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No, Merci!

Perhaps, it is all this Oscar hype that has pushed me, once again, to take up my laptop and with my bruised fingers type this. I have, in my resume, mentioned “Watching Movies” as one of my hobbies and have always feared it would be thought of as one of those clichéd hobbies, a fling, an excuse, which is a way to pass time in lethargic languor. But, as I have always then, later when given the chance, passionately expressed what I meant by that hobby in my interviews, people have been, well, impressed. Writing, as you’d know better than me, is my other “hobby” and I wish to bring both of my lovers together in this post.

I am not going to define a film here—of what constitutes a well made movie. People from each era of what is, comparatively a short history of film making, have stubbornly broken trends and redefined the past definitions. An endeavor, hence, to define what a movie should be like, would be pointless and against the tradition of art.

Film makers and their patrons:

We know that there have always been patrons where there are artists, or should I say, there were artists where there were patrons. They made art for the sake of their patrons, to the liking of their patrons. Like in the film “Restoration” Hugh Grant, a painter trying to get the attention of the king draws cherubs in the portrait of the king’s mistress because the king feels no portrait is complete without cherubs. On the other hand, in “Amadeus” Mozart says to the King who doesn’t like his opera because he feels it has “too many notes”, that there are “as many notes as is necessary”. In another scene Mozart shows off his “A—“to the tone-deaf king and his advisors. In “Cyrano de Bergerac” Cyrano de Bergerac, played by the immensely talented (pun, slightly intended) Gerard Depardieu, gives the beautiful, poignant, “No, merci!”** monologue when asked to join a retinue as a poet.

Today too, there are patrons for artists, only difference is that now, it is a whole multitude of people (to each artist his target audience). For example: The Tamizh cinema has almost always targeted the rural audience, the new-age Hindi movies and the Engo-Indo combo films have targeted the multiplex viewers, and the mallu film makers since they do not really know anymore what audience they want to target have opted to random shots in the dark. But, then there are films like “Dilli-6” which almost give the impression that the director is a confused adultoscent who wants to point out how every boy in the town wants to come of age. But, his “kalabandar” metaphor is a very interesting way of storytelling which is not very often used in Hindi films, and perhaps only seldom in foreign films. “Dev. D” is another movie which the people did not really want to understand. And, as is usual in such cases, the film is shunned by a stunned and disappointed audience. On the other hand, when the audience loved the nocturnal Black Knight saving people in the cover of Dark nights, that film did not get even nominated for the Oscars—I bet the panel got their adjectives wrong. Did they not understand the film? Did they not see through the subtlety of the sheer complexity of Joker? Did they not understand that the Joker character is necessary to be recognized because of what he represents—the spite of the bad, the needs of some mad men to be bad just because they cannot be good—in these times? Why is it that the people and the critics have to always disagree?

Films and their Reviews:

And what the hell was so great about Slumdog, guys!? Don’t get me wrong, I am proud of Rahman, Pookutty, and Gulzar…I am happy that another film has been made about the slums of Dharavi and that it has a happy ending, but come on! The panel feeds on hype like hyenas on fly infested dead carcasses. It is my impression that each year the panel decides first who they want to please and then watch the films. This year – all blacks. This year – all brown ones and their colonial cousins. This year - ….

And they are not the only ones. Indian actors and film folk are bickering over whether this is a good film or not. And as is usual the Film’s promoters and the Indian Media have taken advantage of the confusion in the market of whether to watch the film or not. It has become the new “in thing” to have watched “slumdog”. It is almost right up there with having lost virginity and the latest mms scandal. Don’t even get me started on the “Mozart of Madras” travesty.

