Gripped

Just outside my window, bathed in the magical flush of a very European sort of [it’s always European-bordering-on-English-fantasy, isn’t it? Enid Blyton was an imagination-grabbing fascist, I’ve decided] eternal-sunshine-of-the-spotless-spring-but-with-autumnal-trees, a gay bunch of butterflies floated about dreamily. For some reason they were all disguised as something else. Bits of flaking window sill, shavings of bark and leaves mostly, of every colour.

A filmmaker friend was droning on about his sabotaged project at my elbow, as I leaned out of the window taking in the sight and light, feeling very blithe and ethereal like a dreamy princess. For the first time since I’ve known him, I turned to him to say “look I’m not interested in listening to you. I’ve had enough of your whine. Let’s hear the story you want to tell”.

Instantly, we were plunged into a very edgy thriller. There were five of us. Two young women and three men, two of whom were young and handsome and the third, a middle-aged loner. Everybody was shadowy [except, of course, for me] and we were running, trying to escape… from something.

Like with most high-intrigue-spy-vs-spy dramas that are set against larger murky political webs of deceit wherein the plot is singularly unrelenting, I was a bit muddled. Somebody very desperate and very very dangerous was chasing us, presumably to bump us off; is all I was capable of assimilating in this wrought-with-tension situation. Of course I could’ve argued that I had absolutely no clue of what I was being hunted down for; I had missed the plot entirely and there was really no need to get aggressive and adamant about killing me, because I was quite innocent and deplorably stupid even, if you’d [nebulously they’d] insist. But, when you’re running for your life, you don’t really think of motives, arguments and counter-arguments. You just bloody run. And so we did.

At some point we arrived at a deserted beach house. By this time, there were only two of us [obviously handsome young man no. 1 and I]. We’d got separated from the rest of the group for some inexplicable reason. Now, put deserted house, beach, handsome young man [even if shadowy] and young woman [blithe, ethereal and princess-like] together, and what do you get? Not an ordinary romance. A kind that’s absolutely pulsating with drama and passion because you don’t know if you’re just about to shove your tongue down the killer’s throat. But just as we were getting to the good part, we sensed lurking danger [which is always very ominous, especially when in italics].

The killer was on the prowl and had followed us; by which time we had also deduced that the killer had to be one of us five, but now obviously not shadowy lover and I. [Logic can be so simple and beautiful, na?] So off we went, with a non-kiss hanging in the air, galloping towards the sea, which isn’t the smartest thing to do while attempting to outrun a killer, because there’s only so far you can go on a pair of wobbly-with-unrequited-passion legs on a limited strip of beach.

Many twists and turns later, once again, we found ourselves running towards the sea.

*Digression begins* An unconscious [as differentiated from 'subconscious'] leitmotif is the unmistakable sign of good story-telling [however headless], I’m told. *Digression ends*

This time we were on a tar road, headed towards a docked luxury cruise-liner where we were supposed to meet with the others. There was very little time. We kept running. Or trying to; our legs had become leaden and very heavy; it felt like we were running through molasses. The killer was fast closing in on us. An overbearing sense of doom was settling.

Just as I was ready to give up and start crying, a bunch of cheerful street children appeared and whispered something in our ears; which cheered us up immensely because the next thing I know is we grew arms like baboons and aided our run to the ship with powerful forward thrusts on all fours.

The feeling was euphoric! It’s like flying on your own wings – a revelation of power that you wonder why you haven’t explored before in your waking life, because it’s so extraordinarily simple to grow baboon arms.

One swing. We were on board.

And then, we discovered who the real killer was.

***

“So that’s the story, huh?” I tried to sound unshaken, bored even, as a bird twittered cheerfully on a nearby tree.

“And what was that unexplored bit between the young woman and the handsome young man? I mean what happens to them afterwards? Did they, didn’t they?” But I didn’t ask him. I didn’t feel like letting him know that I thought his story had a glimmer of a chance, even if not as a thriller.

But then seeing him all withered up in a corner, the unrestrainable churning kindness in my bosom flowed over. I took his arm in mine and dragged him along for a walk, by the seaside.

Waitaminute. Seaside?

