post-everythingist since 2007 ©

The Plunge

2010-04-25T22:59:00.005+05:30

Do I believe in Love?

In the delirious state, I believe most people subscribe to the idea of being in love as opposed to loving the person. It's happy-happy, joy-joy with spring in the air and diabetic levels of sweetness. In that sense of things, No. I don't subscribe to love like candy floss- it fills you up only to leave you feeling emptier than before.

But I am fascinated with the idea of loving someone to the point of following them to the depths of hell. That is, to me, the most natural course of coping with the loss of someone you truly love- believing that you can bring them back whole.

It's a theme that lends itself well to many cultural forms- this post is my dumping ground for all things Orpheus/Eurydice, Satyavan/Savitri that I find in things that I hear, read, see:

Music:
Considering Orpheus was "the father of songs", it is hardly surprising that this theme should find favour with musicians.

U2: The Ground Beneath her Feet
Definitive Lyric: "Go lightly down your darker way/Go lightly underground/I'll be down there in another day/I won't rest until you're found"

Death Cab for Cutie: Follow You Into the Dark
Definitive Lyric: "Love of mine some day you will die/ But I'll be close behind/ I'll follow you into the dark"

a-ha: Hunting High and Low
Definitive Lyric: "Hunting high and low/ There's no end to lengths I'll go/ To find her again/ Upon this my dreams are depending"

Books+Graphic Novels:
Orpheus/Eurydice is considered one of the most tragic tales in Greek Myth while the tale of Satyavan/Savitri as one of the many tales in the Mahabharata is part of the all-pervasive oral story-telling tradition in India.

Neil Gaiman: The Song of Orpheus
A part of the Sandman collection, Neil Gaiman's take on "The Song of Orpheus" takes the tragic to a higher plane with the old ones thrown in for good measure- This was old man Dream at his cruelest.

Jeff Vandermeer: Veniss Underground
Orpheus/Eurydice set in a steampunk future. (Need to go back to this book)

Movies:
Black Orpheus (Dir. Marcel Camus)
Orpheus/Eurydice set in the slums of Rio de Janeiro of the late 1950s/early 60s with a few extra plot points to make it palatable to the Spanish soap opera audience.

Life in Hyper-real

2010-01-19T22:54:00.004+05:30

It seems that in my two and odd years of blogging on this here weblog, I have written 40 posts.

That's 20 posts a year.

1.66* posts a month.

I'm surprised.

I thought it'd be 1.66* posts a year. Perhaps, 5 at the outset.

Anyhow.

It seems that unlike most bloggers, I lack discipline, passion and talent. And a central theme (which eventually goes back to discipline, passion and talent).

I can't get myself to write on economics or technology or music or cinema or my love life or my job or me.

Perhaps, it just boils down to the futility of the exercise and to a certain level, revealing more of myself than I'd be comfortable with. On the other extreme, there's a fear of compartmentalization and stagnation if I write on a single subject or related ones, for that matter.

Whatever the reasons, I'm leaving a trail here. And wasting space.

But if there ever comes a day when I will stop feeling self-conscious and start expressing myself in more concrete terms, I'd like to have the space to do that.

And that space is Chez Raskolnikovna.

stories retold

2009-08-02T20:07:00.002+05:30

go lightly down your darker way, go lightly underground... i'll be down there in another day, i won't rest until you're found...

let me love you, let me rescue you... let me bring you where two roads meet... come back above... where there is only love

- the ground beneath her feet, salman rushdie/u2

some of the greatest stories in the history of humanity are the ones that defy all contexts of space and time.

instances: shakespeare and the greek myths.

one of my favourites of which i've seen/read in several versions is that of the song of orpheus.

reverse the gender and we have the tale of savitri from mahabharata.

while details and outcomes may vary, the basic tenet of both stories remains the same; death takes away the significant other and our protaganist follows him/her into the depths of hell. manages to negotiate taking back significant other on one condition- no looking back until higher ground has been reached.

the hopelessly romantic adage of love conquers all is the underlying theme of both these tales. nonetheless, it's a story we see all around us even in this day and age where love has been pronounced dead.

people are constantly trying to rescue their significant other from various personal hells.

it's the matter of looking back that makes all the difference...

anna akhmatova's "the last toast"

2009-07-12T11:41:00.002+05:30

reinventing the wheel is not my cup of tea but celebrating it is. anna akhmatova's poem, "the last toast" is one of my favourite poems- perfect for these hard times...

I drink to our demolished house,
To the wickedness in my life,
To our loneliness together,
I raise my glass to you--
To those lying lips which have betrayed me,
And to the dead-cold eyes
The coarse, brutal world and the fact
That God has not saved us.

a review of vicky cristina barcelona

2009-03-15T10:44:00.002+05:30

i am deeply suspicious of a movie title that does not include conjunctions or prepositions. it was right then that i should have let good sense prevail and not watch this turd of a chick film.

however, poor decision making has been the hallmark of my existence for a while now and so, i put my brain through several breakdowns in a span of 90 minutes- the runtime of vcb.

the story of two american girls and their perceptions on relationships undergoing an overhaul in the course of a summer in spain could have been more exciting if:
a. i wasn't a girl who has overheard and had far more interesting conversations on the same subject.
b. if javier barden didn't look like his mother delivered him in a vat of cough syrup, thus giving him this permanently dopey look.
c. it wasn't directed by hollywood's very own humbert humbert who actually got his lolita and thus, feels the need to create movies to cater to the intelligence of a 14-year old.

some horse faced chick plays vicky while we have scarlett "hourglass" johannsson playing cristina. barcelona is played by barcelona itself. javier barden plays the cunt magnet while penelope cruz in her oscar-winning crazy role plays maria elena.

good things about the movie? the end because you can get back to doing more fun things like playing solitaire.