Perhaps, if it were any other Oscar ceremony and as usual if someone undeserving would’ve got it I would not have ranted like this. Most probably I wouldn’t have. Why then the sudden outburst against “Slumdog”? I suppose it is because it takes bits and pieces of different films, collects a few clichés, mixes the right kind of music to underline the clichés, a Hindi song to get that exotic touch which people of the west have always eaten up as if it were their own apple pie appam, and in the end say that it is true and fantastic and realistic and hopeful and heartwarming and…. And of course, “we the people” like it because of the same reasons and then some more because the “others” also did. I am not angry like Bachan because the film showcases the slum side of India--India is incomplete without its slums. I am not angry because it seems to be like a rip off from other movies—inspiration is acceptable. I am angry because the film just doesn’t deserve the honor it is getting. Because tomorrow, any other film the west might see from India it will be compared with the “slumdog”. People are putting it on a pedestal which it doesn’t deserve. Perhaps, I shouldn’t be angry at the film, but more at the people who have given it honors it doesn’t deserve—the patrons. But, I hope that after seeing this film people watch films from which its sequences have been inspired: Black Friday, City of God, Satya….of course, I hope the west, now that they know there exists a maestro called Rahman, will listen to what he has composed over the past decade.

The Truth About Watching a Movie:

The act of watching a movie is voyeuristic and the pleasure we gain in watching a film is almost always bordering on perversion. Perhaps that is why most of us do not like to watch the films alone; well, at least sub-consciously, it mitigates this feeling of guilt because it is being shared with the others in the room. The lives of others have always been interesting. Everyone wants reality when it showcases the lives of another, but always fantasizes about their own reality. Another point to be noted, I guess, is the interest of a person to know about a world beyond his own. And more importantly is the need of one to be proven right of the stereotype he has pigeonholed another man in.

In the film “The lives of others” which takes place in communist East Germany, an officer keeps track of an artist who they think is writing against their regime. He has, in effect, judged him to have already passed over to the darker west side of the force…but, as he eavesdrops on the conversations the artist has with people, he slowly starts living vicariously through him and begins to protect him. The director of the movie is like the technician who sets up the microphones and the small state of the art cameras to help us, peeping toms, to get a good view of what is going on. The problem is that a seemingly unconscious, non-living entity such as a camera can be very prejudiced indeed. The power of the film comes from this prejudice: the subtle way in which the camera hides some things and highlights others. The camera is like a talkative beast that always seems to be crying out the truth, even if it were the embarrassing ones (usually, only the embarrassing ones) and even if it were about the character that has allowed the camera to look at his life. It reminds me of a monologue I wrote long back:

Once in a far away kingdom, east of east,

There lived a talking parrot that talked like a beast.

Its master had it from its birth, and he had it caged and fed;

It cursed everyone except its master, and that is how, it earned its bread.

One day, a beggar came by its master’s home,

Begging: for a crumb of bread and the shelter of a dome.

The master threw him out mercilessly and waited for his parrot to curse the beggar;

But, the poor parrot—its conscience be cursed!—was forced to stand for something bigger.

And the parrot shrieked “Injustice, Injustice! Damn you master, for you have wronged!”

And the shocked master, mad and angry, let it starve for the food, for which it had so longed.

It was night, and a dark blue veil had enveloped the world,

And the hungry parrot, unable to sleep, wished its wings could unfurl.

Dark was the night yet, stars did shine like spots on a dice,

And in its cover, the beggar came back, and slyly stole the master’s caged prize.

He took it to a lonely place, gave it the only crumb of bread he had left

And slowly, softly, he whispered to it;

“The world is evil my friend, and I am the only good one left!”

When—conscience, be cursed!—the poor parrot declared:

“Damn you, beggar!—for you have committed theft!”

About love, hope, and sadness:

We shouldn’t summarize a film, saying: “It is about hope. It is about the triumph of good over evil.” Etc etc…but, we tend to do that. Films are stories about people. And stories about people are always about different things, and cannot be about only one single thing. “Slumdog” is not only about hope, it is also about poverty and the consequences of it. And similarly it is not only about poverty but also how, if it is “written”, things can go from worse to good.

Few films that come to my mind when I talk about love in films: “Cinema Paradiso” “Two lovers” “Un home et une femme” “Trois Colors (all the films in the trilogy)” and it always seemed to me, from the movies, that Love is a greater Tragedy than loneliness. Though a few movies end happily it nevertheless brings out the underlying tragedy in the situation or hints at the impending doom…I suppose if it weren’t for that element of sadness these stories wouldn’t be told. Love, on its own, pure and unwavering, cannot remain forever. Love must waver, love must be doubted, love must be complemented with sex…for if it weren’t for these, only love and that too, forever, would be devastatingly boring.

