THE EDGE

I wasn’t always the dyed-in-the-wool doomsayer I am now. Cynicism wasn’t something I was born with; I chanced upon it later. There was a time, in the heady days of the Great Optimism, when I was positively bursting with those same happy vibes and explosive cheerfulness that I find tediously depressing today. Don’t these people know? I always think, when encountering another of these blinkered specimens blubbering with enthusiasm. Are they wilfully blinding themselves or can it be that they have somehow avoided making their acquaintance with the true nature of existence? Whatever the case, I consign these folks to the same mental cubbyhole I reserve for telephone-salesmen and tele-evangelists, two breeds of people that interestingly enough, seem to possess an unlimited enthusiasm for the brand of malarkey they market. I too, to my now eternal shame, was once as belligerently optimistic and positively pickwickian about the world. No glass was more half-full than my glass, so much so that sometimes it wasn’t even a glass-it was a water planet with sentient, self-aware, speech-capable oceans vociferously professing that they were overflowing.

Ah those days of naiveté, when a little knowledge was a comforting thing! When I would run with the eland in the veldt and beard tigers in their dens; when I played with the serpent and lay down with lions; when I laughed at the thunderclap and mocked the lightning gods; when I prayed for cancer patients and tsunami victims with the profound conviction that God would kiss it and make it all better; when I would shake loose honeycombs and ask the bees to play with me; when I believed in vegetarianism and universal brotherhood; ; when I dove off skyscraper terraces and attempted to walk on water in the manner of Superman and Jesus Christ Superstar; when I believed that storks brought babies and commissioned one to procure for me a sibling; when I plucked out all my teeth in the hope the Tooth Fairy would give me enough money to buy a castle in the clouds; when I allowed uncles and strangers galore to put me on their knees and play a strange brand of Doctor which involved a fair amount of fondling, cavity searches and engorged naughty bits; when I liquidated my holdings and sent the money to a blind, snaggletoothed, Ebola-infected Kyrgyzstani hermaphrodite who lived in a ramshackle two by four hut with his family of 13 and three anorexic, radiation-mutated goats; when I would pepper my scribblings with the most contrived recollections and incredible prevarications and expect my readers to swallow it. Ah, those were the days. In those halcyon times when demons wore haloes and I sported rose-tinted glasses, it seemed like I would forever be possessed of that infectious mirth.

Then, I reached the age of reason. I turned two. But more importantly, Iwas visited by the angels.

Most of mankind acquires their cynicism through a gradual accretion; mine was thrust upon me quite suddenly and stunningly, so the realization was quite jarring, the transformation from cheery cherub to jaded jerk rather permanent. It occurred thus:

I was reading Walden in the backyard when I heard the sound of mighty wings. An angelic horde descended from the skies, wings resplendent with just a touch of dew on them that caught the light. They were beautiful creatures, elegantly designed, with stunning aerodynamic sleekness and a superlative flying apparatus. Bernoulli and the Brothers Wright would have approved. Their faces were radiant, their eyes gleamed of a supernatural intelligence and their katanas sparkled. What in fuck’s name were they doing with katanas? It would always be one of those incredible unsolved mysteries, I remember thinking. But I would soon find out.

They landed in the backyard, went inside and methodically sodomised my entire family. Their lust sated, they proceeded to quench the thirst of their blades. Their katanas drank deep and soon my family were lying on the floor, their blood soaking the linoleum. How red it is, I remember thinking. Whee! Red! My third favourite colour! You see, I was still excited about things. Perhaps I was still in denial. But I skipped anger, bargaining and depression and graduated right to acceptance when the ‘angels’ took me along to their spaceship and inserted anal probes and more into my tender sphincter in the interests of science and interplanetary miscegenation . Right then, I knew that the rubric I’d built in my head, the amorphous ideas that I’d come to see as defining reality was a farce. Realization dawned that life is no cakewalk and even cakes and walks are not the happy things I thought they were. It took a clique of peripatetic, rapacious aliens to disabuse me of my optimism, and Larry David to reinforce the lesson learnt, but it has stayed fresh ever since: Curb your fucken enthusiasm. And don’t ever take life for granted. To quote an obscure contemporary angsty adolescent anonymous person:

And just when I think I’ve got life figured out
It throws an oddball at me and then I start to doubt
Then it screws me over callously and I begin to wonder
And while I ponder existence, my life is torn asunder.

