, how come you pack a rod
Is your mother in a clinic? has your father got no job?
Sometimes you're so impulsive,
You shaved off all your hair
You look like Boris Karloff and you don't even care

You're dancin' at the Zombie Zoo
Dancin' at the Zombie Zoo
Painted in a corner and all you wanna do is dance down at the
Zombie Zoo

She disappears at sunrise, I wonder where
She goes until
The night comes fallin' down again she shows
Up with her friends half-alive

You can make a big impression or
Go through life unseen
You might wind up restricted and over seventeen
It's so hard to be careful, so easy to be led
Somewhere beyond the pavement
you'll find the living dead

dejavu too

2008-08-01T06:39:00.000-07:00

...and as if that weren't enough six years after they blurred the line between noise and alternative and a catchy tune the white stripes were driven into the streets bloodsucked and betrayed by the indie crowd which had nurtured them.

the verve put their soul out to dry. but the neighbours kept stealing little bits of it. everyone who missed the total compete pain in the bittersweet symphony video which is everyone at the time period can hold themselves responsible. but its ok. no one's coming to collect.

and somewhere between these two events chris martin delivered the most honest line of his career. revolutionaries wait for my head on a silver plate. he knew.

Fiction

2008-08-01T03:33:00.001-07:00

my mum tells me a story.

if it were yours, she says, the girl would end up raped and dead.

in terms of the fiction’s semantics, i’m holding a gun to the face of the happy ending. the happy ending, wearing a tropical Hawiaan shirt is pointing a gun back at me. also pointing a .45 at the happy ending is roger ebert, film critic for the chicago times.

me: Now I'm thinkin', it could mean you're the evil man. And I'm the righteous man. And Mr. .45 here, he's the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or is could by you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and it's the world that's evil and selfish. I'd like that. But that shit ain't the truth. The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin'. I'm tryin' real hard to be a shepherd.

(puts the gun down on the table)

to the tune of a dejavu

2008-08-01T02:54:00.000-07:00

michael stipe’s excursion for resonance was successful. and its importance in a dissonant world will go unsung. and he will fade away. while britney spears and jay z will represent our time.

while thom yorke sings karma police and quietly starts a revolution on his laptop between playing ball with his son and taking him out to a natural history museum. his rebellion will be marlowe to a hip hop shakespeare.

the alternative space is no space. history says ‘all or nothing’, always.

THE ADVERTISING PSYCHOLOGIST

2008-07-29T06:03:00.000-07:00

“So tell me from the very beginning.”
“yaaa… I couldn't get any sleep last night.”
“I said - from the very beginning.”
“But wouldn’t you like to listen to the reason that made me come to you.”
“Ok, go ahead.”
“Well, I spent the entire night thinking about whether to use “Here’s the most exciting offer...” or “Tata Indicom presents the most exciting offer…”
“Then what did you use?”
“It’s not about what did I use. It’s about why did I think so much about it…”
“That’s what you are paid for, right?”
“Yaaaa…but you also get paid for scratching out shit stuck in commodes.”
“That’s another debate….let’s stick to your problems. Tell me what worries you the most?”
“Every night I dream that I’m a fish.”
“And what happens then?”
“I’m always in a small pond and there are these other fish that smell exactly like me.”
“Can you really smell them in your dreams?”
“Of course, they all smell like fish…Actually they even look like me.”
“Ok, so they are the same species.”
“And there’s no other species, not even frogs… no alligators… only fish.”
“Must be a small pond.”
“They even sound the same.”
“What do they say?”
“Nothing they just open and close their lips.”
“Ok tell me about your friends.”
“yaa…. That’s an interesting topic, I have lots of friends.”
“Tell me about your best friends. What do they do?”
“One is a copywriter, the other is a copy supervisor and another is a creative supervisor. But I’ve left them all in Delhi.”
“Do you have many friends here?”
“Lots of them.”
“What do they do?”
“Let me think… ya… one is a senior copywriter, the other is a junior copywriter but some of them are still trainee writers.”
“Quiet an interesting variety. Don’t you have friends in other professions?”
“Nope… the marketing guys are so boring. They don’t watch the same movies that I do.”
“And what kind of movies do you watch?”
“My friends have quiet an interesting collection that I can choose from.”
"There must be more."
"yaaa...but...well, all that my friends in sales talk about is the slight increase in Katrina Kaif's breast size since she started sleeping with some new dickhead. hey... by the way did you know that there's a scene in that movie 'Boom' where Katrina pushes Gulshan Grover's head into her boobs...wow... I still haven't checked it out.”
“Ok, tell me about your job.”
“I don’t feel that excited about it, anymore.”
“Go on.”
“I once used to think of it as a noble purpose that one could abandon everything else for. But now that I know that I won’t become a martyr, it’s really hard to carry the same enthusiastic smile. The fact is that Ill only be slaughtered like a sheep and hung upside down. A butcher will chop me off piece by piece to sell each one for a profit and the young lambs will watch in amazement.”

“Im afraid son, we’ll have to continue this some other time, your time is over. That would be 700 rupees.”
“Hey but you haven’t yet given me any expert advice… what are the 700 bucks for?”
“I listened to you.”
“No one gets paid for doing nothing.”
“I’m sorry but the board outside says ‘Advertising psychologist’.”

Equation of line

2008-07-21T05:40:00.000-07:00

on conception it is a straight line, drawn with pencil on a blank sheet of paper. it breaks into four in cursive writing notebooks, moves to criss-cross squares in math copies, moves to double lined copies, and finally pauses at single lined copies trapped in a paper hall of mirrors.

the single lines then move to rough registers, fancy hard bound notebooks, a4 sized sheets in file covers and resolve themselves to mini sized notebooks carried around with cellphone, cigarettes and ballpen.

done, the line drops down from single lined trouser and double lined denim pockets, bounces on the footpath and becomes a divider traveling the length and breadth of cities worldwide, where it travels till night becomes day. jumping across, back on some footpath, it does a tarzan from person to person in a queue and is next seen on the DJ’s console in parabolas and ellipses. a haze reveals a bathroom door behind which it is seen, white, powdery on a closed commode seat, disappearing up a nose, vaporopus.

appears, to the tune of ‘one, two, three, again, one, two, three, again’ on a cardiogram where electrical pulses menace it up, down, up down, in tiny screeching desperate movements that take it down, take it down, take it down till it’s that straight line again.

fever

2008-07-16T03:18:00.000-07:00

the song. my cue.

everyone’s off. streaming sunlight through glass walls mention cathedral. people smile as they move from side to side.

there are no deadlines that need attending. there are no phone calls on hold.

after loses meaning. before hums along with the song. the tide is past. my palm rests placid on the sheet of the sea.

the virus is done. i wipe my nose. i sit and stare at the monitor.

so long, i write, and thanks for all the fish.

