Wednesday, August 27, 2008

black


[this was a tag from
pavi who wanted me to write a story based on my favorite color. black is what it is. i have borrowed heavily from myths and maybe twisted a few facts here and there due to ignorance or to fit the story, my apologies]

Shyama was his name.Literally meant black. And so was he.

Born of wealthy if vaishya traders who have been entrenched in their business of precious silks and diamonds since the time of King Raghu. His dad Rakhtahasa was a boisterous man who, legend has it, rode along with King Dasharatha in many of his wars. The king, and certainly lady luck, had heaped fortunes upon him. Only one worry nagged at his soul, of his son Shyama.

Shyama was black and not the fiery and subtle shade of a cloud like their Prince who was in exile ( as told by the bards who always referred to him as dark as a cloud) but literally black as an asura. In a society that measured virtue a lot by the appearance of the person, that meant that he was generally an outcast. Alienated, even though a eleven year old.

Just because he was black.

On that day of Ashadha, he was at the stables, grooming Markasha, his dad's favorite stallion. The horse was his only companion and his adoloescent mind often wondered why black was so prized in a horse while he was shunned for the same. Ah, the quirks of grown-ups!

Shunned would be harsh as the people around him, the dasis, the stable hands and usual coterie of clerks and servants could hardly be disrespectful the young master. Atleast not in an obvious way. But on and off, an ill placed snigger and snatches of conversation reminded him of his color.

"by Indra! is it true Durasta missed him while he was on his way to light the lamps?"
"our master, shines like lord Surya in the month of Phalguna but look at his son..."
"looks...a..Asura"

They called him an Asura or a demon. That's what irked him the most. More than the fact that his dad never used to act least bit bothered even though he was sure to be tuned to the sea of rumors. Not even during that ghastly episode during the Madira orgy where a rival trader openly questioned his mother's chastity. Rage had boiled inside Shyama but he was an unwelcome visitor feasting on savories from under the table. He was amazed at the self restraint shown by his father.

All because he was black.

He was tired of all this and he sought means to end it all. He had heard about the ill effects of Kartaraasa, the medicine for colic-ridden horses and which was kept in the apothecary's room.

A sudden roar like the ones never heard before interrupted his reverie. He was aware that it was coming from the main street of Ayodhya, which his house overlooked. He left his grooming tools in the stables and ran into the house. There was a generous amount of chaos inside the house and all along, a feverishbluster.

People were running to the front door or to any of the balconies over looking the streets as it seemed to be the cynosure of all activity.

"he's back"
"oh my lord, he has returned to be with us"
"...ruler of all.."
"Ravana is dead?"
"even Vanaras..."
"14 years...so long"

he could not make any sense of anything and he made his way to the main balcony. Surprisingly, it was crowded too, with an array of dasis waiting with thalis laden with flower petals and lamps. He tried in vain to push through the line blocking his view but settled for an audio commentary.

Soon, there was a hush among the crowd. More than a general sense of quiet, Shyama could feel the anticipation building in everyone around him and the air was heavy with it.

A loud collective cheer broke it like a thunder clap and shouts thronged the air.

"Jai ShriRam! Jai Jai ShriRam"

The dasis were showering flowers on the street and there were cries from the older ones in the balcony.

"It has been 14 years, oh god, I thought he would never come back", cried old Duvarya. One of the younger ones interjected,"but, he...he is so...I mean...------"

Shyama, who did not hear the uttered word, wondered what she could find incongruous in the prince.

"be careful about what you speak of, you young imbecile. he is the lord, reincarnate of the Lord Vishnu, heir to the Suryavamsha and true King of Ayodhya. You dare say that about him? So is our young master, isn't he?"

It was evident that they hadn't seen him yet. Else they would not be speaking about him. Still, he wondered what he had in common with the prince that drew that interjection from the dasis.

Curiosity welled up inside him as he resolutely pushed away at the line and finally got a glimpse of the road.

There were throngs of ministers, soldiers, generals, vassals, courtiers and noble men along with the Regent-King Bharata standing in front of the small party of three. The crowd all around them was chanting Rama's name and as in his balcony, all around the street, flower petals were being showered upon him. All the houses were lit up with millions of oil lamps and the whole seen shimmered like an unreal vision of Swarga.

All for Rama, the prince who came back.

Rama, who was as black as him.

He never thought about the Apothecary's room ever.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

psychedelic ads from the past - parry's eclairs

Kalia, Suppandi, Shikari Shambu, Kapish, Anwar…

Need I say more? If these names mean something to you than I am sure that you would be among the millions of after-youth’ers whose collective childhood were enriched by the wonderful monthly (later fortnightly and now weekly) Tinkle, has, believe it or not, comic book versions of folk tales from around the world (I realized that Cameroon is a country and not a dish after reading “Ngampa Goes to Market!”), nature documentaries, scientific
experiments, do-it-yourself craft projects... and still have time to devote to regular features like the adventures of talking crows and flat-headed domestic servants.

It was edited by Anant Pai known to us only as "Uncle Pai", and he had the status of a demigod to us kids. Even when you grew a little older and it wasn't "cool" to read it anymore, you still had a stash hidden under your bed that you read when no-one was looking.