Love is a choice, and not some kind of manhole we fall into arbitrarily. Those who “fall” in love, want to do so. Sometimes, who am I kidding, most times, people think they have fallen in love because of a fear of being alone. “Two Lovers” I suppose gives away this secret at the end of the movie. It inspired me to write the following (And as you will guess, I wrote it when I was hungry):

Prologue:

Buttermilk and fish—a pair of misfits,

Decided one day to be together forever:

Though it was not love, but the fear of loneliness,

That brought them together.

***Two Years Later***

The two lovers sat across each other,

A Chinese repast separating them;

There was no sauce—but they didn’t bother,

And they ate the noodles with the Schezwan chicken.

They ate voluptuously, and as they ate the silence grew,

They gulped down words with a sip of water;

And with muffled munching and the clink of silver,

Conversed about how they wished to start anew.

Music played behind the silence,

“Madness!” sang a lonely tenor,

“What is sadness without the madness?!”

…They had by then, finished the tasteless dinner.

They looked at their empty plates:

Nothing more was left to be eaten;

Time had not tarried when they treated their palates,

And slowly the flame from the candle had been taken.

Epilogue:

Two lovers sat across each other—

And once more it was the fear that brought them closer;

They felt the room, devoid of the smell of food,

They felt the world outside, which wasn’t familiar anymore;

And though they wished they could go out and shut the door,

They feared to trespass boundaries for fear of being rude…

Two lovers sat across each other,

And they had realized they weren’t lovers anymore.

Violence and sex:

Do we need to talk about them? Yes. Why do we need to talk about them? Because these are primordial emotions, without which we would not have procreated and survived the harshness of life. Why then what was the cornerstone of human philosophy now an anomaly? Violence is more a rule than exception. Sex…well, even if we are not preoccupied with it, it is not only a burgeoning industry, but also the crux of youth.

In Salo, the most violent and perverted film I have seen in my life, the whole concept of beauty and human was redefined and slandered and twisted into this ugly and tragic underworld.

A clockwork Orange, Amores Perros, Ran and Nagashi Oshima all show in one way or the other not only how violence and sex are similar to each other or are the consequences of each other, but also how the two combined make for a tight story line.

This is the starting of a short story I tried to re-write a few months back. It is called “A Sade Ode to a Love story” which was, sadly, inspired from umpteen porn films and from a desire to show the dark side of love…and I am going to end this post with the following excerpt from it.

We parked the car in front of the community waste dump. He twisted around his torso to kiss me before being impertinently pulled back by his seat belt—we giggled. We pulled up the windows and pulled down our pants—he never wore underwear, he told me. We looked at each other. I was never so sure about anything else in my life. I caught him and I slowly tightened my grip until he filled it completely and extruded out. I undid my bra as he put on a condom. My dark breasts overflowed in his white palm and bulged out through his slender fingers. He was looking at his hungry hands as I stared at his moist lips; then our eyes met; then his grip grew stronger and then—ouch!—he pulls me towards him and we kiss…. We did that for sometime.

We desperately wanted to get it right the first time. It was a very difficult maneuver to perform even in the back seat (where we had migrated to in our peevish delight) of that dingy blue car and we were in too much of a hurry, which made it harder. It seemed to take a lot of time, but, there we were naked on our sides, at last, and his tongue was not the only part of his which was in me. It was noon, I realized in a moment of sensory lapse, and the heat, it seemed to me, acting as a catalyst, had fused the stink of shit, of burning plastic and of rotten food, into a cogent smell that seeped into the car and mingled with our very own human stink and sweat to become a most potent olfactory aphrodisiac. Nothing, I can guarantee you, could’ve roused my depraved soul to that heightened, almost spiritual, plane more than that reeking stench that had enveloped us like a cocoon of perversion, and that kept us safe, away from all that cancerous decency of civilization, beside those hillocks of rejected, excreted, unwanted, morsels; away, far away, from civilization—as if it were reminding me of my perversion and the freedom I had gained by indulging in it. I realized I had started breathing heavily; then I couldn’t hold my smile back; then my brows furrowed and as they entwined up there, down below I pulled him into me and held him in there tightly; then as I almost forgot to breathe in, there was a deafening silence which ended in a prolonged moan, and then, I could feel nothing but lightness.