SORRY

2008-07-11T01:52:00.000-07:00

After a week of shameless intrusion into the married life of two of my friends (married to each other of-course) I thought I should now try finding a new accommodation. Being new in the city won’t be considered a respectable excuse for long. Especially for a guy like me who’s best friends hate to introduce him to his girlfriends. Let alone girlfriends, keeping me close to any of their female acquaintances is considered like an invitation to a dreadful calamity that will ruin their lives and careers for eternity. Maybe these particular friends of mine helped me because they kind of expected the wiser side of me (surprise! surprise! I do have a wiser side) to camouflage the weirder one, in face of such generous attitude.
Ok, forget all that, I was about to tell you a nice warm story about a nice warm (I guess I shouldn’t use this British expression in a hot and humid city) rather nice cool apartment. Luckily after finding a room-mate and shelling out 50,000 bucks for just half of my share I became the proud co-owner of a one bedroom, hall and kitchen apartment. It’s got a fridge and an AC (All my life I’ve never had an air conditioned room, because of the disrespect it causes to our middle-class family values). Although my share in the room’s rent came out to be around one third of my meagre salary, I thought this flat would be really comfortable to get a pretty Ukrainian whore home and lose my virginity after 25 years. And also I wouldn’t have to shell out any money to buy ice for the weekly parties at my flat with half-naked girlfriends of my friends spread around.
Anyways, I started staying at this new flat with this wonderful AC which always buzzzzzed me to sleep. And automatically woke me up after chilling me to the bone so that it can be switched off. Mornings seemed to be difficult at first because I had to take a detour around all the buildings of the colony and then reach the main road. One day I tried to experiment and started walking in the opposite direction and wallah! I discovered a shorter way. Later I realised that it wasn’t actually a shorter cut, In fact it was stupid of me to take a de-tour when the way to the main road was in fact the same one that I thought myself a genius to discover.
Now that I had discovered the way out it was always a confusion to find the way back in. Then I discovered this big bold ‘sorry’ banner that had been tied on a tree at the turn towards my building. For the first few days I didn’t think much about it other than the fact that it was there to help me find my way back home.
One humid evening, when my T-shirt was sticking to my back, and I had fucked up the first brief I was given in my new agency, I looked at the ‘sorry’ and felt really good. It was as if the world feeling apologetic for my all fucked up existence. The question that why I had a fucked up existence in the first place flew across my mind, but well... it flew fast and was nowhere to be seen after a few seconds.It really was a refreshing message for me.
To me it meant - Sorry, for not letting you have a phone number... Sorry, for not letting you have a bank account which can get you a phone number... Sorry, for not letting you have a billing address that can get you a bank account... Sorry for not letting you have a passport which can give you a billing address... Sorry, for not letting you have a pan-card which can get you a passport... Sorry, for not letting you have a valid license that can get you a pan-card... Sorry, for not letting you have money to go back to Delhi to get your license validated and Sorry, for not letting you have a bank account which can get you money.
That ‘sorry’ never seemed to be solving any of my problems but still it was a relief. When I managed to come out of this existential-angst cycle, I looked around and saw that the apartment windows of the opposite building were facing that ‘sorry’ banner. I figured there’s a nice pretty girl staying in one of those apartments and her boyfriend must have tied that ‘sorry’ banner right opposite so that she can forgive him for tearing her new Tommy-Hilfiger T-shirt during one of his animal urges. Although I hate love-stories, I thought this one was cute enough to warm my depressingly cynical heart.
A few days later when I had stopped looking out for the ‘sorry’ banner (although mostly it was hard to ignore) to find my way back home, I saw the reply that was etched out across the banner with a blue pen “It’s ok, Rahul” or was it “It’s ok, life.”

Old white T and Baby blue jean:

2008-07-07T09:51:00.000-07:00

I’m sitting on a beach. It’s more of a fjord, actually. Blue lagoon, sailing breeze, and the swashing sea. My feet are all sand and my head is all shine. And evening quietly falls in as if not to disturb me even a bit. I have lost all my void, my articulation, my well versed lines and my reserve. I am holding my long cast Shakespeare but I’m not there. Not at all.

It’s been a quiet sometime now and I haven’t caught anything. But that doesn’t matter. Not even a bit. My head is stone and my heart is sleeping calmly. Now the moon is out, glimmering beautifully in the still waters afar. And my gaze just shifted after a long long time. It is still now, though. I’m casually losing my alphabet, phonetics, and my grammar is wearing out, as if it were bio degradable.

I stand up slowly and put aside my rods, my plugs and my spinners. Gathering a few bits of twigs I start a fire. And looking at the stars I lie down on the ground.

She turns around and hugs me in her sleep. Sigh~

Deshu in Mumbai

2008-07-06T20:33:00.000-07:00

Dilli waala

“arrey saab saarey mumbai me paani bharela hai… 750 lagega.”
“Meter se chalo.”
“Meter se nai jayega, paani bharela ai.”
“Lekin Mumbai central se Andheri 750? 600 doonga.”
“(dilli se aaya lagta hai chutia, meter se to 200 hi banta hai.) accha 700 de dena… jaldi chalo.”
“Accha ttheek hai, lekin 700 se ek paisa zyaada nahi doonga, chalo chalo.”

Shock

“Bhai yahan mere dost rehte hain Neeraj or Ira.”
“Kon Neeraj Ira.”
“Yahin 2nd floor me rehte hain.”
“Dilli se aaya tum?”
“Haan.”
“Wahi log jo bhada pe rehta hai?”
“Haan haan wahi.”
“Vo aaya nahi teen din se ghar.”
“Kya?.. lekin…par… bhai par mere paas 6 bag hain. Ab kya karoon kahan jaaoon.”
“itna samaan kaye ko leke aaya Mumbai. Phone karne ka tha na un log ko.”
“vo phone nahi uttha rahe. Please mera samaan rakh lo. Mein kahan jaaoonga?”
“koi leke gaya to?”
“bhai le ke jaane do ab. Kya kar sakta hun? Kucch important bhi nahi hai. Bas rakh lo.”
“ttheek hai… ttheek hai… rakh do seediyon ke neecche.”

Homeless

“yaar loki mein aa gaya.”
“to bhosdike ehsaan kia agar aa gaya.”
“yaar Neeraj Ira ghar pe nahin hain, mein kahan jaaoon?”
“bhenchod phone karma than a pehle.”
“yaar teen din se vo phone nahin uttha rahe.”
“to bhosdike bina phone kare aata hai kya koi Mumbai.”
“kya karta yaar. Accha mein tere ghar aa jaaoon?”
“yaar mein coffee shop me baitth ke coffee pee raha hun. Ek ghante tak pahunchoonga.”
“ttheek hai mein apna samaan leke pahunch jaata hun.”
“bhosdike samaan wahin cchod de, mujhe flat khaali karne ka notice mila hua hai.”
“yaar lekin mere paas 6 bag hain.”
“gandu koi 6 bag leke aata hai kya Mumbai. Mein jab aaya tha sirf ek bag leke aaya tha.”
“ab kya karoon yaar.”
“Itna samaan leke aayega to gaurd dande maar ke bhaga dega, vaise hi sulga hua hai mere se, Samaan wahin cchod de or aaja ghar.”
“ttheek hai.”