A Review of Warren Ellis' Crooked Little Vein

2008-12-14T20:00:00.006+05:30

There should be a name for that genre of literature that makes you want to keel over and die from a brain haemorrhage or at least have you weeping uncontrollably in a strait jacket in some safe padded room of a mental asylum. Irvine Welsh has the dubious honour of hitting that peak in ‘Filth’. Chuck Palahniuk is pretty much tuned into that frequency in almost all his works. Warren Ellis’ first shot at the full-form novel, Crooked Little Vein is supposed to be yet another proud addition to the shock-lit Hall of Fame but doesn’t quite transcend that line convincingly.

Ellis isn’t new to the ruthlessly depressing and horrifying form of writing. He does a good job in his graphic novels (particularly Desolation Jones and Fell) as well as his columns where the non-fiction platform lends authenticity to some fairly unpalatable ideas. Then again, Ellis is a writer who builds his stories on strong research and solid ideas, no matter what the form.

The main premise of ‘Crooked Little Vein’ rests on a vital question that plagues both Media and Culture Studies- What is the Mainstream? Before the advent of the Internet and allied technologies, this answer, like most other answers to life, was simple— anything on the Primetime was Mainstream. Now, with highly segmented niches being the order of the day, the Mainstream becomes a problematic concept and with it, its lines with the Fringes get blurred.

Ellis explores this question using the dipstick of pornography set against the festering American cultural landscape. Michael McGill is a thoroughly non-descript shit magnet hired by the heroin addict Chief of Staff to hunt down an Alternative Constitution. It all goes awry when McGill hires ultra-liberal academic, Trix as his filthy assistant and they begin an unpredictable Trans-American adventure.

Ellis’ over the top humour (rats humping sandwiches) and almost magic realism situations (McGill killing a fellow passenger mid-air while Trix is sleeping) are in fine form. With novels, writers generally tend to wander off on tangents. Ellis is fairly restrained on that count and thus, makes Crooked Little Vein a nice and easy read. In fact, I can’t remember the last time that I finished off a book in a single sitting. The additional material in the paperback edition, simply titled ‘P.S.’ includes a soundtrack to the book and recipes— total value for money.

Ellis’ characters generally have a tense and marvellous chemistry which was sorely lacking in the case of McGill and Trix. Although, Ellis did some thorough research to include some of the most perverse and disgusting kinks, it somehow never had the full impact that it should’ve. In fact, a column that he wrote for Suicide Girls was a lot more bile-inducing than the sum total of the book.

On the whole, Crooked Little Vein is an interesting, insightful and fun read but I wouldn’t bung it into the Essential Ellis collection.

the failure of democracy

2008-11-27T11:03:00.000+05:30

call it globalisation or hyper-capitalism or even a condition of our times. ever since world war 2, the world has changed in every major field- be it the sciences, economics, geographies, cultures, psychologies and social/power structures.

note that when i say power structures, i don't mean political systems. surprisingly, democracy as a political system hasn't changed with the times. and it is this failure of an archaic democracy (among other problems) that is causing issues all over the world.

much as i'd like to take each issue apart and analyse it- at this point in time, in the face of the 2008 terror attacks in mumbai with elections a few short breaths away, i think we need to seriously pull up our socks and consider our democratic system.

many people consider democracy in india a marvel, considering the inherently pluralistic nature of this country. they are in awe of the multi-party system and (wrongly) assume that people across different factions of society have a say.

the fact remains that indirect democracy does nothing for the people of a country. it gives people what marx calls a 'false consciousness'- the feeling that as individuals, they are making a mark and ushering in change when they vote for one political party or the other. the sad truth is that this system does not view people as anything beyond a mass, a collective, a vote bank. there is no place for individualism and human dignity.

it is a farce.

in terms of what this means for mumbai as a city, i think the time has come for mumbai to kiss india goodbye and stand on its feet. this is the second time in two years that this country is failing the city which has contributed so much to it, not just in economic terms but in intangible cultural terms as well.

consider this- mumbai as a city state, much like singapore. only, unlike singapore, there'll be a different political system- perhaps, direct democracy or even anarchy.

maybe it's just crazy talk from the shock but then, it's the crazy talk that changed the world and the inconceivable that becomes reality.

redefining 'epic'

2008-11-06T19:30:00.000+05:30

generally, the term 'epic' refers to a grand work, mostly in terms of size. in literature, 'epic' would be milton's "paradise lost"/"paradise regained" or valmiki's "ramayana". in music, 'epic' would mean tracks running into 15+ minutes (think g!ybe). however, i have my reservations on using the term 'epic' for just the duration of the track.

here's a new definition of epic- the flaming lips' "approaching pavonis mons by balloon". yes, these are the guys who did the hopelessly pop "do you realise". it is even from the same album "yoshimi battles the pink robots".

however, pavonis mons is a crazy trip through a completely different landscape- red dust clouds, volcanoes as old as the universe and not a soul except you in your technicolour balloon. this is a track that doesn't waste too much time in build-up and hits its breath-taking crescendo in under two minutes. you are floating in space, playing hide and seek with the martian sun and never landing.

it's all of three minutes and ten seconds long. and as gorgeous as the first hit of hash from a pipe.

now, that's epic.

slut pigeon!

2008-11-03T10:20:00.003+05:30

universally speaking..