***

This is going to be my last post on this blog. This blog and its predecessors have all done me good. But, I feel I do not have anything else to contribute in this blog or should I say, I have surpassed the “idea”—if ever there was one—of this blog and I suppose I should move on to other endeavors on other blogs. A few ideas are in the waiting, and until then, let me leave you with this thought, which is my version of what I read in one of Pamuk’s books….

It is those films and stories which we do not wish to share, or are embarrassed to share that reflect our true selves. To put in a corny remark: We are what we hide.

**The “No, merci!” monologue as translated by A.S.Kline

What would you have me do?

Find a powerful protector: and choose a patron,

like the dark ivy that creeps round a tree-trunk,

and gains its support by licking at its length,

to climb by a ruse instead of rise by strength?

No, thank you! Dedicate, as others do

my poetry to bankers? Become a buffoon

in the base hope of seeing a less than sinister

smile quiver on the lips of some Minister?

No, thank you! Dine each day on a toad?

Own a belly worn out with crawling? Show

a skin that’s dirtied quicker than my knees,

and with a supple spine do tricks to please?

No, thank you! Pat the goat’s neck all over,

with one hand, water the lettuce with the other,

a dealer in senna for rhubarb lovers, I suppose

always wafting a censer under someone’s nose?

No, thank you! Urge myself on from lap to lap:

be a little maestro pacing round in a trap,

or navigate with oars made from madrigals,

and old ladies’ sighs the breezes in my sails?

No, thank you! At some editor’s in the City

edit his verse for pay? No, thank you! Try

to get myself named the high Pope of councils

held in the taverns by imbecilic scoundrels?

No, thank you! Work to be a presence known

for one sonnet, instead of writing many? No,

thank you! Not reveal a talent that amazes?

Not be terrorized by the morning papers?

Not say endlessly: ‘Oh, could I but see

myself in small print in the ‘Mercury’!’

No thank you! Calculate, show fear, grow pallid,

prefer to make a visit than a ballad?

Get myself presented, write petitions to the king?

No, thank you! No, thank you! No, thank you! But…to sing,

to dream, to smile, to walk, to be alone, be free,

with a voice that stirs, and an eye that still can see!

To cock your hat on one side, when you please

at a yes, a no, to fight, or – make poetry!

To work without a thought of fame or fortune,

on that journey, that you dream of, to the moon!

Never to write a line that’s not your own,

and, humble too, say to oneself: My son,

be satisfied with flowers, fruit, even leaves,

if they’re from your own garden, your own trees!

And then should chance a little glory bring,

don’t feel you need to render Caesar a thing,

but keep the merit to yourself, entirely

in short, don’t deign to be the parasitic ivy,

even though you’re not the oak tree or the elm,

rise not so high, maybe, but be there all alone!

Poems.

1

In front of the window that cannot be closed,
I sit on my creaking chair underneath the leaky ceiling—[What a sieve of a sealing!].
I pick up my pen in dreadful apprehension
Of the words that might flow from its ink.—[Thou art me, mine inky inkling!].
{Outside: The clouds, in one thunderous finale
Blast into infinite smithereens of bulbous droplets—[drop in, plop in, keep it comin’...]}

“Ah, afflicted apostate!
Cover thy paper, strike off what is trite!
And Behold beauty’s bounteous buff-et!”
The clouds giggling thunderously, — “O Hear-Hear!”
The overshadowed Sun, pouting — “O Here-Here!”
The swarthy trees with darkening barks, bathing — “O Dear-Dear!”
The incense from Earth’s soiled armpits maddening a sordid soul— “O Fear-Fear!”

Nudged by the wind below, it caresses my elbow—
The blank sheet: virgin, unfulfilled, restless. —["I need writing in massive doses"]
I try to look away into the whiteness below,
But the rain has stopped, and the window never closes! —[My penned up love remains ever faithless! ]
{Outside: the clouds part, the sun glows, the trees glisten,

The earth shifts, the pores open, the seed sprouts, the apple tree grows, and nature poses.}

2

We are two swans, my friend,
Painted on two different canvases;
Riding the belligerent billows,
On this eternally perturbed lake of life.
Silently as we watch in our loneliness,
The ripples of strife between time and man,
We feel life heave and then sigh beneath us,
And we are caught in it for an eternity’s span.
Yet, as we wave good-by to the passing ripples,
We remain where we are—never together,
You, trapped inside your painting,
And me, trapped inside mine.