Introspection

“Why did you even think of moving to Mumbai in the first place?”
“…because… well…I wanted to experience something… I don’t exactly know what.”
“And you got your share the day you landed.”
“Looks like it...”

Part I: El Silencioso

2008-07-05T12:38:00.000-07:00

On the way back, he replayed the conversation in his mind. He remembered every pencil fumble. Memory was the least of his problems.

“Ah yes. Come in. How are you?”
“Fine sir”
“Good. I hardly see you now days.”
He smiled, but kept silent. He generally preferred to remain that way until someone asked him a question.
“I wanted to speak to you for some time now…” his boss continued “…but something or the other kept coming in the way. You know how it is here…”
“Yes sir” he said. He did know how it was there, in fact, and it affected him a lot more than people realised. He wondered what was making the man who had single-handedly set up the firm they all worked in some thirty years ago so nervous.
“So anyway…here we are now…”
“Yes”
“You joined two years ago”
“Two and a half sir”
“Right. Right. So, how are you finding things now days?”
“Good Sir, fine. Lots of business coming in…” he started, but saw the silver-streaked head before him shaking and stopped.
“Not like that. I meant how are things with you today, after this much time with the company”
He knew what to say. Anyone who had done an MBA knew what to say. “I feel much more involved today sir. I think I’m beginning to understand my job and my role in the organization a lot better now”
The Living Legend tapped his pencil and looked worried. “That’s good. Though to be honest I was expecting you to say something else …if you do have any problems you can tell me…”
“What sort of problems?”
“Anything. We are completely open door. If there’s anything about your work that’s troubling you…or the office…”
“I love my work here”
“Are you sure? Don’t you find it difficult to have to talk to so many new people? Every day. With your condition…”

Sometimes he remained silent even when someone had asked him a question. This was one of those moments.

“The eloquent young pilgrims pass, and leave behind their trail, imploring us not to fail”

“Its nothing to be ashamed of…”
“I know”
He knew that. Sort of.

After a long uncomfortable silence, the boss asked him a series of questions. Had he thought about his future? Was he interested in pursuing other lines of work (because they could help him, get him started off, put him in touch with the right people)? Did he see himself doing this job in five years? Did he sometimes feel his talents lay elsewhere (not that he was not good at this, he was, but its all about human potential, isn’t it)?

He finally understood. He thought of asking if his Team Leader had complained. But he knew she wouldn’t have. She didn’t mind him. Neither did the others actually, he just wasn’t one of them. He remembered his first week. So many people had come up and asked him if he was always this silent, until he finally decided he would adopt it as an identity.
Lord Silens.
Monsieur Silencieux.
El Silencioso.

Every office has a quiet guy.

corollary

2008-06-25T10:04:00.000-07:00

a corollary to Physiology, dated sometime 2007.

the elves have, of late, discovered commerce. sidhe theorists (and there are few of these) argue that it was only natural, especially since the invention of the air conditioner ('fuck morning dew and the sweet flavour of a virgin's pure soul' says Lord Hardburrow of the Kingdom of the Abandoned Twig 'nothing's as good to a proximity to the little air throwing vent of the air conditioner tuned to very very cool').

so how do they manage, you might wonder, given their incapacity for organisation and a fundamental inability to operate any machinery more complicated than an 8 in 1 brick game.

the answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind. to be more specific, they catch air skippers - slithery and perdominantly vapourous ectoplasmic worms that travel through the air, moving through the goblin and dervish population, entering through ear lobes, grabbing whatever thoughts might be around and getting the fuck out with them (leading to the phrase 'just skipped my mind darling).

djinss set magical nets to catch them (someone once described them as giant cobwebs in the sky). the day's catch is then distilled to remove useless thoughts (keychain locations, deadlines, coffee appointments, etc.) from the good ones (symphonies, plots for films and books, ideas for enterprise, etc.). the good ideas are then used by the djinn in question (the one who's caught the skippers) to generate revenue and buy air conditioners.

and here's a piece of trivia to reward your patience. once in the early twentieth century, a senior cricketing captain (whom we shall not name here) was given the assignment of coming up with a better term for the generic 'captain'. the man, close to the fag end of his career, chanced upon the perfect word ('like finding a diamond in the rough', he mentioned to a bystander upon his discovery). the man kept it to himself, hoping to present the word at a public meeting to make sure the credit didn't spill. this was when a particularly egoistic skipper happened to cross his mind and, in what's clearly a sui generis event, replaced the word instead of just taking it.

transplant

2008-06-25T09:59:00.000-07:00

and instead of a heart, i've got this super dense object with infinite gravity (often referred to as a black hole) that keeps sucking and sucking.

no wonder nothing comes to mind.

Silence of the semantics~

2008-06-22T11:32:00.000-07:00

Finally, i feel it's over. Sigh.
Crash................. Maybe not. Whew.
But the worse that cud've happened has happened. Shit~
And so i delight in whatever is happening. Hah~
I've burnt down all the harrowing halls of semantics. Phew.
Now, the only thing left is a civilization that needs a thorough archeological explanation. Hmm~
For that, there're the hallowed experts. Honours~
A newer soil. a newer settlement. A newer stranger. A newer sun. A newer sanctity. Well~
Tulips. Geraniums. Wisterias. Willows. Lilys. Linchesters. Lilacs. Wow.
"For how long?", smiles Aphrodite as she flaunts her genius to me. God!

Necessary

2008-06-09T09:26:00.000-07:00

It was necessary. He stepped away from her. But the voice kept coming at him, through layers of nitrocellulose, saying 'How do you feel now?'. He felt terrible. His eyes were bloodshot after fifteen hours of no sleep. It was so tempting, walk away, forget the whole thing. But it was necessary. Not only for himself, but for all of them. She was too dangerous. He knew it the moment he heard the news. It was unreal, and for a moment he managed to find it in his heart to give her some credit, something he hadn't been able to do for years. But then he saw the papers, and the TV, and the court order, and closed his eyes.

Closed his eyes and pointed.

The revolver.

Straight ahead.

At the TV.

"DAMN YOU EKTA KAPOOR", he shouted, and fired.

But something there was made of stone and the bullet richotted off it and lodged in his chest. That surprised him. He was so surprised that he forgot entirely whether his heart was on the left or right side. As the inept Noida police made their entry, he died, uttering the famous last words that would fire a generation, 'Damn you Ekta Kapoor...'

X-cuse me

2008-06-03T08:28:00.000-07:00

Zero is where he was. As he realised after he'd shunned all books, music, news, friends and family. A series of events of a single variable x.

where x=0 and x is not a fraction.

whatever it means.

