Digressions in the Diary of a Dionysiac

I must start smoking or something. Not that I want to die with my lungs filled with tar or anything, that would be a terrifying prospect of course, but just that the picture of myself writing with a fag between my fingers would be a very ‘picturable’ thing. Balanced between the index and the F-finger of my left hand with the ash piling up at the other end, while my right hand holds a fountain pen- not those slim, aerodynamic ones which sometimes make me wonder whether they were made to write for they seldom did, or were they made to help you throw it more accurately at someone you didn’t like, not those- you know those really old ones, fat and which leaks ink from every joint it has; resting my left hand so that the piled up ash falls onto an ash tray on the writing table on which are strewn papers, some rolled up and crushed, some lying underneath an egg shaped paper weight, some being blown away by the table top fan that sits on a high pedestal; an open ink bottle solemnly remains stationary beside these papers, on the table; sitting before a glass window through which the penetrating afternoon rays crash upon all that is in the room, illuminating them; this would be a very picturable picture, even if I were not having the cigarette in between my fingers- I am not saying that, all I am saying is it would add to the whole ambience of it. It would look even more appealing, if the pic were to have a vintage look to it, like you know black & white and all. Somehow, writing with a pen on paper seems to be what those old fashioned, weirdo, pedantic guys would do, maybe they do it just because they feel they are a part of this picturable picture, yes, that would be quite probable, I would’ve done it too, of course, if I were like so darn pedantic and all, but I am not. They are the most ostentatious, hypocrites of geeks I have seen, and I have seen many geeks, being one of them myself, but I am no pedantic. They always spoil the jokes; they come in with these correct pronunciations when we were only joking for F’s sake, man they really kill them jokes. I usually write whatever it is that I write on my laptop, MS Word helps me with my inane mistakes in English grammar, so if you find any punctuation errors or some spelling mistakes or mistakes in sentence structures, blame Microsoft for it, because I have used auto correct options everywhere in this piece and if still there are mistakes, it is because MS Word is not as efficient as they say it is, or so you could conclude. But then again picturable is something I made up. I am quite a wordsmith myself, and not only that I am quite a punner too, only my puns just seem to bounce over people’s heads, they just don’t understand. Like for example, I use euphemisms almost always, but only that I use the harsher terms when I could have used a softer one, I once had to say this vote of thanks for the teacher’s day celebration in my school and I went and said, “Thank you for wasting your time here.” Well, my English madam came to me after the vote of thanks finished (which by the way was only that line.) and swore at me so badly that I learnt a few new swear words myself from her that day. Anyways, what I wanted to say was, if I put in a laptop in that picture, it would just as much as ruin the darn thing as a cigarette would enhance it. So, now, I am in this dilemma of sorts. If I wish to be in one such picturable pic, I would have to lose my laptop, and that would like kill my writing spirit. But, for the sake of the beauty of the picture, if anyone were to take a pic with me in it exactly like that, for beauty’s sake I think I must do that, I must start writing with paper and ink so that I would have time to get habituated to writing with a pen, just so that when the time comes I don’t look as if I was posing for a picture, that would look so bloody “phony”. Now, that is something else- ‘for beauty’s sake’. How much would one do for beauty’s sake? Would one even tell what one doesn’t believe in, just because he knew his thoughts are a nasty piece of work? Well, I would. I just did.