Damn. This was beginning to get spooky. Not without some sense of foreboding, I stepped out on a narrow path that led to the sea, which turned out to be a riverbed that was heavily silted over. I picked my way through slimy stones. By now, my friend had disappeared. Inexplicably, as usual.

After walking for a bit, propelled by fear and that thing that drives all scantily clad sexy starlets on 70mm into exploring things-that-one-would-shudder-to-explore-in-a-group-on-a-sunny-bright-morning in the dead of the night, all alone with a flickering torch that’s about to die, I arrived at an abandoned old temple surrounded by more slimy silt covered rocks. The floor was dusty, like it hadn’t been swept in centuries.

As I walked down the main corridor, I experienced [to say ‘heard’ wouldn’t be entirely accurate] the faint thrum of some sort of chant. Following it, I reached a room at the far end, where two men in white dhotis [a single piece of cloth that’s wrapped deftly around legs and crotch to form a tentative pair of roomy, airy breeches] were praying to an ancient image of Her.

I stood there gaping [perhaps even stupidly], as they turned to look up at me with wild eyes that seemed to say that they’d been expecting me. That’s when I noticed, through their unkempt beards, two sets of glistening fangs.

He didn’t smile, the younger of the two, though it seemed like he had.

At that moment, a familiar feeling flooded my head. I felt like I had come home.

The Poet

A depressed being on the verge of suicide once wrote a poem about its life and discovered it had penned a masterpiece. It decided to sell the poem to a wandering poet on the internet, before pulling the plug on itself. So with its last ten rupees it went to a cybercafé and trawled the net for an hour. Unfortunately after one soul searing hour it chanced upon Shout. It was tempted to kill itself right then for this final failure. But then seeing as it was that Fate had rebuffed even this last attempt at a dignified exit, its curiosity overtook it and it decided to pursue this mad, last fling of a thought.

It thought to itself in an elaborately constructed ponder, “It really isn’t tough to find a poet these days, given high speed broadband connectivity and billions of eager minds across the globe that are absolutely straining to express their unique creative outpourings. And yet in my final hour this is what I chance upon? Seeing as I have found something that so defiantly and vehemently refuses to adhere to any remote connotation of ‘poetry’ or ‘prose’, there must be something in this singularly distressing misuse of free web publishing. Perhaps this is my chance to improve the quality of something in this world. The Lord be praised! I have found a purpose!!!” And with this last thought resounding like twenty million gongs in the Tibetan valley, it approached me, not without some disdain.

To cut the long of it much shorter it convinced me to publish its poem.

So here it is. It by IT. I, humbly, am just the instrument, one post richer for a sorry It’s pointless poetic ponderings within self conscious walls. [this last illustrious phrase was penned by It, as a befitting foreword].

And now, Shout Presents…

Question.

***

Question
Am I a blackhole?


This silence sucks.

***


You are
a poet
my arse
apt as a flaming verb stuck in the sphincter
Nowhere to go but an endless fucking shit hole, up or down.

[this last is for the author of this site, as thanks – for the space & the perspective] – signed, It.

Dreaded conclusion: One year

Is up. Today. Right now.
"You had your chance gorgeous.
And you lost it"
Is what I'd like to say. Nonchalantly, even.
But I sit here writing bad bad bad
terrible poetry
That doesn't really qualify, but I'll call it that because I'm vain
And masochistic.
With one eye on the horizon
And the other cocked
On this dumb ether-page
Breaking lines and words at random will [in the glorious name of Love]
Like a sentimental senile farting horse.
While you're probably a million memories ahead
Well beyond the horizon
Far into somewhere much better.

And just when you thought it was over
[Not that you'll ever read this
Much less think about it
But being The Poet and all
With the license to do such things]
I have a few more words yet
To spend recklessly
And artlessly upon you.
To say,
Good luck.
You're probably better off, wherever you are
Kissing, embracing, warming [take your fickle fancy's pick]
A more worthy throat
Beloved heart breaker
My dear gorgeous little lost red scarf.