Bah! Poetry – such insipid, artsy-fartsy tosh. Who needs it? Life’s lessons are ample evidence enough for the mercurialness of fate, the vacillations of fortune and the arbitrary randomness and callous injustice with which the forces that govern govern. 

Despite all one’s assertions of indifference to beauty, numbness to pain and apathy to the world’s wonders, one sometimes chances upon the rare event that penetrates the armor and touches the spirit. In a wholesome way, not in the way that Michael Jackson touches kids. Susan Boyle’s stirring, poignant rendition of I Dreamed a Dream was just that.

This in no way means that I have lost, or will ever lose, my cynicism. My frequent abductions by angelic aliens for unmentionable minstrations ensures I stay pessimistic, misanthropic and xenophobic.

Update: Hmm, I wonder if the whole Susan Boyle thing was staged. In fact, now that I think of it, I’m pretty certain it was. Also,my butt hurts.

Slumdog Millionaire is a good film, but hardly Oscar-worthy. Try telling that to the Oscar committee. Those hallowed gatekeepers to Hollywood recognition awarded it eight Oscars. What rankled was the fact that it came as no surprise. SM had been the media darling for months on end and the bookies’ favourite to win. Which fact leads me to believe that the rest of the world saw something genuinely brilliant in the film. Which belief makes me contemplate the appallingly low standards of the movie-going population and the fate of the human race in general.

Okay, credit where credit is due. Slumdog Millionaire had a brilliant premise that was also a wonderful plot device to showcase numerous aspects of Indian life. The production values were top-notch, some of the casting was excellent and given the relatively paltry sum Danny Boyle had to work with, he did some absolutely fantastic work. The shot locations were evocative of India; the venues chosen captured the soul of the land in as much as it is possible to compress a country to a few hours of celluloid. The music was in a class of its own and well-deserving of the Oscars it clinched. The entire package was a solid likeable crowd-pleaser with a simple uplifting theme and a Bombay filmed with so much love that it’s obvious the filmmakers fell for the city --- hard.

But the script,(a script which Danny Boyle said inspired ‘mad love’), oh the script was bollocks. Granted, the whole film had a fairytale feel to it, so a certain suspension of disbelief was required to enjoy it. But when two slum dwelling itinerants from Mumbai wind up in Delhi speaking the Queen’s English like the Queen herself, then the gap between disbelief and the suspension of it is an yawning chasm; a canyon that cannae be bridged. When Salim starts disbursing Benjamins to old pals, when he’s gotta know the dough will just end up back with his old masters, its more than odd. When a little child,very accurately done up like Lord Ram, materializes in the middle of a riot, it has a surreal Daliesque quality, like that pig-mask scene from The Shining. The dialogue lacked authenticity, coming as it did from Indian tongues unaccustomed to speaking in that manner. It feels like Danny told all his actors,” Speak clearly and slowly, pronounce every word correctly.” The result is that the lines lack the practiced nonchalance of true Bombayspeak, that wonderful synthesis of English and Hindi with effortlessly cool expletives as its cornerstone. The only actors who delivered their lines with a modicum of realism were veterans Anil Kapoor(quiz host) and Saurabh Shukla(Inspector Srinivas). In his defense, it must be said that Danny was attempting to create an essentially English movie, so the jarring incongruity of the dialog must be excused. But this is the Oscars; give the statuette to cinema that does not need apologists. The lines and delivery of, hell, even the casting, of the older avatars of Salim were plain horrid. When Salim justifies his rape of the teenage Latika with lines like ‘I am the elder. I am the boss. I am number one now.’, I had acid reflux. And it had nothing to do with the impending rape. Characters were badly sketched out, their motivations poorly delineated, their feelings and actions barely explained. Worse was the fact that the rags-to-riches story with a quick-fix solution was the same old-hackneyed fare that Bollywood has been churning out year after year. Danny’s inability to deviate from the trodden path of Hollywood sappiness, predictability and fairytale endings is his greatest failure as a visionary. Slumdog Millionaire has been done before, in various guises; we in India call it the last 30 years of Indian cinema. 