A poem. (Re-Edited)

Take a deep breath, clear your mind—stay,
A year has passed and today is your birthday:
Pause for a moment, thus… and replay;
You have the right to cause time's delay.

Remind yourself the lessons which past has taught:
Forgive if it has wronged you, but forget it not;
Now look ahead: a new age brings with it a fresh start,
From forgiveness comes learning, and learning is life’s art.

Forgive those words of wisdom that have irked you often;
Forgive those times of folly, when you didn't listen to them;
Forgive those who have hurt your pride,
Either in love, ignorance, or with malicious spite;
Forgive yourself, when with a confident stride,
Have you done something that you later thought unwise.
Forgive me if I have committed any dastardly act,
And for not knowing I did do it—in fact:
We are all fools in our own ways, aren't we?
So, think of this and grant every plea.

Remember those moments which make up your life’s story
Recount them, and let them be no more a blurred memory:

Remember that day when you found a dearest friend,
As you shared a few secrets walking around the road's bend;
Who neither intruded upon your solitude, nor did leave you behind,
For whom you have been a confidant most patient, a judge most kind.

Remember the day when your heart skipped a beat,
As your teacher shared with you the crumbs of life's feast,
As he sang with you, and swayed in the nights breeze,
With whom you loved being and who, in you, found a student to teach.

Remember those hours when you worked for what you believed,
No more seeking the wage of glory for the deed;
And thus, as you found yourself from your worries freed,
Tired and happy you slept; a well earned, peaceful sleep.

And those other secret treasures of your memory,
That is yours and yours alone to keep;
Remember them and tuck them in, in your book of history,
And there let them be, for in the present lies what you seek.

If you find in your gifts an unearned luck,
Or find a few gifts well beyond your own worth,
I hope you find the modesty, truthful to your heart,
To give yourself a share in the credit,
And reserve the others for the major part;
For then, my friend, you would’ve opened
The most beautiful gift, that of love unblemished.

Today is your birthday,
And I hope you find in you the gift
That in all, albeit silently, does lay;
That which every being is entitled to have,
And whose worth never denies him of it;
A gift that forgives all the follies,
And opens the treasure chest of memories….

I hope u grow wiser with every passing day,
And yet remain innocent enough to play;
I hope, and this is all that I can do,
I hope against the hope that this is a poem not worthy of you.

Snow...

The year is at its end and I am told it is a time to be merry. I try to find reasons, and I find them too, without much difficulty. I try and stretch my neck, and look beyond this wall of present into the neighboring future. But, my eyes seem blind to such prodigal wanderings of a languishing mind and looks away, past-wards.

Past, though, is like a book one has already read, and which one has come to love; a book that one goes back to, ever so often; a book whose pages contains lines that describe memories in present tense. So powerful are the words in it, so vivid are the memories that you are sucked into that vortex of words, the only way to stay afloat in which, lest one succumb to its power, is to hold onto the sole thing that exists in its world: the past.

Slowly, you feel addicted to past; you feel that if you are to live, you need to breathe in your past. You are so hooked onto the past that you find the present, constricting, and the future, insipid…. And like that abject soul addicted to his snow white powder, let me once again go back to that book and describe to you one memory of mine. I do not understand why it comes to me at this point in time and why this one in particular; perhaps, it is because this mysteriousness that I find it necessary I must share this with you…

Snow; white snow: I saw it first, last year. It was on one of those peaks which formed the chain of foothills that was a part of the lesser Himalayas. Apart from the fact that it was the first time I rode on a mule, and also, going on the reasonable (albeit naïve, and foolish) assumption that all mountains are basically the same, I had this feeling that I was almost trekking Everest; well, apart from these absurd feelings, my memory of the journey to the top of the peak is blurry and I shall not speak of it more. But, let me describe to you the sight that was offered to me on that peak…it was, the singular most overwhelming sight I had ever seen.