2008-09-30T16:10:00.005+05:30

there are things that cut across time, cultures, economic status, place and individual psyches... death is one such phenomenon, dreams another... of course, experiences surrounding death and dreams vary but every human has experienced the two...

some people claim that they don't dream so i'll make a counter-claim to this regard:
1. dreams are a way to deal with the discrepencies between your existence as you are living it and your existence as you'd like to live it. thus, though, there are people who manage to bridge the two, at some point in life, every human has dreamed.
2. it is entirely possible that you've dreamed and not remembered the dream(s).

the existence of these universal phenomena make me briefly wonder if there is such a thing as The Universal Truth... however, my interest lies less in similarities and a grand theory of everything and more in differences and the root causes thereof...

the other day, a young lady who was born and brought up in rural madhya pradesh was talking about how dreaming of weddings or food or wells was an indicator of something "bad" while dreaming of dead people was an indicator of "good" things... the wedding dream, in particular, interested me... i have always assumed dreaming of weddings was an indicator of a person's own desire for committment... and not of "bad news".

it was then that i realised that our cultural conditioning affects us in far deeper ways than mere conscious thought processes... i wonder if migrants continue to interpret their dreams the way they used to even if the context and the elements of their dreams change with the culture... however, i do believe that while dreaming is universal, dream interpretations are culturally rooted... economically too, perhaps...

studying dreams and dream interpretations as a cultural exercise could have some pretty interesting social implications... for one, it could lead to a deeper insight on what is socially acceptable to communities... another implication, of course, would be to understand what issues concern the community in question...

as for how to define the community, feel free to group people any way you want... the identity standpoint assures you that monotony and boredom will be kept at bay...

Anarchy...

2008-09-09T17:26:00.001+05:30

... is the preserve of the Insane.

god is an astronaut is god

2008-09-07T15:41:00.001+05:30

i'm a greenhorn when it comes to writing about music. i listen to a reasonable quantam of music but know little about how to write about it. of all the elements of culture, writing about music is by far the trickiest.

generally, i've noticed that when people talk about a band, there'll always be a certain band representative of the genre against which the band in question will be measured, either directly or through implication.

talk about post-rock and sigur ros will be that representative band. for me, however, the yardstick is ireland's god is an astronaut.

the first track of theirs that i heard came from their 2005 album, "all is violent, all is bright". today, i can safely say i've heard pretty much everything that they've ever released and i'm still longing to hear more.

their sound, like every band of their genre, has more layers than a lasagna has pasta sheets. unlike other bands of their genre, however, they make it sound ridiculously easy.

if you hear the band from their first album (the end of the beginning, 2002) to their most recent work ('no return', a single from 'all things lost below', an album slated for a 2009 release), it is evident that they're only getting better. the feel has slowly inched from being fresh to deep and mature, but the core remains the same- dark, beautiful and perfectly composed.

which is not to say that the sound variation is very high across albums- far from it. they use a similar set of notes across most of their compositions but it isn't boring. the build-up in every track is different, thus taking the track, and invariably, the album to a different plane each time.

their use of vocals is extremely sparse- even more sparse than the standard post-rock/shoegaze. there are no lyrics whatsoever. just sounds.

their album/track titles are simple yet strange enough to qualify as post rock. their album art isn't particularly unique but it does its function of being reasonably attractive.

i've heard that their live performances are rather stellar and no matter how small or large the audience, these guys give it everything they've got.

with so much going for this band, it's no wonder, then, that god is an astronaut is an ideal of sorts for the discerning listener of the post-rock genre.

research is the opium of academicians.

2008-09-04T16:55:00.002+05:30

you know your research isn't going anywhere when...

there is a very fine line between genuinely beneficial research and mental masturbation. i don't know how many researchers actually bother listening to that squeaky inner voice which says, "how's this helping anybody?" or variations thereof.
definitely not the guy who's doing/did research on the iyers of matunga. i kid you not. there is such research happening. worse even. and before the natural scientists start getting all smug, there's pointless research happening on that side as well.
my question before embarking on any research, then, is this: "is it as pointless as the study on the iyers of matunga?"

curbing the urge.

economics, the queen of the social sciences demands that her researchers provide policy implications of their studies. sweet but i think it still isn't as effective a deterrent as it ought to be. people still come up with ridiculous research and gosh awful policy implications, thanks basically to shitty institutions that encourage these by means of awarding degrees.
the other ineffective method of doing this, of course, is awarding scholarships for research in specific fields. problem here is that it narrows the scope for research and people essentially keep churning the same research over and over with little or no variation.
it is interesting, however, to note the technique that sociology employs to curb shit research. sociology, through its very discourse, encourages research of the marginalised/the sub-altern. so, even if there are people who specialise in culture, they often have done their studies on tribes/marginalised sections of societies. this covert technique of channelising research actually achieves the opposite of what it sets out to do- it only produces more trash.
ladies and gentlemen, here's a revelation: india has not come up with a single comprehensive sociological theory on anything (not counting caste theories). this is because research subjects have been narrowed through overt and covert mechanisms.

self-discipline is the key

there's only one way to do this. researchers must practise self-restraint instead of spraying their intellectual cum all over the body of existing studies, which is a lot of dried cum, at any rate.
it helps that the researcher looks into what appeals most to him/her, to begin with. institutions need to encourage studies right across the spectrum. and the guides need to care enough to read up on the latest happenings on the subject and thus, guide the researchers down that path of the divine light- practical, applicable and liberating knowledge.

writer's angioplasty

2008-08-07T15:01:00.001+05:30

actuaries may be the highest paid profession on the planet but i think the writing profession is equally tricky and highly underestimated.

from what little i know of actuaries, it requires a more than passing acquaintance with statistics, a certain degree of creativity and walking the mental equivalent of a glass coated tightrope- creating policies that take into account every caveat set forth by the organisation while ensuring claims actually get met.

writers (and by this i mean people who are genuinely trying to convey something in an articulate fashion) need to have their thoughts well-arranged. take a guy like kurt vonnegut- if you were to map out each of his ideas in any piece that he has ever written, the end result will look something like a processor chip with hundreds of transistors in perfect synergy.

i'd like to believe kurt vonnegut would've enjoyed that simile but i suppose that's not for me to say.