Now, as luck would have it, most of my stash was freely distributed to kids of relatives' (or they were just pawns in a major laundering operation and the books ultimately reached the different uncles and aunts!). It was fortunate that I happened to stumble upon some of them while attempting to stash my cigarettes clean the attic.


The characters and story lines haven't changed much from the past now but what has changed are the advertisements. Simple advertisements from a simpler time. A happier, more innocent decade. A happier, more innocent, and incredibly weird fucking decade.

I am starting this series to give you a glimpse of that decades because
I have no work to do I am too lazy to write a fully fledged blog and would rather copy-paste what’s more wonderful than a crazy trip without LSD?

--------------------------------

Starting with one of the trippiest ones ever; The Parry’s Éclairs! It was the poor cousin of the more famous Cadbury’s Éclairs, who had the cute girl from some movie or shit endorsing it. Much like Ashlee Simpson baring all to grab more attention than her better (WTF!) sounding sister, Parry’s decided to attack from the flank and produced this wonderful ad:


That is one stoned kid. Check out the amazing psychedelic vision you can experience by just dropping a couple of Parry's Éclairs. God damn I love the '80s. It was rumored that this one single ad managed to wean away all the future potheads and LSD fans from Cadbury's; who took a major hit in sales. Last seen, the Cadbury's girl was selling Vada-Pav in Churchgate and she still shudders on seeing anything remotely dark-brown.


Monday, August 18, 2008

dream fall

in life sometimes, despair clouds eyes and chokes me in a silent hold
way ahead seems so foggy and lays upon me, a funeral wreathe
complaining seems easy and so is giving up, but what i do instead
i never let my dreams fall, i hold them up with all my strength

what transpires is a silent fight, with me as the only witness
one side is sorrow with the wings of fate and the bad dreams dreamt
and on the other side a still feeble resolve that has left its hearth
but i never let my dreams fall, i hold them up with all my strength

the opponents are crafty and have in their arsenal so numerous
of weapons, that makes my soul bleed and my eyes vent
the lance of parting and the sword of sorrow mightily clash down
but i never let my dreams fall, i hold them up with all my strength

triumph is a long way away and so is the clear blue sky of joy
so is a life that turns to normal and victories and joyful warmth
but i take pleasure in little things and battle on with the dark forces
and i never let my dreams fall, i hold them up with all my strength

[i reserve my poetry to the scratch of a waterman nib on paper, but this blog has been long neglected so decided to post one here, after permission from mr waterman, of course!]

Friday, August 15, 2008

the drifter chronicles - episode 2 - the fountains of youth


Prologue

"who is this guy? jayaprakash....come here you idiot!"

JayaPrakash or JP, one of the few crossbreeds between a nerd and a drifter (yeah, they do exist) walks slowly up the dais to meet Zach Sir (fake name, of course!)

"you wrote this answer? what are you made of? poop?"

JP stands silent, ever mindful of the giggles and titters behind him. Rage slowly simmers in him but he knows he can't bait him anymore than necessary.

"you should be named
parajay andhakar not Jayaprakash!!"

Zach sniggered and the frontbenchers duly joined in...Well, to be fair, so did some of us. It was not a bad effort by Zach sir as the funniest thing he ever did was flatulence!

Part I - The Plan

To say we hated him would have been an understatement. He was a jerk (to us adolescents) and always on the lookout for the slightest of vagrancy which he punished heavily. Girls alone escaped his wrath, though the price they had to pay was to see his slobbery girth planted on their desktops (the wooden one not PCs!) while he delivered sermons on mitochondria. Among the guys only Chandu was spared as his dad was an influential PWD Contractor and this slob had some underhand dealings with him (or so we heard)

I was a scapegoat to his mid-class heroics a lot and have come close to being his
bete-noire after JP. Did not bother me much as being BN to all other teachers, it was a refreshing change not to be one. Like Dhoni sitting out at Colombo test.

Soon we decided that we had to deal a blow back to him. Not explicitly of course. The Gilt Attack fracas (or rumpus or whateva!) has actually made us lie low for a while.

We decided that our blow would be subtle, dark and blackly funny...like the horses head on your bed when you wake up in the morning. I had been recently struck by the lightning called God father and my brain usually worked in a very Sicilian way. I had gone so far as to respond to my moms questions about wasted dinner by saying "its not personal, is business"

Anyway, the horses head idea was wildly cheered upon but the problem was:

a. Zach did not own even a dog let alone a horse
b Who would cut whatsoever head and deposit it in his bed?

Finally, me and nub hit upon a brilliant idea...far more subtle...more jolt per drop (pun intended and you'll know why, later...) and classy!!

We will spray his shirt with something stinky and smelly so that he stinks the whole day. By the way, he had acute sinusitis and was stone smell blind. So our revenge would be a double blow to him. To anoint him with stink and also humiliate him by making him stink all day and not realizing it.