Nature, it seemed to me, was lying on her back, sunbathing, naked; her snow covered breasts proudly pointed towards heavens, teased the gods; and those dark valleys covered with pine trees, tempted us men to lose ourselves in between her legs. The nipping wind gave me Goosebumps; the sheer breadth of the land beneath me caught me off guard….And showing off its prized possessions, cool as ever, there she was…laughing at me…and all I could manage to mumble was “Why?” and how does she answer?—with silence.

What I saw before me petrified me. What I saw before me was old, it existed even before I began my own existence, and it will be here even after I bit the dust and become a part of it. But…but…that is not sufficient is it? One wishes to do more; one wishes, to be immortal; one wishes to also lie naked without fear and tease the gods and (wo)men alike; one also wishes to be the cause of envy…But, sun was setting, and as it did, it did what all alchemists of history put together could not do with their centuries of obsessed perseverance: it transformed all that powdery whiteness called snow into gold in those few moments of twilight…but, by the time I could take my eyes off it to grab some, sun had already set, twilight was over, and night had fallen.

The fool's chance...

One day, atop a cliff, a stone
Underneath the summer sun, shone
Like a ruby on the crown of the late King Bone.

Red like a ruby, were the blood had spurt
Of the idiot king, who did blurt
Before his end: "All but me are dirt!"

A stone, not this one,
That weighed less than a tonne,
Whistled past...a job--in short--well done.

King Bone's head, was broke,
And with not one to tend, he was dead, the poor bloke!
(Note: The intended pun, was not just a lucky stroke.)

Aye! For the wretched kingdom,
Its head deep in debt's bum,
Was as penni-less as a deflated condom.

The people spoke in anagrams; the king, nonsense.
Starvation had their brains put in an e-class Benz,
And pushed off a cliff in the name of God 'Hoo-fils-sens'

The gods, overwhelmed by pity, cursing the destitution,
Sat together,and tried re-forming fortune's constitution,
And found the one way, which didn't end in universal destruction.

Thus it said: "A whistling stone, must break a bone."
And as the history books claim ( 'cause it can't be for sure known)
This caused no war, but the birth of the now obsolete phrase "Break a bone"

But, the meaning was grabbed by its nuts, by the town fool,
Whose brains had been knocked straight, thanks to the rule:
"To all, what happens to one", which upended any other into a nutty-drool.

He watched, silently, patiently--a stone in his hands:
The speech of the king and his prideful prance,
And then, at its end, he threw, and usurped his fool's stance.

Here the story ends,
Only to be spoken about now, in past tense,
That the one who threw the stone,
and killed King Bone,
Brought the kingdom back from foolishness,
but, alas! for perverted rules, lost himself in its absurdness.

“You are beautiful.”

If lie can be called a lie, and that lie, another lie,

Then lie shall never remain a lie, and nor that lie, a lie.

So, if a lie it is that I tell that I lie about your beauty,

Then there is beauty in that lie, and that lie shall never be a lie.

8 Random Facts

1) Though I do not remember the time I was born, I am told it was the first time I cried. Though I do not remember what I liked or disliked then, I have been reminded on more than one occasion that I liked the smell of kerosene, so much so that I once drank a lot of it. Even though you may tend to disagree, I must say, it did not harm me gravely. Though I guess, it did screw up my olfactory senses and has made the smell of kerosene repugnant enough for me to have puked each time I smelt it during those long rides on dilapidated buses we took when we had to travel to the city. Perhaps – I again surmise – it was this relation of sickness to buses and buses to travel, that made me hate buses, travelling and anything else related to travelling. And it is for this latter reason I think, that I liked staying put at home, and perhaps due to this that I started getting bored of home, and therefore took up books to exorcise boredom in order to stay put.

2) 2) I am told that even when I didn’t have enough sense of consciousness to realize that I was in fact trying to read, I used to attempt reading the newspaper upside down. My maternal grandfather always kept me beside him whenever he was working, he gave me a pen and a rough notebook and I – the ever obedient grandson that I was – used to scribble on the book either until when there was no other page left to scribble on, or when my grandfather or anyone else stopped me from scribbling anymore. I always liked sitting at one place, even before I started travelling. So, I think I am contradicting my first statement.