i don't have to elaborate on the need for creativity in writing. it's something that's been spoken about till armageddon and beyond.

and finally, that stellar quality of a good writer- responsibility. while the acturian is responsible to his organisation and a mass of the insured, the integrity of a writer, any writer extends above and beyond the zeitgeist. this realisation can be overwhelming, to say the least.

this, i'd like to believe is the root cause of a writer's block. or mine, anyway.

i'd like to bullshit you but i respect the time that you take to read this and it isn't worth filling precious moments with fillers you'll not digest. forgive me when i don't write. but don't forgive me when i write rot.

i only wish for one thing- that i could have an angioplasty for my writer's block and stent my creative arteries for as long as it takes...

power and sexuality

2008-07-14T15:45:00.001+05:30

say hello to foucault!

theorising is dead, for most part. i'm fairly new to the world of sociological theory, so that might've been a fairly brash statement. but i really haven't heard any life-changing discourses on society since foucault (except for probably, amartya sen's identity and violence).

foucault has the stuff of great theorists- he has invited passionate reactions (which can swing from worship from the post-everythingists to downright hatred from the marxists) and a beautiful unifying theme of the "knowledge-power-truth trinity discourse".

the first thing that came to mind when i read this article was his three (supposedly running into four) volume history of sexuality. here's the text of the article:

A little spanking never hurt anybody

Surveys Show S&M Is Actually Therapeutic

London: Revelations of kinky sex leave many prominent celebrities blubbering abject apologies. Not Max Mosley. The British multi-millionaire and Formula One boss insists there’s no shame in a little hankyspanky, and he has sued the tabloid News of the World for suggesting otherwise. This week he has been testifying with remarkable sang-froid in his defamation and invasion of privacy suit before London’s high court.
Last March, Mosley invited five women to a posh Chelsea apartment to engage in what he readily admits was a sadomasochistic orgy, replete with canes, prison uniforms and oldfashioned spanking (a true Englishman, Mosley served the women tea after their session), reported Time.com. To his ultimate distress, hidden cameras were rolling. The tabloid posted the footage online, accompanied by an article that described the event as “a depraved Nazi-style orgy in a torture dungeon.” Formula One racers and sponsors called for his resignation, and Mosley faced accusations of finding titillation in Third Reich scenarios.
Mosely, 68, denies that the encounter had any Nazi connotations. His testimony has openly challenged the idea that BDSM—that’s bondage, domination, submission and sadomasochism—is an unwholesome pursuit. “I think it is a perfectly harmless activity provided it is between consenting adults who want to do it, are of sound mind, and it is in private, ” said Mosely.
The British have a reputation for being colder than dead fish on ice. Perhaps that’s why the News of the World video so enthralled the public, drawing 1.4 million views within a day of going online. But if Mosley is any indicator, British frigidity may give way to something much livelier in the bedroom. No one has exact numbers, but small-scale BDSM surveys estimate that 10-15% of the British population indulges in the behaviour. And BDSM may actually be therapeutic.
In fact, those involved with BDSM say the behaviour may be linked to success. Mistress Kimberley, an experienced dominatrix in London, says well-paid professionals make up the bulk of her clientele; they fork over between $300 and $500 per hour for services ranging from a “sensual tie and tease” to “severe bondage and domination torture,” reported Time.com. Her clients’ high-powered lives make them eager to submit. “They’re running multi-million dollar companies and make decisions all day, every day,” she says. “They genuinely want to be submissive.”
David Mirich, a psychologist in Colorado, measured the intelligence of 220 BDSMers and found that they posted above-average IQ scores, “which is very unlike the criminal population of sex offenders and criminals,” he says. Their behaviour doesn’t appear to be a response to an unhealthy upbringing, nor correlate to psychopathology. Whatever the outcome of the Mosley suit, BDSM will live on in England.

this article by itself is slightly ridiculous. the correlation between iq's and deviant sexual behaviour hasn't been clearly explained. At any rate, it has little relevance considering every individual, high iq or not, is entitled to his/her kinks- what matters is whether people choose to talk about them freely or not.

redefining repression.

we live in a repressed society, not because the subject of sexuality is kept under wraps. according to foucault, we're repressed because we talk abut our sexuality and this, he calls 'the represssive hypothesis'. this hypothesis can be refuted, but there is plenty of evidence in our day-to-day existence to support it.

take the wildly popular sexpert column in mumbai mirror, cosmo's sex tips, the durex surveys or any other discussion of sex in the mainstream media- it's glaringly serious and sterile. even those in the sex trade seem to speak of it in almost academic terms.

confession is the key to repression and in this day and age- we're constantly seeking validation for intensely private actions and the media, by providing an outlet, is gaining power. foucault, of course, spoke of the power of medical and legal institutions. it's high time, though, that we acknowledge the increasingly powerful role of media in the domain of sexuality.

thus, while people continue to engage in sexual practices both "acceptable" and "deviant", there nonetheless exists a heavy realisation that everything you do is subject to the dominant paradigm- you are never truly free to satisfy your most animalistic urges without actually contemplating how you're judged. after all, people talk.

just do it.

repression cannot have a value judgement attached- there's no good or bad, it just is.

foucault wrote the history of sexuality in the late 1970s and early 80s. of course, a lot has changed since.

back in the day, people indulged in their kinks, going perhaps only to the shrink or church to confess. now, the fear of AIDS, among other things, has encouraged people to talk about safe sexual practices and about sex, per se, on the larger platform of the mass media. this, of course, has been a source of power to the institution of media.

somewhere deep down, i like to think that the history of sexuality is probably foucault's most personal work, almost an autobiography of sorts that throbs with rage against the society as a whole. it is believed that he had a penchant for bdsm clubs in san francisco and that's probably where he got his inspiration from.

nonetheless, the history of sexuality, already three volumes long has a near complete 4th volume which never got published. michel foucault had died of AIDS before he could complete it.

dreams...