Happy Ending

2008-05-23T07:29:00.000-07:00

born in the bylanes of patparganj east, mookase was delivered to hazrat majoomdar to have his micro palms read and destiny foretold. protocol involved the hazrat suggesting a clipping of the foreskin under distraction by steel bird, followed by gleefull approval by the mohemeddans and sudden denial by the hindoos (as in mookase's case), which led to the wise old man reading the child's palm and exclaiming in surprisingly fluent english 'a happy ending! this chap has a happy ending in store for him!' to which the assembled screamed 'angreji!' in joyous tenor and carried the child back home sure, albeit for only a few hours or so, that the child wouldn't rot and die here. for mookase, however, hazrat followed the reading of the palm by a grim face, followed by a handing of the bawling baby boy back to the mortified mother. 'a happy ending!', he said darkly, 'this chap has a happy ending in store for him!'

approximately forty years years later, we fly past the tangled electric meshes of chunktown past teedees ('quench your thrust' over the drinks menu) down into the lanes which cars can't enter and wouldn't want to either in a small wooden shack with a plastic window and with no signboard and a rusty bajaj chetak with hazel filing her nails (bright pink) at reception against a save tibet and an 80's sanjay dutt looking at the world with ugly sunglasses and the cheap cosmetics display unit with bright pink nailpolish and cobwebs and slither under the door to see hairy mookase under a towel being oiled vigorously by obese and heavily made up victoria in black spaghetti top with pink bra straps clearly visible like in foreign xxx film. 'happy ending?', she asks expressionless as her hands move to oil the erogenous, 'extra two hundred bucks'. mookase, in turn, laughs quietly to himself before nodding a yes.

Monday

2008-05-18T23:37:00.000-07:00

He was disconsolate, demotivated, mechanical. He left at 9:15, but it could as easily have been 8:53 or 9:24. He glanced at his watch, but saw only a wrist, so he fished out his cell phone instead. The screen displayed a picture which had once meant a lot to him, but he wasn’t sure now. He reached the gate of the colony, hoping to see an auto waiting there. There wasn’t any, he had forgotten not to hope. He eventually found one, thought about haggling but abandoned the idea. I’ll just eat less, he told himself, and grimaced inwardly because that really had nothing to do with it.

He glared at the oncoming traffic accusingly. I am not one of you, his gaze seemed to say. I am not a worker ant. “Givesignalmotherfucker” yelled the auto driver, looking back for approval. He showed no expression, put on his headphones instead and started turning dials. “You are my theme for a dream my fair and lovely…sapnon ki duniya mein I’ve been waiting for you baby…GIVEHANDYOUSONOFADONKEY…mera jeevan...DOYOUUNDERSTAND…kora hi reh gaya…ORSHOULDICOMETHERE…back in black hit the sack”. Monday seemed determined to remain a cliché.

Reincarnation

2008-05-16T06:54:00.000-07:00

after she slit her wrist, she sat still on the floor by the wall.

the blood, forming a thin film, spread over the floor. this would be the evidence. mahesh would never question her love anymore.

it hurt a bit as the blood slowly gushed out. pulsing, draining out of her. there it goes now, she thought, under her third year history books, the katoree cum ash ray, the tarantino soundtrack cds, the rug and finally the doors. she imagined the blood going under the shoes kept out. or did they? she thought, did they just go really close and maintaian a micrometre of clear space, fimd imsignificant passages of space through and beneath the soles. she saw a picture of a shoe levitating on that clear space over a pool of red.

how will things be with mahesh, she asked herself. would he start dating someone else? would he start fucking her right away? would they wait? for a year? for a month? for a week? for a day? would he be shattered? would he finally stop doubting her? would he kill himself too? would he by lying here too? would he be thinking what she was thinking?

it's been a minute, she also thought, and i haven't blinked.

she blinked.

she was in a forest. a forest with large rocks of mud. the sun, a morning sun, stole in through the leaves.

no they weren't leaves. in fact they weren't even trees.

they were giant crops. towering green strands fifty times her.

and there in the clearing was mahesh.

she knew him by his shorts, his running shoes, his t-shirt (she'd worn it on numerous occasions), his old tape playing walkman that he insisted on not replacing.

i was him. it couldn't be anyone else.

she ran.

she ran to tell him what she'd done. ran to hug him, to hold him close, feel his beating heart thud next to hers.

closer and closer, she realised something was amiss. he was large. he was way to large. he was a giant.

with everything she had, she screamed out his name. busy at his crunches, he was too busy to notice.

she jumped and crawled up his hand.

in an instant, she knew what to do.

she'd get to his eye, peer in and grab his attention.

mahesh, she would say, i love you.

hopping on to his shirt, she rushed across his t-shirt to his neck.

up his chin, moving slowly to his chin to his nose, to his ey...

mahesh smacked his cheek, pulling off the twitching ant that had made his way to his eye.

fuck, he said, as he crumpled what was left of the ant and threw it to the side, that almost got me.

Stark Raving Man

2008-04-28T03:12:00.000-07:00

It's almost here babe!

May 2nd, 2008. Cinemas everywhere.

apprx.

2008-04-27T14:49:00.000-07:00

Trying to figure out the approx dimension between 4.87 point size comma n larger than life inverted commas.

_

2008-04-20T02:04:00.000-07:00

Peace

2008-04-17T04:54:00.000-07:00

Fishing somewhere between the marmalade skies and the tangerine lakes. Silence. Ploop.

Notes from a free fall

2008-04-16T22:32:00.000-07:00

Yeah I'm free. Free falling.

two deadlines gone and gently cruising over another

2008-04-15T11:03:00.000-07:00

this, you and me.

tomorrow we'll just be part of a giant fading cumulative.

_

2008-04-15T09:09:00.000-07:00

The Giant Eagle

2008-04-14T21:51:00.000-07:00

It’s been a month since the ‘giant eagle’ first descended on the M.G. road. It’s no longer the same bustling, traffic clogged road. The threat of the ‘giant eagle’ has left it abandoned and deserted. The few who dared the threat for the sake of convenience have quiet conveniently settled in their graves by now. It’s not known whether they received a proper burial though. The ‘giant eagle’ has already marked its territory on the road and carries off anyone who trespasses. Where to? We can only guess.

The Metro rail line project that was supposed to connect Gurgaon to New Delhi has since been stalled. They say it was only a few months away from completion. Commuters had high hopes on the metro project. It was supposed to ease the traffic on the M.G. road.

The traffic did ease eventually, rather stopped altogether for different reasons though.

You can still see the pillars standing from the nearby elevated lands. A wandering Gujjar recently reported sighting a giant nest on one of those pillars. Or was it just a cheap rumour? Depends on how you take the stuff they show on news channels these days.

The pillars stand alone, some joined by a bridge at the top and others lonesome.

The machinery, the cranes and the giant bulldozers lie rusting. So do the last of the trucks that went to bring everything back to their rightful owners.

The road I guess is relaxing after a long period of servitude. Ensconced in an undisturbed layer of concrete it’s enjoying its time off before the civilisation claims it back.