Pink teeth

Last night I had a dream about my journalism teacher from way back during post-grad – a sort-of-attractive [if pink teeth and grey gums qualify], hyperactive lunatic who’d tear up our assignments dramatically with predictable regularity and call us [a class of 40 women] ‘kutreya’ [marathi for ‘dogs’] affectionately. For some reason he also had this particularly unattractive habit of lying to us about everything he could lie about from his mother [who he once claimed was a skanky, evil-tempered, penniless Goan fisherwoman] to his house in Goa [which he claimed was an elegant bungalow on a street named after his maternal grandfather] to his still-undetermined sexuality – all of which, strangely enough, gave him this exciting edge in our collective imagination. Which, when given a bit of thought to, is ridiculous because it isn’t often that one expresses in one’s wish list for the Ideal Man a lying, pink-toothed, grey-gummed, vile-tempered mouthy monster.

Anyhow, so in the dream he read my blog, sneered at me and promptly jumped into my cupboard in my nice-clothes section, stuck his thumb in his mouth, curled up amidst my nice clothes and went off to sleep. With his glasses on.

And then, I couldn’t get him out.

While I didn’t really mind it [because my nice clothes aren’t all that terribly nice and my cupboard’s in a perennial mess] it just sort of seemed embarrassing, because all the magazines and newspapers he writes for were looking for him as were thronging hordes of women [ex and present students], and, here’s the frustrating part – I wasn’t allowed to tell them where he was.

I couldn’t quite get a handle on this dream. So I thought I’d offer it up here, for deconstruction[s].

Oh and, don’t ask relevant questions like:
1.) Why did they [newspapers, magazines, students (ex and present)] come to you, if they didn’t know where he was?
2.) How’d he know about your blog? In fact why was he even interested in it?
3.) Etc.

For JR – you’re beautiful & you’ll always be

My Myers Briggs test indicates that I’m painfully introverted.

True. It also indicates a whole bunch of other uncomfortable nonsense about several other unmentionable traits. Bollocks. I’ll go with introvert. I’ll go only as far as that.

But. This post isn’t about my self-absorbed self-venerating and obviously captivating opinion about my self. Not entirely. It is about a beautiful girl I once knew. Who changed my life for whatever it’s worth.

As a rule, thanks mostly to my painful awkwardness in any given social [even quasi-social-professional] situation I tend to sweepingly dislike all advertising professionals. As a tribe. Blanket. No concessions. They are ALL self-idolising, opinionated, loud, pompous, stereotypically [this is where I start sputtering and frothing prettily] no-substance scum of the media industry in my tiny but defining model-for-the-WGS-84 world. In other words, nutshell-ed, they are my favourite THEY-THEM, universally, unconditionally and eminently blameable for all the world’s pissiness.

But this post isn’t even about them. It’s about this girl. And she happened to be an Accounts Executive at a leading advertising agency in India.

Things were terrible for me those days to put it mildly – shit flew around my head like frisky rain clouds on a mountainside. I was on one of those self-shattering inward rampages that tend to burst several billion rbcs and choke up a few arteries. To make matters worse, I found myself pushed into taking a brief for a corporate film – a crap spoof on a crap Bollywood film to make a song-and-dance about some pointless product. Now. There’s only one thing worse than taking a brief for a flimsy film from a crotchety client – taking the brief from the crotchety client’s cocky no-substance bollixy advertising account rep.

And that’s what I mentally set myself up for when I was forced to meet with JR. I was fashionably late for the meeting. So what if you’re the ass[substitute with client’s preferred genitalia]-for-the-taking in the whole scheme of things? So what if you’re being paid to show unconditional reverence apart from and in addition to excellence-in-service to the pimp and his sugar-mama? So what? So farkin’ what, haanh?! Attitude. A ho’s gotta have attitude.

So I walked in, all 5 feet 8 inches of well-studied at-tuh-tood covered in ice tip-to-toe.

And then she walked in, beautiful, graceful, charming, polite and shy – all 5 feet 9 inches of her. She brought along two cups of steaming hot coffee for us. And I was pacified. For good.

She showed up on time to watch auditions.
She shyly accepted humble lunch invitations at our office.
She picked me up and dropped me for meetings with the client.
She never once let on that she was hassled.
She was always polite.
Always helpful.
Always charming.
Always smiling.

We even discovered common friends from Calcutta, who were part of the happiest memories of my childhood.

She was like an oasis in the varmint-infested crap-festooned world I was living and breathing in. It was a pleasure to work with her. A reaffirmation of sorts – that you don’t need to be a raging bitch-on-speed to get past the world. You can be shy and honest and vulnerable, and yet not have people walk all over you.