2008-05-31T10:31:00.002+05:30

...are like ingmar bergman flicks, visually powerful but abrupt as hell.

marx forever!

2008-05-27T23:18:00.001+05:30

around the turn of the previous century, two gentlemen noted with increasing concern the effects of a new world order.

one was the brain and the other was all soul. friedrich engels and karl marx went on to achieve what snotty mortals like us can only laugh at cynically- they changed the world.

their works have been misconstrued, leading to the rise and fall of the socialist experiment. in fact, the seeds of error lay in their very analytical technique of dialectical materialism, their lack of precision in definition and their unsound prediction of the fall of capitalism but that's not why they are highly regarded by the academia even today. where they lacked for in technique, they made up in passion.

their love of humanity can reduce even the most stoic capitalist to think for a moment about the fallacies in the system in which he lives, breathes, sleeps and fucks. reading marx is as reassuring an evidence of life as listening to the beating heart of a loved one. in a world where god has been declared dead by nietzsche and the writer's obituary written by foucault, they are the proof that armageddon hasn't come knocking yet.

it's no surprise, then, that even today, in the state of globalisation which they had failed to predict, they have taught yet another generation to yearn for a humane race, if not at the very least, pause to ask...

what's going on?

heat street

2008-05-27T11:54:00.001+05:30

inertia blooms, thoughts lay rancid under the tropical sun.

somewhere at the back of my head is a haunting reminder that the heat saps away all willingness to make an effort at a halfway to decent existence or for that matter, any desire to live.

it's no longer those romantic summers of yore filled with white-washed haciendas, enchanting cooling breezes to play among its pillars.

it's fearing and loathing, disgust and hate, sweat mingling with tears and the feeling that this city is eating you alive.

but i stay. and i wait. until the acid rain flows down heat street and life smiles once again.

eat this, us of fucking a.

2008-05-08T22:37:00.001+05:30

america has accused india and china of eating away its food resources.

personally, i'd like to think that bush is planning to leave with a final flourish of stupidity. and this time, he's taking condi rice down with him.

this irrationality makes me terribly angry but at the same time, i can't help but smile when i read what kurt vonnegut jr. had to say in "breakfast of champions"...

"it [america] had most of the food and minerals and machinery, and it disciplined other countries by threatening to shoot big rockets at them or drop things down on them from airplanes."

also, did i hear something about increased ethanol production? if i did hear that right, then, dear, sweet america, that's where your fucking food went.

coming up for air...

2008-02-22T07:34:00.001+05:30

i think if i quit social science research, stock up on some contraband and have nothing but my laptop (minus movies and graphic novels for company), i might just be one of them *prolific writers*.

i'd write lengthy academic articles, document conversations with fuzzy creatures in my head and write obituaries for my lovers while basking in the flush of coital bliss.

here's a prototype for the sort of stuff i'd write. thanks, so much toxic teddy. much love for my canadian bear...

yours truly: i think i'm downloading a german movie without any subtitles

i am slightly worried for my sanity.

giggly teddy: loll

yt: it disappeared 22 years ago and i think it has been kidnapped and raped.

gt: over and over again?

yt: oh, yes

and left for dead in winnipeg in a sanctuary for blood-thirsty bears

---------

the rape of stromsund

2007-09-28T23:58:00.001+05:30

"welcome to armageddon", read the recorded message
and three trench coated figures
with wide brimmed hats
stepped off the doomsday capsule
to survey the acid laced remains
of what had once been
their world.

they had returned from an interplanetary orgy
a congregation of spacebeests
handpicked to represent their planets in a contest of virility
the earth was represented by two human males, a woman and
an androgynous praying mantis
who died after screwing a wingding from andromeda
for twenty three straight hours.

as the three humans gazed in awe,
cockroaches approached them
and spoke in high pitched voices
of how this wasteland came to be
it seems that a para nuclear machine was triggered off
while two scientists tried making babies
in a barrel of plutonium 253.

and so it seems that the only survivors
of earth's last fuck
were cockroaches and cher and a town named stromsund,
population 5000, north sweden
a fields prize regular cockroach hypothesised
that stromsund had survived in accordance with
what had once been a far fetched theory of probability.

they say that death brings the need to procreate
this has been supported by a british study where
psychologists been proved conclusively that
people indulge in sex after attending funerals
and so, our heroes felt this very human need
more so, in the face of being the
universe's champion fuckers.

being desperate as they were, our human heroes three
realised that fucking cockroaches or cher
would not alleviate their misery
they needed to share their grief with like bodies
and asked, therefore, for directions
to that improbable town in north sweden
population 5000, the one that was called stromsund.

how they made it there was anybody's guess
but then again, reason had taken a beating
when the town itself survived
and as if probability wanted to wipe its penis on the fabric of time
after fucking with every humanly acceptable concept
it turned out that stromsund was not abound with viking descendants
but was a peaceful, sexless amish settlement.

they knew there was just one way to go
and that there was no choice
for cher and cockroaches and nuclear waste were out of the question
they rushed into the town like cash's whirlwind in the thorn trees
roller skates, cookies and white bonnets askew
all it took was seconds
for stromsund to come undone.

the cockroaches watched in horror
and cher was unavailable for comment
the post-nuclear destruction continued as every man, woman and child had every orifice in their bodies violated
the biological sex machines didn't even stop for a cigarette
until they came to terms with their pain
and even they degenerated as nature wept nuclear tears, a final shower of potent acid rain.

the golden age of the fatherland.