SM has become the Indian media’s darling for the past three months. A cause celebre that polarized the country, provoked indignation in many quarters, spawned a lawsuit against the makers but also inspired and made many proud. Now that it’s raining Oscars, everybody’s quick to pounce on the SM bandwagon. This irksome tendency to claim the film as India’s own is a miserable attempt to share in international film excellence recognition that has eluded us thus far. And with good reason, for Bollywood makes crap films. It also takes great films in other languages and turns them into execrable oeuvres of such mindblowing suckiness that it’s a miracle the whole world does not vanish into the blackhole. Bollywood, Mumbai was right under your noses. The source material for SM was a novel written by an Indian - you could have optioned it. The money was there ( Slumdog cost a paltry $10 million bucks –Hrithik Roshan gets more for his Coke endorsement.) This could have been your movie. It still wouldn’t be a great movie, but with the right spin, you coulda won a Best Foreign Film Oscar. But now, you have to hold your tail between your legs and beg for kinship at the table of the Brits; request affiliate status from somebody who has now delivered something more Indian than Bollywood itself. What’s worse, this film might shape foreigners opinions and ideas about India for years to come. More’s the pity.

Well, atleast SM is not as bad as that other Indian cultural ambassador of the year, Arvind Adiga’s bland, uninspired novel The White Tiger. How it won the Booker is beyond me. Whatever the judges were smoking, it’s powerful stuff. 

Danny Boyle says he hopes to make a thriller in Bombay. Let’s hope he does not choose to adapt The White Tiger. Cos if he does, it will probably win 10 Oscars and make me catatonic.

When it comes to cheap holiday destinations in the vicinity, it doesn’t get much better than Tioman. We went last weekend and had a blue whale of a time. We spent three days snorkeling in the bluest waters of the South China sea, drinking the coldest duty free beer by the beach and getting high on grass we scored from the locals. Add in a whole lot of ramli burgers, a few encounters with big-ass monitor lizards and a runaway bike that refused to stop and you get one heckuva holiday.

We decided to go on a whim; a wholly last minute operation this. R & S had been to Tioman before, but job dissatisfaction and the rigours of investment banking had taken their toll, so they needed another getaway. D came along for the beer. D is a beer whore. He loves any activity as long as there is beer involved. You could gouge out his eyes and bugger him with a red-hot poker as long as you gave him a cold one while you’re at it. If he had to choose the manner of his death, he’d choose death by alcohol poisoning -beer overdose. He prays to beer in the morning, drinks a few before lunch and washes them down with a few more at dinnertime. He gets withdrawal symptoms if he stays more than three days without beer. He….well, you get the picture.

Anyway, it was only with the vaguest of plans that we packed our shit into duffel bags and headed off to the border on Friday night. Snorkel. Drink Beer. Repeat. That was the plan. (D’s plan was Drink beer. Snor-drinkbeer-kel. Drink beer. And if we had more time, sneak in a few more cold ones.) We reached Mersing around dawn and found the ferry dock jampacked with locals who had availed of the Independence Day holiday to take their vacations.