Amid the fuming towers of my arid mental shitscape it was a sign – that things would be on the mend soon. The seductive imminence of ‘something good to come’.

We were one [I’d like to believe now] meeting short of a girlie night out on the town; a post work, vodka-drenched-bloodies tossing, gossip sharing I-like-you night out that often goes into the making of fond friends.

And then my colleague ASB texted me, on the 13th of Feb. Early in the morning. Not nearly one month since I had first met her.

“J R is dead” appended with an exclamation mark.

It stung. His crude words. His crass expression. The cheap exclamation mark. Nauseous. Fuck you ASB. Fuck you. You’re an incontrovertible arse. And you always will be. And it’s taken me one year to say this to you ASB. You’re an A R S E. Whole.

Dispassionate little newspaper article. Tripping over words.
No.Three people.
Girl from advertising agency.
No.Car caught fire.
Instantly.
No.
That day, something just gave up in my head. Bits and pieces folded up and left. One. By one. By one. The billion and some rbcs lay down and died. Arteries curled up and the rampage became a slow death march to a grave for all things hopeless.

Several happy endings flushed down to the bowels of deep dark nothing by something seemingly unrelated. Like the stone that launches an avalanche, the last straw that unbalances the cart, the final call for curtains-down. And I could go on, spurred by my own sickly sense of the tragic poignancy of being unravelled. Completely.

Depression can go no lower, can it? And it didn’t.

Sometimes, from the depth of deep down below, the memory of a smile and a Mother’s constant love can be all you need by way of faith. That all will be well.

That dignity too, can be practised like a martial art.

And some friendships, though they might never have been in here and now, can come back from beyond forever and save your soul. Gently.

***

JR.
For whatever little it’s worth… thank you.
You’re remembered. And you always will be.
You’re appreciated. And you always will be.
You’re beautiful. And you always will be.

Year of the Pig

Right-brain-of-H [clearing throat]: “So.”

Left-brain-of-H: “Huh? Said something idiot?”

Right-brain-of-H: “So. It’s the Chinese New Year. 9th Feb to 25th Feb.”

Left-brain-of-H: “So?”

Right-brain-of-H: “Year of the Pig”.

Left-brain-of-H: “SO?”

Right-brain-of-H: “Nothing. Just reminding you”

Left-brain-of-H [sharply]: “Why?”

Right-brain-of-H: “Nothing, really, it’s just that it’s the Chinese New Year…”

Left-brain-of-H: “Yes. I got that bit. Go ON [say it, I dare you. Say it…]”

Right-brain-of-H [smirking]: “And… ummm… As you’re [no doubt] aware this is when people from this part of the world take leave in that part of the world and come home, back to this part of the world…“

Left-brain-of-H: “So? SO what? Haanh? So farkin’ what?”

Right-brain-of-H: “Nope. Nothing. Just thought you’d be interested… And maybe… you know…”.

Left-brain-of-H [viciously]: “Maybe what?? HANH? You pile of shit! Why do you exist? You’re such colossal waste, aren’t you? Face it. You have no sense of shame, or dignity, do you?”

Right-brain-of-H [coolly]: “Many pertinent questions princess. Ha. Joined as we are, at the hip and all, maybe you’d know?”

Left-brain-of-H [sputtering]: “Shut up. Shut UP. SHUT UP SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP…”

Colleague: “H? you ok? Why’re you grinding your teeth?”

H: “Huh? No no nothing. I’m fine. By the way, it’s the Chinese New Year, 9th to 25th Feb. Year of the Pig. I’d almost forgotten.”

Colleague: “Okkkay… [?] [Respectful pause] Ummm, listen, about the script…”

Round 1

So I woke up this morning battling with demons and their mothers, flames that won’t die down, pirate-type iron weights that drag you down to the ocean bed; and walls.

We continued with the battle [it crept up on me stealthily in my car] after breakfast. When I was alone. Battles are respectful creatures, they will engage with you only when the family is out of the way. When you’re on your own. Alone.