2007-08-28T09:24:00.001+05:30

now playing: kissing the lipless, the shins.

just returned from chennai today. maybe staying in mumbai too long has made my immunity to the charms of various places a tad weak. or maybe with time, space, effort and change, i've learnt to disassociate myself from the horridness of chennai. perhaps, it has really come a long way. whatever it is, chennai 2007 will be the golden age of all my visits to the fatherland.

the purpose of this visit was to attend a wedding of a cousin (not blood ties, rather, a legacy of friendship that my grandfather continues to nurture). it was in equal parts beautiful+emotional and ostentatious+disturbing. nonetheless, it happened and this paved the way for a long, deep introspection session which will eventually be shelved for want of a feasible solution until i'm forced to think again. actually, the various aspects of the chennai trip tied in to create a reasonably unwanted introspection session when i'm already in the throes of turmoil. i don't want to tap the turmoil potential now, though. it's something i'd rather leave buried in the yard.

i never imagined myself growing so fond of a city which i disntinctly loathed the first time i set eyes on it. there were certain moments, though, which i relished even back in the dark ages especially the mandatory visit to nalli (mumbai nalli cannot top it or even come close to it by a mile). though it's expanded to almost unimaginable proportions, that heady smell of mallee (flower like jasmine) in the air conditioning still greets you through open doors of the whitewashed institution as you walk in from the hot, sultry streets of panagal park. small time shopkeepers selling everything from flowers to bangles and bindis to amla, ginger and green pepper and fruit by the plate stand discreetly near the entrance enticing you with the sheer riot of colour. nouveau riche joints like saravana stores, rmkv and the like really draw the junta but they possess none of the charm, tradition and classiness that nalli does.

let's be fair here, though. it isn't as if nalli is the ultimate place to shop but certainly is a good place to start. there are reasonably established places like rangachari and radha silks (rasi) as well as tiny boutiques that pepper the chennai clothes-shopping landscape. personally, i have a fondness for shopping in exclusive nooks with a relaxed, cozy atmosphere. these blink and you miss places were a huge factor that caused chennai's ratings soar in my books.

another important factor in any place is the food. it can really make or break not just a city but an entire region, especially in a country like india. sadly, though, the food in chennai isn't nearly as good as some of the other places. in this respect, bangalore and ahmedabad are far more passionate about food and you'd have a handful of well priced places that can surprise you with sheer innovativeness at best and run of the mill but mouth watering fare at the least. even the coffee wasn't as orgasmic as i'd like it to be- this was a massive sore point.

rediscovered the hindu, chennai edition. in a day and age when you have the internet and 24 hour news channels for the daily dose of happenings in the world, you really don't need newspapers. there are very few publications that can actually make print journalism seem worthwhile despite newer media springing up with an almost alarming regularity and the hindu, chennai is one of them. it really doesn't get better than this- the brilliant and consisitent quality of writing, the complete grasp of information that the hindu journos possess over the subject and the razor sharp editing and proofing are the reasons that the hindu doesn't have to shout out its presence unlike its counterparts like mumbai. good journalism doesn't require guerilla marketing, twisting figures of abc/ readership surveys or witty taglines on hoardings. it just requires a tubelight hoarding with nothing but a masthead that lingers permanently like a polite sigh over this southern metropolis' changing landscape.

there are things that i long to talk about but can't for lack of ability to pin down my expressions and arrive at why they affected me the way they did- little signs, small places that would seem insignificant at first but which would, in retrospection hold the key to where chennai is going to be. there are places, too, that i couldn't see which i wish i can in the near future. nonetheless, as change blossoms, in erstwhile madars, one can only hope that it escapes the rut that the other megapolis have fallen into and retain its individuality or if nothing, let stand the whitewashed facade and mallee atmosphere of nalli, panagal park.

Macchan, macchan, macchan ne...

2007-06-17T23:36:00.001+05:30

Rajnikanth is one of the greatest common denominators of pucca Southies all around the World. You're a qualified southie if you like Rajnikanth. You're not Southie if you don't.

History textbooks will speak of Shivaji Rao Gaekwad's invasion of Tamil Nadu as more potent than any previous Maratha invasion. He's got the charm, the grace and that spark to tap into the pulse the tamil speaking conscience which Chhatrapati Shivaji didn't possess.

I digress, though. My intention is not to carry forward further information on Indian Journalism's topic du jour.

Sivaji is an IT hotshot who has returned from the 'States to do his bit of Corporate Social Responsibility and the not so noble intention of producing spawn to add to the already burgeoning population of the Indian subcontinent.

Noble intentions (CSR) are thwarted by red-tape system and Iyengar named Adiseshan. There comes a point where our hero is penniless but strikes back at Adi by playing his own game. Having accomplished his main mission, he goes on to save all of Tamil Nadu and in the meantime, marry the woman of his dreams.

Moral of the story: Micro finance is going to put India in the G-10 by 2015.

Sivaji's Production Values were what left me screaming for more. In order of what impressed the most- gorgeous camera work, slick action sequences, superb makeup (let's face it, the 58 year old Rajnikanth shed about 20 years. Easy.), brilliant dialogues (execution was wonderful- kudos to all the actors, not one of them was shoddy.), good clothes (I think this is possibly the best that the Tamil entertainment industry has seen by far. Out of a period movie, that is. Naturally, there were glitches including this unforgivable one where the lead actress' boring beige underwear was showing when it shouldn't have.), lovely background score (the songs were just okay, dances didn't excite.)

High points of the movie: Rajnikanth-Vivek chemistry. Rajnikanth and clan pataoing Tamizhselvi (Shriya). Rajnikanth. Move over, Superman, Batman and Robin Hood.

south of the border, west of the sun

2007-04-27T17:59:00.002+05:30

i don't remember the last time that i felt *this* depressed after a book.