Current circumstances make it highly unlikely for the civilised world to ever claim the road back again. Maybe one of the prerequisites of a civilisation to exist is that everything needs to be under its command, to follow a certain pre-approved pattern that it considers right for all things living and non-living to be on.

The road no longer follows the pattern. It no longer contributes anything to the value creation. It has ceased to serve the noble purpose of progress which the modern society is aimed at.

The road is now rebel territory - A kind of rebel that has since ceased to pose a threat. And therefore it no longer deserves attention.

The civilised world has now got used to not using the road. It conveniently bypasses the road trying to ignore the shame of its defeat.

The ant rows of cars following other cars have now moved away from the road towards the National Highway no. 8.

The bus-stops are no longer the centre of all human anxiety and impatience. Even the toll gates have stopped waiting in expectation.

Dark green coloured ever-expanding creepers have claimed the fallen buildings that lie in between. Its sure better than the fate they were left to – crumbling under their own weight , dying a slow death. Those creepers at least seem to nourish the fallen concrete structures with a kind of after-life that none other lifeless structure is destined to have. The trees no longer claim accidents and neither do they feel out of place in the middle of the road. Every undesirable vegetation flourishes on the road.

The M.G. road has become a refuge now for all undesirables of the city. But there’s a difference between undesirables who don’t consider their lives insignificant and those who do. Mostly the latter ones come to the road never to return again. People say that they camp out on and around the road for a few days before the ‘giant eagle’ claims their lives and devours their bodies.

“It’s beautiful to die out here on the M.G. road.” The wandering Gujjar on his second visit reported seeing this statement scribbled in bold letters on one of the pillars besides a deserted camp of one of the many refugees.

Pilot

2008-04-03T01:09:00.000-07:00

day1:clipper

at college, a few gained popularity while the many suffered it. to name a few, there was prick, ace debater and national level swimmer, neil, thespian, wild child and overall sex god and clipper, writer, prankster and head of close to a dozen spurious inconsequential societies.

shortly after, prick went to oxford, won presidentship of the union by the highest majority in oxonion history and was later dismissed for his skin being too brown, neil went to new york and joined juliard, the world's best acting school, to pursue a course in future unemployment and clipper went to saket for a snack, after a late night in office.

the major part of his evening spent in writing headlines that would get the brands he wrote them for no attention at all, clipper bit into his chicken hot dog and spilt the mayo and cheese on his silk cravat.

at a distance, he saw a couple sitting under a tree smoking. he thought it horrible that two could mutually consent to such a mass destruction of lungs (four in total). he also thought it quite cool.

he also wanted to smoke, but didn't for health reasons. however, because of the nascent urge, he bought an expensive blue clipper that he used to light in his darker moments. that's where he got his name.

destroyed, at the random mutilation of the cravat, he reflected amidst a set of cultivated profanities (damn, bugger all, shite) on how life had fallen to shreds. it was close to 1 am and he was supposed to be in rural botswana, managing an infant rehydration programme, not recuperating after an evening of professional mediocrity.

lamenting the loss of aestheticism, he went back in to ask for a napkin, wondering throught the haze of memory what he had to do with the boy sitting with the girl smoking under a tree. he appeared closer, in memoriam, holding out his hand.

it's all gone pete tong, he muttered to himself, completely unaware the missing plastic rectangle in his right trouser packet.

day1:desh

the lights blind him.

'can i wear sunglasses?'

'sure', goes jay leno, 'can i get you something cold to drink, thums up, limca, musammi ka joos?'

jay leno's face falls off to reveal a very mongolian renu, with the rejoinder,, 'jaldi shaab, peeche line hai, line.'

desh moves forward slow. this is his dinosaur syndrome, with no hallucinogenic at all. he is slow. one of his feet is shorter than the other. etc. etc.

he moves disconsolately moves to a table that gives him, call centre grade 1 at inoks, a kingly view.

this is breakfast, after the night shift that begins 2 in the night. this is his life, monday to friday. he can't sleep weekends. he lives alone at the top of an asphalt tower (barsaati otherwise, it's probably on the fifth floor). he has no friends except his books and this chick he's hitting on over the internet. the mass hypnosis of sex has a stranglehold over him. film posters, ads on his second hand onida, spaghetti tops, sweat on white female skin, all join in a frightful chorus saying 'fuck, fuck, fuck.'

after jacking off, he amuses himself with notions of literary fame, when he will have millions around the world discussing his work, be, at once, the toast at oprah, new york and the playboy mansion, where he will be snorting coke off a b-movie actress' ass (here he considers going to jack off again).

he does this on weekends, when he isn't sleeping. he is a daysleeper.

weekend nights, he also goes to city squares that wake where he smokes and waits to warm his eyes on white female flesh.

as he smokes, under a tree, he notices her reefer go off. she is high. she also has the face of an angel.

maybe we could get talking he thinks to himself, he contemplates true love for a few minutes. he leaves her with his lighter, a souveneir of perhaps the only unadulterated love on the planet.

it's monday tomorrow.

on the jay leno show, she's in the front row. she's there for him.

day1:ank

stoned, after her morning sulk that lasts the afternoon and through half the night, she wanders down to the 24-7 at the cinema square. the air is cold and her t-shirt and shorts leave her naked, she has visions of a red brassiere hanging on the insides of her bathroom drawer where her roommate is, while sitting on a closed toilet seat fellating the ball of acne, fat and cum she calls Boyfriend.

she sits there, as the light on the reefer twiddles to nothing, she holds it down and looks at it for a few minutes, taking in the fact that the light won't come back on, that the grades on her last semester papers won't change (could she fuck her way through...what about the women, damn, too many women), that there's a bunch of school kids looking at her like she's a slut.

'light', says a voice next to her. she turns to see that it is a gargoyle, misshapen, holding up a lighter in a hand with an extra thumb.

'thanks', she says, and lights her baby.

she has visions of him on her with his pants down, moving in hard and clumsy fits. it is moist there. she'd do it for the sheer hurt of it.

as she recovers, she notices he is gone.

his lighter, still in her hand, says clipper in a cheap blue plastic case.

relativity

2008-03-28T07:34:00.000-07:00

Time and again something pops up and forces the issue. Like when I had made myself cozy in the bed with a book and a hot cup of coffee for distraction. The time table was getting annoyed and was threatening redundancy any moment. Hours turned directly into years and the calendar resting on the table didn’t know what to do. Out of boredom it started repeating itself. Month after month till it lost count too. The book refused to end, the story hadn’t even unfolded and the author was still elaborating on the preface. Of course the pages had turned brittle and yellow. Some hundred thousand pages later, the book’s first chapter starts. But it was one hell of an effort to lift that amount of pages to reach that stage. It was getting easier, as one progressed, to lose interest in the book even before the characters took shape. The story goes something like this; someone had started writing this book on some BC. Till date no one knows who the person is. Generation after generation had been penning down to make a book out of it, complete with paperbacks. It’s believed that soon after someone is born into a family, he/she started writing taking only the necessary breaks in between. The end result being, the book devoured some dozen generations and a two storied apartment.