Accommodation was going to be hard to find, it looked like. Luckily a quick traversal of the local resorts secured us an air-con cabin at dirt-cheap prices. And it was right on the beach too. R,S and D hadn’t slept a wink all night, mostly because our cabbie from JB was a speed-demon with a death-wish who took unnerving blind turns in the mist at 80 miles an hour. Me, I can sleep through a Force 10 gale, tied upside down on a mechanical bull. Suicidal cabbies – no problem; slept right through it. Anyway, these guys – tired as they are, can’t wait to take a dip in the sea. The gung-ho force is especially strong in them; their hyperactivity midi chlorian count is off the charts. Me, I need all the sleep I can get. So I pack in a few winks while they go swim in the sea .By the time they come back, I’m fully recharged. We hire mopeds( S&D can ride), rent snorkeling gear and ride to the Marine Park, a little jetty by the pier where the fish are plentiful, thanks mostly to the generous helpings of food that the tourists throw into the water.

The rest of the gang are seasoned snorkelers, but I take a couple of minutes to adjust to the unnatural feeling of breathing through the pipe in the mouth while submerged. I get the hang of it soon enough and boy, is it beautiful! There are fish less than a foot away in every direction. A stunning panoply of splendiferous multi-color swimming away in fluid effortless motion. I have a friend who once told me that Nat Geo, Discovery etc. conjure up all the marine life on their programs with CGI. Environmental pollution has depleted deep sea populations to the point of extinction, but big media needs to have pretty pictures of colourful fishies to make money, so a vast conspiracy ensures that special effects and CGI recreate these beautiful creatures for our TV screens. It did sound fishy, but the guy had sown the salmon of doubt, and I was a tad shaken. Now with all these fish swimming happily into my mask, that salmon breathed its last and I breathed a sigh of relief ( through my mouth, into the tube).

Having completed our ablutions with the fish, we returne to our hotel and on the way back, on a whim, I offer to ride the bike. “I have cycle balance, macha. I think I’ll do fine.” D would have no part of it, would not ride pillion. Thanks for the vote of confidence dude! Turned out his fears were well-founded though, as my biking skills were far from perfect. A slight turn of the accelerator propels the crazy vehicle into a jolt and all my efforts are concentrated on keeping the damn thing going straight. I vainly reach for where the brake should be and find myself clawing air; it turns out the brake is near my leg. Luckily the bike peters out and I come to an ignominious stop a few inches away from a tree. There go my Evil Knievel dreams! We resume with D riding again and me on pillion, hang-dog faced. A slight detour into a dirt road with a dead end shows us three Komodo dragons in quick succession, lazily sunning themselves in the sweltering heat. At the sound of our bikes, they scuffle frenetically away and D too desperately swerves to avoid them as they crossed our path. He’s terrified of snakes, lizards and any and all manner of creepy crawly thingy. Pussy wuss!

On our return to the hotel, we chance upon our neighbours, a gang of full blooded Tamilian males from KL. D does the conversing, being the only fluent Tamil speaker. I add my own two cents worth occasionally, in pidgin Tamil that would have Thiruvalluvar twisting in his tomb. This propitious conversation secures us a snorkeling deal; our avuncular Tamilian friend has taken D under his thumb and promises to get him hooked up with a snorkeling crew at a bargain price. “Tomorrow at 10,” he says, “Don’t be late.” We okay the deal and then decide to take a much needed catnap. I wholeheartedly concur; far be it from me to refuse an offer of the odd four hundred winks. We wake up well past sunset and go out on an alcohol junket. Cruising the booze lanes in the duty free shop, we come upon Johnnie Walker’s finest Green Label, type: vatted malt, age: 15 years , provenance: Scotland. Me and Johnnie, match made in heaven, gay as that sounds. We look around the sleepy island’s 3-4 restaurants, find a chap barbecuing seafood and order up a storm of sting ray, sotong and a few fish. The night seems perfect, couldn’t get any better. But when it rains, it pours. Halfway through our booze session (incidentally, seafood n Scotch are a great combination) S disappears for a whole thirty minutes. When he reappears, he’s got a Malay chap in tow and good news on his lips. “ Wanna get high?” he asks. As if there could be more than one possible answer to that question. The kind stranger lights up a spliff, takes a toke and passes it around. The circle of marijuana under starry skies with an auspicious wind. Our resourceful Tamilian neighbors have secured a TV from somewhere and are now lying on their verandah, chugging beer and watching a porno right in plain sight of everybody. You can take the man of out Tamil Nadu, but you can’t take the Tamil Nadu out of the man. Another spliff later we’re dog tired, pissed as newts and ready to hit the sack. It’s 4 am. It’s doubtful we’ll wake up in time for snorkeling tomorrow. D promises to wake everyone, but in his advanced state of inebriation, it is just empty bravado. We’re too drunk to care, we pass out in a state of grace.