"south of the border, west of the sun" really fucked up my circuits and it's getting me to evaluate murakami's position in my favourite authors list.

it's standard murakami- fucked up characters, strange incidents (including strange sex) and all the trappings of a consumerist society that's beyond redemption.

but this one was just depressing simply because of the idiocy of the central character- hajime. and the fact that this was so uncomfortably close to the truth of my existence and that of my friends.

then again, murakami's magic realism and his short stories (at this point in time, i can't help but smile about "family affairs" and "kangaroo communique") really helps pull his act together to retain his position in my list of favourite writers.

1984 was paranoia. martian time slip was that inaccessible world. cakes and ale will always be fascination. everyman redefined loneliness. the 100% perfect girl was love. and south of the border, west of the sun- it will be loss.

the wiki.

2007-04-25T15:46:00.001+05:30

maybe i'm just spending more time actually browsing these days, but it seems to me that there are more wikis around than i previously imagined.

the first time i heard of a wiki was when my friend, A had/visited (not sure) a wiki outlining all the annotations on alan moore's v for vendetta.

some time lapsed before i stumbled on the wiki detailing all the er.. "happenings" connected to nine inch nails' year zero (for the uninitiated, check out the link which is my post before last). Today, again, i was reading the wiki dedicated to warren ellis' "doktor sleepless". Of course, there are all those artist wikis on last.fm...

the wiki concept is one solid step ahead to making sense of the information overload. i don't know whether academicians use wikis or not to organise their references, but considering the massive bodies of work that they reference and cross-reference, it would be a fairly prudent thing to do.

from what i could gather of warren ellis' interview on comicbookresources.com, the wiki can also be a sort of an extended back matter- it goes beyond the standard 2-3 pages that comes with the printed edition and helps create an entire context, particularly for readers not quite familiar with ellis...

"It's there to gather up all the information inside the book...There's more information written than could possibly be fitted inside the narrative of the comic itself -- at least, not without completely distorting the shape of the narrative and doubling the book's run. It's also there for people to play with. There's a complete backdrop and mythology to 'Doktor Sleepless,' and the wiki will allow people to make connections between it all, and perhaps see what some of the characters are really up to... I was inspired by the 'Lost' wiki project, where the first connection was made between a screenshot of the 'boatbillies' and the Dutch scientists involved in Dharma. If you work hard enough, then you can provide enough material that interested readers can find a whole new level of engagement with the work."

dreams and the endless

2007-04-24T18:48:00.003+05:30

i promised that i'd write on experiential marketing.

instead, i'll write on the sweet, seemingly endless sleep of hashish- it's an experience to be cherished, especially since sleep in otherwise normal circumstances is a fleeting, furitive presence.

add to that the heat waves that linger when the summer sun is long gone, the sweat streaming from my body and the lack of desire for anything worth living for.

i realise now, though, that writing about a hash trip ruins the very foundations it stands on... it's an esoteric bond between the individual and the endless. i don't know and i won't comment on who is worthy of it, what the best hash is or why it is taboo.

all i know is that i long to bow down to the endless and get enveloped in parvati's womb. over and over and over again. for the dreams of hashish are the elements of the endless.

year zero

2007-04-19T11:52:00.002+05:30

experiential marketing.

slowly speed my aching need...

2007-04-04T11:41:00.001+05:30

on this space that has been christened raskolnikovna, i thought i'll probably do a series of essays on "globalization", particularly the fallacies of the term "anti-globalization" and how it belies a cause that's perhaps a shining testimony to the concept of "globalization" itself

however...

a. this requires much reading and reference work and all that fancy academic shit.
b. i was listening to 12 rounds this morning.

12 rounds can be classified as post-rock, industrial and shoegaze... as is my wont, i can't and i won't genrify the band. 12 rounds is not the kind of band that would induce you to take up suicide attempts or serial killing or pissing off born again christians as a full time occupation.

what makes the genius of claude sarne and her buddies refreshingly different are the totally off the kilter lyrics rendered in the smokiest, huskiest voice since beth gibbons of portishead. smokier and huskier, even.

oh, and if you do feel a tad doped, don't be surprised, 12 rounds does that to you sometimes.

do sample the lyrics while the going is good...

Sodomize the rage in space and watch your red red sky
Fill my heart with happiness and give me reasons why
Slowly speed my aching need no more so old so new

Breathe in me don't fight just be
Call your own come be my home

Ripped up sideways chained to Always
Spread so wide so true
Scratch the very life that fed
And sucked his fingers blue

Breathe in me don't fight just be
Call your own come be my home

Love the way he puts it
ripped and chained but I loved it
In as much

Strange daze

addendum to art fart.

2007-03-01T17:40:00.001+05:30

this is going to be a narrative either at the beginning or the end of "city of joys", my latest apocryphal art project...

roland joffe missed an 's' at the end of 'city of joy'. i mean, joy can't be a unique factor in any city, let alone kolkata.

it is a city that is abound with joys. small joys, big joys. simple joys, fancy joys. uptown joys, downtown joys. legitimate joys, bastard joys. morning joys, night joys. straight joys, gay joys.

joy cometh in the morning. or so thinks wodehouse. joys can cometh when they are sufficiently aroused. sexually, i mean.

joy isn't simply an emotion in kolkata. joy is very likely your next door neighbour.

joy is joyonto.

art fart

2007-03-01T13:50:00.001+05:30

there is roland joffe's "city of joy". fortunately or unfortunately, this celluloid um... work has remained just a name to me and yet, it gave me inspiration and much er... joy on an idle wednesday morning.

joyonto or joyanta is a fairly common bengali name.

those who can see what i'm getting at can shut their traps and get the godsfuck out of here before you are tempted to question my intelligence or my sanity. for those who don't, here's the blueprint...

these hm... species are called "joy" for short. and there's easily a million of them in kolkata. imagine getting at least 20% of them to congregate in several well-known locations in kolkata thru' the viral sms thing. get a decent enough camera- nothing fancy, just a handycam. script is one simple line- "hi, i'm joy". no acting required. no makeup. no leading woman. sharp editing topped off with a decent enough music score (say, durga pooja music- "joyo, joyo he mahishasura moddhini, etc.)

best short action film at the oscars' is mine next year.

next post: what i'll wear to the oscars'.

if i were a character in an indie flick...