Kaka's Metamorphosis

2008-03-28T02:38:00.001-07:00

godspeed

2008-03-24T11:50:00.001-07:00

old man on walking stick crosses bus moving at 3.25 km/hr.

inside the bus, tall gentleman with spectacles: dost, ye bus itne dheere kyun chal rahi hai.

conducter guarding entrance: abhi itni tez chalegi, rone lagoge.

Evolution my arse.

2008-03-22T11:56:00.000-07:00

Adam: I wish there was something more to...
God: Psst.
Adam: Huh?
God: Psst. Psst. Over here.
Adam: Where? Who? What?
God: Over here you moron. Here. Here!
Adam: Who... what are you?
God: Dude, it’s me, your creator, the Supreme Being, the guy in-charge.
Adam: I don’t understand.
God: Screw that. Listen, I came up with something really kewl last night. It’s still just a prototype but I think it kicks arse. Check it out.
Adam: What is it?
God: I call it... an apple!
Adam: What does it do?
God: It... well... uh... I don’t know actually. Maybe you should eat it or something.
Adam: What? Why would I do that?
God: Because I command you to! God damn it, I’m the friggin’ higher power here and you’ll do what I tell you to! Comprende?
Adam: And if I don’t?
God: Then... uh... see that big mother of a serpent over there. I’m gonna command him to crawl up your $%@#!
Adam: Fine. I’ll do as you wish.
God: Good, now eat the bloody apple.
Adam: But what about Eve?
God: Fuck Eve!
Adam: Okay.

Ta Daa!

_

2008-03-21T09:44:00.000-07:00

Barracuda blues~

2008-03-16T04:08:00.000-07:00

I'll be gone. One fine day. Swoosh. Mysteriously vanish like a dying bird. Into the blind spots of the more complicated than the invisible - the visible world. But when? God take me away. For I'm wearied. Torn. Tattered. Utterly destroyed in the dynamics of modern mechanics. The depths swollow me. And the shallowed lot keeps shouting in through the dark hollow of my well. Modernity demands a healthy diet of the Orient - The mystery machine. Men accomplish things faster than the speed of light. And woman cast orgasmic spells in mushroom proportions. And the humans die like cattle on the arid of the arroyo. I'm there too. Living on the parallel universe of the choices i chose not to choose. 'Bourgeois', exclaims God having just woken up after dehydrating on acid for three long days. Cough~

Stipe in Spite ~ As demonstrated by his art parter

2008-02-29T02:57:00.000-08:00

A second life…

2008-02-16T10:34:00.000-08:00

What if you woke up from sleep and found yourself in a place you don’t recognise? You know everything about the present but have absolutely no clue about the past? You know who you are but have no idea about who you were just a few hours ago?

Would you be bold? Or afraid? Or curious? Or indifferent? Or thrilled? Or distressed?

And then the sun came up and you realised that you were having a dream within a dream? What would be on your mind then???

Would it be the realisation that you were just a wee bit more high than the usual? Or would it be something else?

_

2008-02-15T22:35:00.000-08:00

The rest of our lives

2008-02-15T04:17:00.000-08:00

"Hear this song. It’ll change your life” said the unsettlingly beautiful Natalie Portman. I finally managed to, yesterday. You should hear it too. 'New Slang' by The Shins.

For a while, there were just the two of them. He use to swear and she hated that about him. But otherwise they were happy. It seemed natural that they would grow old together. She convinced herself it was just a matter of time.

He never lost control of himself. Even when he was drinking, he’d just grow quieter and quieter. ‘Dance’, she would say, ‘Its only me...’ ‘I can’t’, would be the unvarying reply. She used to say the only time his feet left the ground was when he was climbing trees. He loved to climb. He said the view helped him to see things more clearly.

He must have started to see things a bit too clearly because he developed what they call a mind-set. I guess you could just say he set his mind on certain things and there was no looking back from then on. And like so many people with no particular dream besides the humble desire to remain in the company of the one they choose, the sight of someone else so inspired filled her with a deep emptiness. She began to question whether he needed her at all; when he laughed and said he didn’t think it necessary to answer, this belief hardened. Finally one autumn evening, she left for her parents' house and did not return.

In the months that followed, people would stop by and ask him how he was, but he would just look up slowly, curse the town, and get on with his work. He worked through that winter as if lit by a fire no one else could see. It must have been a very unforgiving fire, for though his manner reflected heat, there was no sign of warmth.

Years went by, and the only word that was used to describe him after a while was ‘constant’. He never was as successful as he thought he would be. But he never stopped working. It was as if he had been sentenced to a lifetime of hard labour, except he wasn’t in jail. Or maybe he was, in a way.

Then something strange happened. One autumn evening, he had a surprise visitor. Time had etched some surface changes, but he could have recognised her by her footsteps, her breathing. She looked so familiar he wondered if it was just his memory playing tricks. He had aged considerably. ‘Old and bony’ was how she described him later.

‘The moment I saw her I realised I was looking in on the good life I might be doomed never to find. I wanted to say so much, but my mind was full and I didn’t know where to start. In desperation, I asked her if she was hungry. She said yes, so I went into the kitchen, but there was no bread. In frustration I shouted ‘God speed all the bakers at dawn, may they all cut their thumbs, and bleed into their buns 'till they melt away.’ When I came out and saw her, there was a strange look in her eyes and I knew I had upset her, just like before. In desperation I started speaking and the words just kept flowing from me...'

She would later tell us what he said, word for word. ‘Am I too dumb to refine? Look at me now… I’m old and my head's to the wall and I'm lonely… All these years I just kept thinkin’, what if you 'a took to me. If you’d 'a took to me like a gull takes to the wind…well, I’d 'a jumped from my tree. I’d 'a danced like the king of the eyesores. And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well, of that I am sure…’

Me'nage A Trois ~

2008-02-14T00:57:00.000-08:00

R.E.M.

huh…..escapes life with the last breath of silence.

The Elysian garden of the Flowering Peach is plagued by a random gust of Brownian chaos. Asthmatic cough keeps blinking into oblivion of disorder. Eventually, chaos disappears into the Machiavellian foxholes of evil deceit.
Behind the colourful bushes two men murmur in warm gulps of caffeine secrecy. The jackal pauses on its silent paws. Vainly looks at them. And violently dashes into the dimensionless room. Markus, half awake, is peering into the clandestine wilderness that looks out of his windows. A ragged man runs down the rough hillside causelessly holding a white flag in his hand. With a fluttering swiftness he disappears behind the frame of right window leaving behind a shrieking shout of silence. To quickly appear on the left one that generously features the rest of the dirty blue landscape. Eyes of stillness chase him down the hillside till he disappears into vanity. Lemon green vignettes blow away the sepia one with a sudden gust of a chilling breeze. Pastel curtains pitter-patter into huge halls of human hubbubs. And the hubbubs blend into an accordion tone of spendthrift delight. A glint in the jackal’s eyes trigger voiceless conversations. Homer, half naked, is flaunting his genius in front of the silken woman who keep bursting into moans of lustful laughter. In the adjoining room, soft reeds of velvet music buoy in the fragrance of the Lilac enchantress. Each passing whiff open like fresh new buds redolent with the temporal essence of material acquisition. An oaken door is left open with a nonchalant demeanour of passionate love making. And inside it, Nietzsche lies peacefully submerged in the tart waters of lemony liaisons.