3) 3) I was named Unnikrishnan Neithilath when I was about 6 months old. Unni in Malayalam means ‘child’. Krishnan of course means Krishnan, and not someone who is so dark that it is hard to capture his image on a photograph. Neithilath is the surname of my mother, which she got from her mother, and so on (This is a custom in the Nair community that the surname of the mother’s is passed on instead of the father’s.) Then I got named bugs bunny, for some insane, inane reason….then got nicked Dr. Flea…then I got nicked panni (I don’t know why)…then I got nicked prandan unni (Unni the psycho, “why?” is quite evident I think)…then vulgar-unni (for my sense of humor)…then director Unni (for a flopped play)…then editor unni (for the newsletter)…I am planning to name myself Unnamed Unni…doesn’t have the touch though…am still thinking…ideas for names are welcome.

4) 4) I learnt balling; I liked it and I balled so much that I never got to bat. I didn’t give a damn. During one period, I made it a ritual to eat five-star before I went out to play a game.

5) 5) I once made humus out of a lot of waste and decided I would become a biologist. Then my friend and myself, took the wood shavings from a sharpener, added explosive powder from the “atom bomb”, some water, mixed it with something else, then I think we heated it (If we did, we were lucky not have blown up the kitchen), and at last put whatever it was, in the freezer. After a week we found a silver colored precipitate, which my friend’s mother threw out in a fit of frenzy as soon as she saw it in our hands. I made up theory for things falling on the ground, and told it to friends, none of whom understood a damn thing (this was in seventh). I at the same time, also started writing stories inspired by hardy boys, of whose collection I had read only half a book. I wrote two stories, the themes of which I do not remember. I then saw the film “Border” and decided I would join the army. I was also inspired by the famous cartoon GI Joe. I played a lot with a lot of toys, day dreaming war sequences. Abhinandan and myself would sit together, and painstakingly set up the whole thing in about two hrs, hiding the villains, imagining beds as cliffs, and the floor as the battleground; and then in one stroke we would finish off the villains, because we knew where they were hiding exactly.

6) 6) I always thought specs were cool. I thought they made me look intellectual. The first specs I bought were round, like that of Harry Potter’s. After reading Harry Potter I always dreamt about my pen suddenly becoming my wand, and being able to blast my teachers into oblivion. I had a humongous crush on Hermione.

7) 7) Whenever I eat apples at home, with all civility in me, I throw whatever is left into the bushy park in front of my home, thinking that after a long time those seeds grow into apple trees and that park change into an apple orchard.

8) 8) Once as I rode my two-wheeler (spirit aka “kukka pilla” for the noise it makes) I had an intense, irritating wish to scratch my right knee. I didn’t want to slow down the vehicle, and for some reason wanted to scratch my right knee with my right hand. After some amount of careful deliberation I came to the conclusion that I could hold the accelerator with my left and the scratch my right knee with my right hand. I tried that ingenious plan: the scooter lost balance, skidded about ten feet, was about to land in a gutter but was saved by a tree. All this luckily happened in front of the hospital. I am alive, and that is about the best random fact I can give you about myself.

A walk in the rain

As I walked, these were the thoughts, visions, memories that passed through my mind:

1) I was watching an English film, and with it I had to watch all that “the package” delivered: bomb blasts, shoot outs, dramatic chase sequences, cheesy dialogues; the maid who was watching all this agape, sighed and told me in a grave voice, “They say the world is going to come to an end. They say it’ll happen this year.”

2) The world is round, and so is perhaps the moon...but, asteroids are not (are they?) and if one were to walk/hop in a straight line on one, would one fall off it at some point in time? Or, could one then walk/hop upside down?

3) A story: There is a coup in a sultan’s kingdom, led by the women of his harem and their lovers. The sultan though, is forewarned by the eunuch (kancukin, as they were called in India) who guards the harem. The sultan had enough time to escape but, he disguises himself as a eunuch and goes to the harem to find the one woman he loved so much. It is because he gave her most of his time, he reasoned as he tried to get into her room, that the other women felt unsatisfied and started having illicit love affairs…. He climbs into her room through the window, only to find her head severed off the torso by the rest of the women in the harem. They were expecting him…they whistled, all at once, and their lovers came through the doors, and like black ants filled the room…they surrounded the sultan and mutilated him. (There is a story in the Thousand and one nights, about a sultan who watches his entire harem cuckold him with their black slaves. I have not read it, but I have read about it. This story is my own, though inspired unbeknownst to me by the review of the story in Thousand and one nights I read in The Black Book well before I formed this story in my mind...it is weird what one remembers, and the way one remembers it.)