2007-02-14T09:59:00.001+05:30

... i'd be the nosejob.

and my speciality would be slitting people's throats *halal style* and pulling their brains out through their nostrils once they have been thoroughly bled.

kicking up a 'crorepati' storm.

2007-02-05T13:06:00.001+05:30

quiz shows. there's something about them that disrupts an otherwise stable psyche at an individual level and at a macro level- it causes people to think irrationally, changing the world as we know it. kaun banega crorepati whipped up a fury at its inception and the one thing that has stayed common through these three seasons, other than the fact that its airing on Star Plus, is the fact that it continues to kick up a storm at the least or a tornado, at best.

the third season of kbc has had pretty much the same effect on the media and marketing circles as satan puckering up to an innocent virgin child. 24 hour news channels and media journals have managed to further confuse an already perplexed audience by weilding the ratings weapon- some fucking dipshit thought it would be a brilliant idea to compare kbc 3 with the previous season.

fuck the fact that universe sizes have changed since season 2, the entire fucking realm of television has undergone a paradigm shift. plus, let's not forget the weekday-weekend split- no point comparing a weekday show with a weekend show.

kbc 2 aired on weekends and was the perfect launching ground for baa, bahoo and baby on the 10 o'clock weekend slot. the 8.30 show that aired from monday to thursday saw a new lease on life when it was extended to friday. post kbc 2, however, the 9 to 10 weekday slot on star plus just rolled over and died like a st. bernard that had suffered too long and too painfully. as far as programming heads go, kbc 3 is the beautiful rebound for an audience that had moved on to Zee, kasamh se.

star plus is doing pretty fine, really, if you go past the TAM ratings and check out the aMap ratings. for the uninitiated, TAM's ratings come out an entire week later, aMap gives out ratings overnight. take the aMap ratings, write the dates against each day and plot 'em on a line graph. Star Plus is doing pretty neatly, really. for those who really want to look at an in depth analysis, check out this piece.

if the oms-hansa study is anything to go by, shah rukh khan is doing his job just fine in helping star plus (and in turn, marketers) reach out to a younger audience. it's going to be a while before kbc 3 does a titanic if you really consider the facts...

what is a raskolnikovna?

2007-02-02T16:43:00.001+05:30

a raskolnikovna is an obscure female species found lurking in urban areas (preferably metros). it is possible, however, to find raskolnikovnas hanging around rural areas (where cigarettes and chai are available) on occasion.

a raskolnikovna is pro-globalization, but possesses the habits found in government officers from more communist regimes (maoist). a very redeeming trait of a raskolnikovna is the desire for all things obscure, right from music to coffee beans. they are part-punjabi, part-maharashtrian, gujarati, irish and tam brahm, especially on the ethno-centric front.

this creature has a love-hate relationship with the media field. she enjoys criticizing dipshits employed in creative, client servicing and acting, while taking the occasional swipe at journalists, particularly desktop writers. while it is expected that she would have a healthy respect for scientists, engineers, accountants and other "respectable" professions, the truth is, she just finds them fucking boring and not nearly as much fun to taunt as mediapeople. raskolnikovnas take their professions as "media researchers" a little too seriously, researching everything from the latest campaign plugged by amsterdam's single location agency, 360 to India's finest cult flicks (read, mithunda starrers directed by kanti shah).

raskolnikovnas take to plagiarizing just because they don't happen to possess any talent to string two words together coherently. they abuse ellipses, let loose entire armies of fragments and almost invariably end a subject abruptly much to the chagrin to copy editors. a raskolnikovna's idea of art is to take lyrics du jour and render it in typographic styles that defy all rules of this high art or any sense of aesthetics for that matter. they have a penchant for trebuchet.

raskolnikovnas love movies. one of the few things they actually pay attention to. they also read movie scripts on occasion. this particular raskolnikovna's current favourite dialogues include "you rock, rock" from i heart huckabees, samuel l. jackson's "did i break your concentration?" from that dialogue-ricochet worthy tarantino classic, Pulp fiction and bhulla's achingly beautiful outburst of grief to his raped and left for dead sister- "maine tere liye teen sau ladke dekhe rakhe the. woh bhi chikne."

food is a fine way to lure a raskolnikovna. as a matter of fact, raskolnikovnas know festivals, communities and countries by food. never contest with a raskolnikovna on the matter of vegetarianism, chocolates and alcohol. raskolnikovnas worship coffee and accord the highest respect to south indian mamis (and mamas) who can make that perfect cuppa kaapi.

around the time that their uterus walls start chipping away every month, raskolnikovnas slip into depression and end up listening to slowdive, death cab for cutie or worse still, leonard cohen's "hallelujah" on loop for hours on end. they are unpredictable, especially when it comes to cigarette brands or for that matter, cigarettes consumed in a day.

raskolnikovnas adore their friends and despise them when it's all over. stability is merely a collection of letters that doesn't make much sense. a raskolnikovna's zodiac sign includes aquarius, capricorn, scorpio and the slightest hint of gemini. in other words, there's no telling what a raskolnikovna will do next.

raskolnikovnas can look like anything from a chamathu iyer ponnu to something that the cat threw away. they think that masters' degrees are necessary only to look good on a matrimonial site. a raskolnikovna's worst nightmare is migrating to america. period.

while this is no introduction to what this particular raskolnikovna is going to write next, you know what not to ask a raskolnikovna. ever. again.