It got messy. I’ll admit. Very messy. We had an epic Bollywood song on the radio for effect too [several] which doesn’t help really. It makes things murkier. So, amidst the Ashram flyover traffic, we raged on, it and I, splashing tears all over the windscreen, blurring out pesky, intrusive [hello babeh wanna ride together-together] motorcyclists and motorists, ignoring traffic lights, wrestling for control over my head.

Luckily, earlier this morning I had taken a wily precautionary measure.

Camouflage.

Red black pungent purple acid green and silver. Today I am a confused rainbow. Tomorrow I might be a white and blue cloud.

But I’m not sure it’s worked. Yet. Can’t say. I’m anticipating another round on my way back home. I think I'll paste on some red lipstick. For reinforcement.

Anon

You promise yourself sincerely, firmly and with every intention of following it through to the best of your abilities upon the integrity of your moral fibre etc. that you will not succumb. Ever again, to the temptation of just one more glance. One more look. One more once-over. Not even once.

But you fail. Bound as you are by the gonads [figuratively] to the object of your presently lavished affection. You even vote for it secretly at the Bloggies [which is how I’d have it anyway, though the secretness of it was not of my choosing] despite how lacking-in-respectability it sounds to you [imagine saying ‘I won a bloggy’]. And if it wins [and I have a feeling it will] you expect that he [the writer of ‘it’] will fall at your brown feet and kiss them with undying, unfailing gratitude… for that one defining vote.

What is it about being a fan [uggghhhly word] that makes you so deplorably helpless [and perhaps a teeenieweeeniebit indignant]?

I adore you and you should feel eternal gratitude for the number of minutes that I spend adoring you each day. Don’t get me wrong here [I’m not a stalker] but I have an ego as large, and probably more bruisable than yours and you should know that I [of The H-ness] am allowing you to hold me in a spell and expect that you should know this and perhaps consider feeling somewhat, if not reciprocally spellbound by my adulation, then at least AWED by the space you take up in my brain and obliged thereof to allow me some space in yours, even if just to remark at how I [of The H-ness] have dedicated a valuable chunk of my time to adoring you.

Uggg. This really is disgusting.

But you do know how I have come to adore you, right?

Best of luck with the Bloggies. I hope you win. From the deepest corner of my head.

This is as secretly [since I shan’t share Anon with you] selfless [because I've dedicated one entire post to this drivel] as I could get, unlike Lizza, who dedicates her Saturdays very generously, and selflessly to posts on the many fun blogs she enjoys through the week.

I am not that nice. Clearly.

A thought [many (yet again)] that I’m not...

...going to be consumed by this feeling of being consumed. For so many things that are intangible and unachievable [there’s a better word for it, and I can’t be bothered right now].

...going to waste away precious moments minutes hours days weeks months and eventually years of my life fawning over things, thoughts, achievements that do not belong to me.

...going to be infatuated with anything even remotely popular, again.

...going to get taken in by cleverly personalised speeches of gratitude that are mass-ether-mailed across the globe.

...going to feel so easily undermined by the order of the universe.

...going to be so peevish and pettily pissy about things that I cannot help.

Eventually.

Microbe homicide

A real ringer. This one.

Microbicides are a life defining alternative to condoms in preventing, effectively at that, STIs and HIV.

Except of course that there isn’t yet a microbicide that is effective.

But how encouraging. For people like me. Who are. Seriously. [over-punctuating, you’ll say] interested in this sort of thing. Not because I have lots of unprotected sex with lots of strange exotic men [being Indian and all that intrinsic exotica].

Not because of that. Not really.

But because, I am generally interested in that sort of thing. No not other people’s sex lives. But what they could happen to stumble upon unwittingly in a moment of gay abandon. And why must I keep explaining myself? I’m talking about carefree, casual unprotected fa-la-la-la-la kind of happy sunny bright gay.

Gurgle.

So this is how it works. It lines your bits and parts with microbe-busters. Armies of little-critter-killers. They either form a physical sheath or they boost the vaginal ph levels. Oh and I forgot to add… they’re especially effective for women in developing countries. Giddy wheee! For me for me! Not because we have special chambers… but because our men [bless their gentle exotic souls] are animals. Apparently.

So then boys and girls. Be good. Use a condom. Till such time that an effective microbicide hits your town. And then watch your girlfriend dissolve your microbe thingie, just like that.