I could even start drinking now, coming to think of it. Why stop with smoking I say? Like, I only have like a year or so to graduate from this god forsaken place of knowledge, “An institution that seeks to produce India’s finest engineers” (like hell it does), and I have still not managed to inculcate a decent bad habit. It is not that I haven’t tried, as god is my witness, I have. But, every time I smoked a puff, I would burst out into these coughing bouts, man they were embarrassing as hell, so I stopped trying to smoke. I mean, who would want smoke to come out of themselves. But in their defence I must say these guys do look quite cool when they slowly exhale a dense cloud of smoke from their mouths, and only then and at no time else. It is like something spiritual or something. You know, as the cloud of smoke seductively hovers near your mouth and then diffuses, it’s like watching the person’s being leave him or something, to gain higher places. Now, how many of you people realised that was a pun? Did you? Of course you did. Now, I wouldn’t want to be a narcissistic fool thinking I am bloody obscure, that would make me pedantic wouldn’t it? Well, those souls who are too narcissistic, to the degree they are addicted to it, drink like drunkards. It is as if, they need to lose consciousness of themselves to become more narcissistic. There was this night; it was raining suddenly, as if heavens had decided to take a leak suddenly then and there, I was waiting for this bus to take me to this place I had to go to, and I was surrounded by drunkards. Most of them were so bloody drunk, they couldn’t sit on their asses for more than a second; ok, that was a slight poetic, artistic, exaggeration, about 50 seconds let’s say. See, now, exaggeration is something we can also find in them drunkards. They blow up the tiniest of their woes by fretting on them, by adjectivising them, that they would make the ones who hadn’t had a drink even once in their lifetime, puke on themselves because of the incessant nauseating narcissistic cribbing. Somehow drunkards are able to understand drunkards better, almost similar like as women understand women better. I am not yet a drunkard, I drank only once, honey-bee brandy, one peg, dry- it tasted like sweetened vomit, though I have not had that, I guess it would have tasted like that. My friends were laughing their guts out, most puked their guts out later, but, I had a manly reason to give them when I refrained from drinking another shot, and I wasn’t making it up either, I meant it. I told them, I would like to have my sense about me when I am still alive, it is supposedly the only time when we know we exist, and I meant it. Sleep is another such thing where one seems to lose consciousness; though I sleep as if I were dead. Not that I really want to be an insomniac or anything, though I did fantasise I was turning into one, I even acted out being an insomniac- to myself of course, in front of a mirror- after watching the film “Insomnia”, the one with the Italian guy in it. Insomniacs are lucky that way. Anyways, I am no insomniac. Though I reckon it is best if we are as conscious about the fact that we are alive as along as we are “up and about” (once dead we would no longer know we were once alive would we?); sleeping would not do that would it, so I sleep when it is absolutely necessary for me to sleep, I sleep quite late, about 2 in the morning or so, but I am so tired that I never manage to get up fast, and so I end up sleeping more than others too. I must remember to sleep early, perhaps, that would put me one step closer to becoming an insomniac.

I just finished this book called “The catcher in the rye” today. Well, what do I say about it? I won’t say anything, as a matter of fact. I hate book reviews, actually. I hate reviews. How can one say whether this is good or that is bad? And even if one had all justifications, and the right, and the power, to say whether this is good and that is bad, and if he would say it, I would still hate it. I would hate it even more if I hadn’t read the book before hearing the review, or seen the film for that matter, film reviews are more ubiquitous (a pedantic term, wouldn’t you say?). But, then of course a simple, good or bad review would look like god when compared to those other reviews which gives out bits and pieces of the film. I hate trailers too; they are almost like these other type of reviews. Like, if someone says to me so-and-so film had such-and-such actors Frenching right there on the screen, then when I did go to the sleazy movie, I would be so excited to watch them make out that when at last the scene did come it would become such a banal thing that I would feel miserable for those bucks I lost to watch this unsurprising act of frenching, the point is the whole surprise would’ve been ruined. Just now, when I referred to the movie as a sleazy movie, you must have thought I was being a “phony” prude or something; but, I ain’t one. Its just that, sometimes after all those blue films have satiated my appetite of the flesh, and if I wanted to watch a covered woman for a change, I would take a Hindi picture thinking that at least there are still decent films to watch after all that “perverty”; but just as the film moves into its quarter time, I find wet t-shirt contest like rain dances; orgy like marriages, where every one is trying to make out with someone else; or plain, straightforward nudity. It’s all so “phony” that I wish I were still watching an unphony freaking porn film for F’s sake. This phonyness is something else all together. “Inspiration”, is what a few from bollywood call it; yeah, my foot it is. It all starts with formation of stereotypes, such phonyness that is. Actually, originality itself is a phony word. If something were original it would be classified, and then because it is thought to profess somekind of whatever notion, it would cease to be original. People like stereotypedness, and stereotypedness is what makes them classify everything and in that originality loses its unique identity. And once that happens, originality itself becomes a phony word. It is stereotypedness that makes one say, “Hey isn’t this piece of shit like this other piece of crap that is based on another piece of unmitigated triteness?” it shows you how one piece seems similar or dissimilar to another, and hence magnifying the banality of it. Actually, if I were as narcissistic as those drunkards, I would’ve realised that I am as good a liar as those phony laptop writers ready to do anything for beauty’s sake who are as phony as those old fashioned writers of the Pen (Pun intended). Actually, if I were as phony as those reviewers, I would’ve realised that this piece of whatever it is, is like something else which I hope to hell was an original. But, I am no phony, and so shall end it here.