We had decided on the delivery medium to be a 15 ml syringe with a needle attached which would give us the precision surgical (pun!!) strike at our target viz; the lower left back of Zach's shirt. The problem was to decide on what to spray. There were no intense juvenile delinquents in history like us who could solve any problems of general mischief-mongery in a flash but this had us stumped. What to get? Where to get? How to get?

The solution was given by Sandy and unlike most of his other ideas this was simple and easy to acquire. Three simple words: "Use Your Pee"

Part II - The Preparation

[a minute of silence for you to let out that gasp of shock and also to assimilate the degree of evil that pre-pubescent are capable of]

To cut a long story short, the plan was approved and we proceeded to utilize the hour before his class to put it into action. It was a SUPW class and well, treated with mild disdain by us.

We three, long before Al Qaeda or Mossad we had perfected the idea of small independent cells working on a specific attack, so that's why there were only 3, went to implement the plan which was simplicity in itself. We had the syringe, the needle and a plastic bottle as the reactor cascade (ahem!) for the bio weapon (ahem!)

Barring the fact that it is a tough task to direct the discharge of the weapon from the reactor to the cascade is a tricky one (ahem, i prefer talking in terms of nuclear science rather than anatomy so that the modesty of my readers is not affronted) and that performance anxiety prevented the other two members in an effective transfer and I had to step in, all went well. We soon had the liquid in all its golden glow en consed in the syringe.

Part III - The Execution

We had already selected the suitable point of deployment and when Zach, his usual obnoxious self, was lecturing in full flow to the female side of the class, I released the liquid and saw it as it made a satisfying patch on the designated area. The team members gave me silent nods of appreciation as the target was unaware.

Words fail to explain the warmth that spread in our hearts seeing that warm yellow spread over his cotton off-white shirt. The sarcastic jokes, caustic comments and various forms of torture we had been subjected to disappeared like the yellow fluid from the syringe.

We were soon struck out of our reverie by this exclamation from D, one of the girls who was close to being labeled class enemy by us were it not for the fact that she was really cute and most of the drifters had crushes on her.

"Sirrrrr.....there is something on your shirt"

Zach was nonplussed and he touched and rubbed the spot to feel the change in texture. We waited with bated breath as the inevitable happened. Any member of human race have some distinguishing traits that mark them different from other mammals. I mean, a chimp would never, ever proceed to do what Zach proceeded to do. He slowly rubbed the insulting wetness between his fingers and smelled it in a long drag.

There are limits to sinusitis as there are limits to a mosquito coil in stopping a velociraptor attack. Same thing happened here as his the pungent ammoniac compound that forms a major part of urine attacked his nasal system. The first wave of casualties were the dense growth of Zach's nasal hair which either proceeded to do two things. The least brave of them were charred beyond recognition while the more robust ones curled in distaste into small furry balls into the roof. The next wave happened when his unsuspecting mucus membrane was exposed to it. Years of smoking and a penchant for snuff would have desensitized it to a point of indifference, you think? Well no, the flinch of his upper nose was evidence enough for that. Soon, his brain registered the inevitable and the 4 gene sequences, Messers. Shame, Embarrassment, Incredulity and to a small part, Rage swung to work and there were fleeting glimpses of their handiwork in his face.

The warm glow blazed into fire of retribution and slowly into dread. The gilt incident had kind of exhausted our already meager bank balance of repute and if this got out we would be doomed. What happened next is engraved in our collective minds.

Zach regains his composure in a flick, swats off his hands in a gesture of exaggerated nonchalance, flicks imaginary lint from his sleeves and says:

Part IV - The Escape

"it must be the sulphuric acid from the chemistry lab"

Thursday, August 14, 2008

bangalore mudde update

its a puzzle...
there has been an update to the status of the pack who made the pact....
answer these questions and you have the answer...
actually, answer any one and you have the answer...
oops...you already have the answer!!


1. The tragic and true story of a family dealing with AIDS is re-told in this heart-wrenching made-for-cable drama. Amy Madigan and Dennis Boutsikaris star as Roxy and Vinnie Ventola, a successful television screenwriting couple.

2.
In some versions the seventeenth and eighteenth lines read Two little Soldier boys playing with a gun; / One shot the other and _____________

3.
Organized into several chapters of two-column text and complemented by attractive full-page charcoal drawings, the book is similar in style and format to the author's recent volumes on hibernation and symbiosis. Facklam is adept at raising questions and providing clear, smoothly paced, interesting narrative. Her well-crafted blend of information and ideas makes for pleasant read-aloud material--a rare feat for nonfiction. Which book?

....finally!!!

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

xkcd

Megha and I first met at a party at her friend's. We hit it off with a bang, right away, opened up to each other, shared secrets, and talked about everything. Around us, the party waxed, but we hid from sleep together, talking through the deepest hours of the night. The dawn found us curled up on a couch, asleep but still together.

http://www.wedding-speech-blog.com/images/glasses.jpg
That experience, connecting with a stranger and falling recklessly in love is one of life's greatest joys...And now that you're married, you'll never experience it again. It's the price you pay for everlasting love. It's a small one, but I hope it stings a little. Anyway, I wish you and Megha best. ...Hey, man, you ASKED me to do a toast!