Blue Notebook No. 2

2008-02-07T21:37:00.000-08:00

Once there was a redheaded man without eyes and without ears. He had no hair either, so that he was a redhead was just something they said.
He could not speak, for he had no mouth. He had no nose either.
He didn't even have arms or legs. He had no stomach either, and he had no back, and he had no spine, and no intestines of any kind. He didn't have anything at all. So it is hard to understand whom we are really talking about.
So it is probably best not to talk about him any more.

Born in St. Petersburg in 1905, Daniil Kharms was one of the founders, in 1928, of OBERIU, or Association of Real Art, an avant-garde group of writers and artists who embraced the ideas of the Futurists and believed that art should operate outside the rules of logic. In 1941, he was arrested by the N.K.V.D. for making “defeatist statements”; sentenced to incarceration in the psychiatric ward of a prison hospital, he died of starvation the following year, during the siege of Leningrad. For more of his absurdist stories visit http://www.sevaj.dk/kharms/kharmseng.htm

Citizen Wood

2008-02-05T05:03:00.000-08:00

Waiting For Gold

2008-02-04T02:43:00.000-08:00

Proving once again that all good things are meant to be stolen, mangled and recycled… including Mr. Becket

Art: Nothing to be done

Copy: Try something new

Art: I'm beginning to come round to that opinion. All my life I've tried to put it from me, saying Art, be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything. Try something new. And I resumed the struggle.

Copy: Am I reasonable?

Art: I'm glad to see you back. I thought reason had left the building.

Copy: No, I’d just stepped out for a smoke.

Art: Together again at last! We'll have to celebrate this. But how? (She reflects.) Roll me one. I’ve had it with this Great Depression.

Copy: After you finish the layout

Art: May one inquire where His Highness spent the night?

Copy: With the client

Art: The Client? Doing what?

Copy: Getting debriefed.

Art: And they didn't beat you?

Copy:Brief me? Certainly they briefed me.

Art: The same brief as usual?

Copy: The same? I don't know what’s same and what’s different anymore. Everything different has been done so we might as well stick with the sameness to be different.

Art: (smoking up) When I think of it . . . all these years . . . but for me . . . where would you be . . . (Decisively.) You'd be nothing more than a little heap of words nobody bothers to read including the client, no doubt about it.

Copy: And what of it?

Art: It's too much for one person. (Pause. Cheerfully.) On the other hand what's the good of losing heart now, that's what I say. We should have thought of it a million years ago, like in the nineties

Copy: Ah! Stop blathering and do the bloody layout

Art: We were respectable in those days. Now it's too late. They only let us do scam stuff. (Copy tears the layout) What are you doing?

Copy: Tearing up your layout. Did that never happen to you? Layouts must be torn everyday; I'm tired of telling you that. Why don't you listen to me?

Silence for 60 seconds. Art sits in front of a blank screen. Copy stares at it hoping she will start doing the layout

Copy; Well?

Art: Nothing.

Copy: Show me.

Art: There's nothing to show.

Copy: Try and do it again.

Art: There is no change in what is to be said?

Copy: No

Art: Yet I must show something new

Copy: In one word. Yes

Art: What if I don't?

Copy: Don't what?

Art: Don't do the layout

Copy: (laughs) that is not a wise choice

Art:What will you do?

Copy: Nothing to be done.

Today

2008-02-02T11:15:00.000-08:00

There once was a spectacled geek in New Delhi
Who put over 19 NFC shawarmas in his belly
And then let out this cosmic fart
That ripped time & space apart
And now the entire bloody universe is smelly

Primetime

2008-01-21T14:14:00.001-08:00

_

2008-01-14T12:32:00.000-08:00

The Facebooker

2008-01-13T11:05:00.000-08:00

Wind, water, whim. All fall still.

Hector receives an anonymous post while he's about to sip the last bit of his hot chocolate -

"Hey, can you please send me a yellow cab near Fun Wall terminal?"

Before he can reply back, a pack of Werewolves sitting on a table beside him come past and bite him. One after the other at his throat.

Another anonymous post Teet-teets in his Inbox -

"can you hurry, there're a thousand requests after me"

Hector, bleeding heavily tries to reach out to the nearest Super wall booth. The run-amocked werewolves disappear down 5th X Me avenue. Gargling hot blood Hector picks up the receiver, dials anonymous post and tries to tell him something...

"Hurckle, hurckle, bloouup".........Hot blood mixed with hot chocolate spills thick into the virtual catacombs..."Hurckle,...."

Nearby, on the street, a snazzy new Double Dare collides head on with a 1984 Superlative. And with seconds of slo-mo turns in the air, comes down with a clamouring clatter, crashing upon Hector.

Anonymous post logs out.

All beings look up in a virtual delirium. Orkut sparkles in the dusken skies.

Prudence

2008-01-13T09:26:00.003-08:00

close to 11, i clear out of a meeting (my head hurts) and i head to a friend's farewell. the bash is over and a man in a bowtie is clearing up the leftover curry and the plates.

beer says my friend. i disagree and we go back up to the 8th floor to get my bag (for no apparent reason) and walk back downstairs becuase i'm afraid of the lift.

downstairs, past a fence, a man is frying eggs on his cart and three men are standing by. a rickshaw is parked in the foreground. drunk, my friend starts crying out to the cold suburban wind demanding a negotiation. one of the men at the cart responds and quotes forty. in a frenzy of post mortem jubilation, my friend agrees and we board the rickshaw.

five minutes past, at wondering why the fuck we aren't moving and where the rickshawpuller is, we turn around and see the man being pummeled by one of the other men at the cart. the other has brutally kicked him at his knee and has taken him down. now he is is kicking at his throat. a man is watching eating bread with devilled eggs. another is frying another egg.

in a whisper, my friend is in the situation. he pushes the man aside and slaps the other in an effort to discipline him. he slaps him again.

i sit back and enjoy my friend's efforts in the direction. when, in what is clearly an unexpected turn, the man gathers forth all the simmering hatred of native gurgaon at the intrusive metropolis and shoves my friend back. i'm quick to be on my feet.

after a furter altercation, more verbal than physical, the man grabs my friend by the muffler. the rickshaw puller disappears to go beckon a security guard. the other man, his snack over, is saying placatory things in a language we don't understand. the vendor is standing idly by his frying pan.

i intervene. i believe i have a gift for sorting such matters. maybe i am an angel in human guise sent down from the heavens to dispatch dispute.

momentary ceasefire.