4) Everything around me was grey. There was no light, and yet there were a few surviving rays that sort of gave everything around me a greyish hue. As I walked in the puddle of water that the ground had become, I found that I wasn’t walking but rather the ground beneath me was moving giving me the feeling I was walking. I walked faster, but the ground beneath me seemed to be the one moving and not me. Relativity, and the sense of it, had confounded me; it seemed I was drunk in the benighted night that had enveloped everything.

5) What is the meaning of Vagueness?

6) Day dreams and their importance…futility of everything real.

7) The poem Kubla Khan, was written by Coleridge in a sort of trance that he thought was brought upon by opium. He couldn’t finish the poem, because as he was writing it, a guest knocked upon his door, and Coleridge couldn’t finish the poem because he forgot the lines to his poem. He always found his poems to come to him as visions or as dreams, rather than be of a more deliberate nature…I have to tell this to Nirmal.

8) There was a seal found during the Harrappan excavation, that of a big-nosed gentleman wearing a horned head-dress who sits in the lotus position with an erect penis, an air of abstraction and an audience of animals. What would they be using that seal for? Why has it gone obsolete?…I would find it quite funny, as I write my exams to find a seal of the above kind, instead of an insipid college seal….it would be only amusing, of course, only amusing...no other sort of...you know...it would be merely funny...that is all.

9) Another story forms: Mr. Lingam was very insecure about his cock’s future. It was quite improbable, he told himself, that after his death anyone would even look twice at it, let alone make sure it had a new pair of underwear everyday, so, he wrote a will. After his death, all his wealth passed onto his cock, and the caretaker of the cock, would be given unrestricted access to it(the money, I mean). The fact that Mr. Lingam had gone cuckoo during his final days, actually a few months before he rewrote his will, and locked himself in his room while clucking like a chicken, added disquiet to the already mysterious proceedings. After his will was declared, there was a fight amongst his ex-wives (who were too many), his sons, his daughters, his friends, who were only too eager to get rid of this sickening responsibility of “my cock” (as it was alluded to in the will). Surely, they told themselves, Mr. Lingam had surely gone insane. They in the end imposed this responsibility upon the geriatric butler who had been with Mr. Lingam, until the former fell in the bathroom, injuring his hip bone to be wheel-chair-ridden for the rest of his life. The aged butler, standing by his allegiance to his master, who was kind and loving to him before insanity overpowered him, took the responsibility of his master’s cock, but not without his doubts. As everyone else left the mansion and after the decision was finalised, the butler was asked to go to the room where the body lay unmoved, to do whatever was necessary. The butler is carried by his sons to the room on the first floor, and still unsure of his decision he opens the door to find the cock; its legs sticking out of its underwear, clucking and eating the grains off the floor.

10) Dostoevsky and his greatness. How I resemble Ivan Karamazov. What Pamuk says about Dostoevsky, “My first reading of Dostoevsky has always seemed to mark the moment when I lost my innocence.”—how true…how true…. What Borges says about Dostoevsky, “Discovering Dostoevsky is like discovering love for the first time, or the sea, – it marks an important moment in life’s journey.” – how true…how true…

11) How profound is this:

"Aye!" (quoth the delighted reader) "This is sense, this is genius! This I understand and admire! I have thought the very same a hundred times myself!" In other words, this man has reminded me of my own cleverness, and therefore I admire him. – Coleridge.

12) Why should one write? What should one write about? What is the necessity of art?

About how, Robin Williams says in Dead Poet’s Society, “Art is what makes one want to live” or something on those lines…How Woody Allen remarks to himself that of the things worth living for is the second movement of the Jupiter symphony by Mozart… the paedophile case against Allen….everything ceases to make sense…life is vague, so must be art…art exists to show the inherent futility in trying to prove that everything is connected, and why it is so….an artist must be there to help others give examples to confirm their belief about life. Without art, they would fall short of analogies, and once that happens they would never be able to speculate on life as excitedly…the one thing that makes living worth its hardships…the ambiguity of it…the scope of speculation.

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.