the rickshawman is back. he has a security guard with him. the security guard clay like stands still with an air of no authority at all. the aggressor, meanwhile is attempting to manually elevate a large boulder of no insignificant tonnage with the express intention of putting it on my accomplice with violent force.

quick, i say, let's escape back to the building.

no, says my friend, let's sit on the rickshaw instead.

we immediately sit on the rickshaw and the driver boards as well, pushing the rickshaw forward in a frenzied but slow manner.

meanwhile, the man with the rock is moving as fast as he can with the boulder behind us, this being a 3.25 or so mph speed on account of the additional weight. he is also letting out some bloodthirsty screams in the process.

we don't look back.

his screams follow the chi curve of getting louder and then receding into quietness. onward ho, we stop at a cigarette shop and my friend acquires four classic milds at the price of three.

everyone in gurgaon is drunk after 11, he says.

we stop before a mall. no one has change. i give the rickshaw puller a fifty note expecting him to demand change from his brethren. in response, he boards a fat well to do looking family and departs at mach speed.

we sit at buzz where they play bollywood loud on imported bose speakers. my friend orders red bull for me and rum for himself. i am infatuated by a girl who has large hoop like earrings, a black top with a pink and a red flower and looks like the bastard love child of carmen electra, bruce lee and robert downey jr.

on our way back, we find an auto who quotes hundred. drunk, my friend agrees. he drops us back at our office.

as he leaves, suddenly, we see the enemy leap out of the darkness and throw his boulder and the auto, instantly smashing and upturning it. we see him pull the bloodied mess that is the autowallah and start pulping him with a fierce intensity.

we hurry into our building, thinking it prudent not to intervene.

the next morning i dream of my school. i'm back there and meeting all my juniors. we're preparing for a party in the sunlit auditorium that was spence hall.

Big Brother: A morality play in three acts

2008-01-05T07:35:00.000-08:00

OR
“I can see some words like ‘fuck’”

Act I
Me: Listen, there’s this blog I contribute to. It used to be accessible before, but now there’s some sign saying its blocked because of {Sex}. It says that in brackets…
Lower-level IT Division Corporate Stooge: Is it for work purposes?
Me: Huh? Excuse me?
Stooge: Does you need this blog for your office work?
Me: No no. The opposite, actually. I use it as an escape. You know, to relax, unwi…
Stooge (piercing look): I can’t help you. You’ll have to write to Corporate Systems
Me: Who are they?
Stooge: They are in Mumbai

Act II
From: Uday Bhatia
Sent: 03 January 2008 10:43
To: Corporate Systems (MUM/IT)
Subject: block

Hi,
This is Uday Bhatia from Delhi. There is a blog which I contribute to called http://newfriendscolony.blogspot.com/. This used to be accessible before, but is now blocked due to content problems. I can assure you that there is no offensive content on it, and would invite you to verify that. If that is the case, I would request you to please un-block it.

Sincerely,
Uday

From: RR (MUM/IT)
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2008 12:36 PM
To: uday.bhatia
Subject: RE: block

Hi,
This site has 79% sex contents which is not allowed, can you recheck the site and find sex related pics/words etc.

Regards,
R

From: Uday Bhatia (DEL)
Sent: 03 January 2008 12:52
To: RR (MUM/IT)
Subject: RE: block

Dear R,

I find that very tough to believe. It’s just a normal blog. As before, I would urge you to have a look at it. However, if there is nothing you can do, then I appreciate your looking into the matter.

Thanks,
Uday

From: RR (MUM/IT)
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2008 12:36 PM
To: uday.bhatia
Subject: RE: block

I can see some words like “fuck”.
Time being I have allowed this site but it could be blocked in future again.

Regards,
R

Act III
Me: Hey, listen man, they seem to have blocked the blog at my office. They say its 79% sex. Could you do me a favour and remove the cartoon with the semi-nude girl and the dwarves. May just work.

2 hours later…

Udayan: Ok, its gone. Did it help?
Me: Nope. Damn. What should I do now?
Udayan: Write about it.

_

2008-01-03T02:59:00.000-08:00

There is a great message in the end

2008-01-02T13:19:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year

2008-01-02T04:28:00.000-08:00

It was New Year's Eve. He sat all by himself. Downing one drink after the other. Drowning his anguish, he drank until he lost count. And lost direction till he had to drag himself to bed. His head spun like a roulette wheel but his stubborn mind managed to somehow apply the brakes and he drifted into slumber. Five minutes later, he shuddered out of it. He put his senses together to figure out that the Haryanvi Jaats living upstairs were creating a ruckus, reveling in the joy of having survived another year in a place that they didn't belong to. 'They belong to hell', was his verdict. He went upstairs, rang the doorbell and out popped a character in a leather jacket embellished by a hundred zippers and a hairstyle that looked like it had been snipped in haste by some timid barber under the shadow of the Jaat's well oiled Lath. He explained the Jaat with all the calm n guts he could gather that he was being rendered sleepless due to their merrymaking. It took him three back to back explanations to get an assurance that they would cut down the volume and confine the mayhem. What he also got was an invite to join in the celebrations but...
He dragged himself to bed again. And tried to get some sleep.
But the Jaats had more obstinacy than alcohol in their blood. The promise was broken.
He locked his apartment and climbed the stairs a second time. And with the help of his jacketed friend, he joined in the celebrations. All the Jaats drank more and more, welcoming the outsider into their home. And he drank more and more, to send the Jaats to hell, to where he thought they actually belonged. He went slit chop split through seven throats with the demeanour of a gunjee & lungee-clad kasaai. Ironically, it was the very music that they were dancing to in their two room barsaati that brought them their death & silenced their screams.
Then he heard a thud. And suddenly felt a throbbing pain at the back of his head. With a dissolving vision, he saw a man with a Lath in hand. The man was drunk and had been lying unconscious in the other room. The man was the grief stricken, timid barber who had just lost seven precious customers on the dawn of a new year!

Moth and Reality

2007-12-29T03:02:00.000-08:00

Moving at a glacial pace, he stumbles upon Jagger the wide mouthed moth. Flutter flutter. Scratchy pollens fly off, waft about for a second and settle upon his suede. Allegoric allergens trigger the finicky foxholes of his mind. Scratch scratch. Blood red blotches mushroom the decaying neurons of his caloried impulse. Jagger smiles at him and with a furtive poise in air disappears into the bright lights of artifice. Flash flash. Ruben, is left stranded on the clueless corners of Blind spot. Tall moments of absolute cluelessness look down upon him like buildings. Unkilled mosquitoes, aeroplanes, crows, cats sneer at him with a triumphant demeanour.

All at once. Twice, thrice. vroooom. honk, honk. vroooMMMMMMMM.....

Bullock cars run him over, time and over again. Bright light is cast upon the entire town of Blind spot. Fuse white electricity burn out the fatty suspensions of his impulse. Ironically, he feels gold.

"Whoa!", he exclaims....."Bermuda shots!"

_

2007-12-28T11:46:00.000-08:00