I hear the alarm at 9 the next morning and attempt to wake D. A string of expletive falls fluidly from his lips, and he abuses my entire family tree, third cousins and all. That’s it, snorkelling’s out. I’m kinda relieved, and fall asleep again. Ah,blissful slumber! Two seconds later, I’m jolted out of my sweet reverie by loud insistent banging on the door. Opening it, bleary-eyed and baked as a cake, I find a large man blacker than the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat breathing heavily and near apoplectic. “ Already 10 o’ clock. You’re supposed to be on the beach. Boat is already here.” Our porn-watching Tamilian neighbor has turned up to save the day. Taking command of the situation, he brings us out of intoxication with sharp, stinging Tamil rebuke; the tone of his voice brooks no argument. We wearily trudge the 20 steps down to the beach, climb aboard the boat and cradle our heads in our hands. A bleeding headache reminds me for the nth time that drinking is not good for me. Luckily the wind in our faces wakes us right the fuck up, and by the time we reach our first snorkeling spot, we’re all gung ho and ready to go.

Snorkeling is da shit. The waters are crystal, the fish are everywhere and beautiful, the ocean floor is stunning, right out of Discovery channel. We see forests of coral, clown fish swimming in and out of anemones and jelly fish floating ominously; all told, it’s a sensory overload of overwhelming beauty that must be seen to be believed. We cover four spots in all, each one more breathtaking than the next.

Returning to the hotel, we catch up on much needed sleep. I can’t sleep, so I go out and find a local sitting at the hotel reception with a guitar. He’s got a songbook with chords, and the songs are mostly classics. He doesn’t know the words, so he urges me to sing along to such hits as Killing me Softly and Hotel California. I realize how painfully inadequate my vocal cords are suited to the task of producing anything remotely mellifluous; all that comes out is a raucous cacophony of sound that drives the birds from the trees. The Tamilian porn-watching neighbor pretends like I’m not there; he’s still pissed about this morning.

The sun sets on a brilliant evening. Cicadas whisper the meaning of life to each other. The bats come out of their topsy-turvy sleep to hunt; sonar-assisted sustenance. Batman dons his cape and cowl and begins his long vigil atop Gotham’s gargoyles, hunting human trash. Fishermen put their boats out to sea; the catch is more plentiful at night. Jesus Christ and his fishers of men retire; temptation is especially hard to overcome after dusk, it’d be like preaching to the bats. The sundry shacks on the beach start serving alcohol and playing contemporary tunes – the alcohol is good (is that a redundancy?), the music is crap (this decade was horrible for music).

We go out to make some important acquisitions. Crate of beer. Check. Barbecued seafood. Check. 4kg bag of ice to keep beer cold. Check. Rolling Tobacco with paper. Check. Having made these essential purchases, we repair to the beach, dig hollows into the sand and proceed to make ourselves comfortable. There’s a beer in our hands, and more beer in the ice bucket (a converted dustbin). God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world. The night is young and full of possibility. This promise blossoms into some very real mind-enhancing material a few hours later, when the special consignment we ordered last night finally arrives. 4 joints of home grown brought in by boat from one of the off-lying islands. We have scored, nigga. Da milfweed is in the building. So we roll up the joints and smoke the hell out of them. I’ve had better, but it’s good.

“ They should legalize weed man. Someday, in a free world… This is how things ought to be.”

“ Correct macha. I’m going to start a global rebellion. ….Like Gandhi.”

“ Gandhi didn’t start shit. He was a weak ass punk nigga”

“Hey, you see that shape in the trees? Looks like Benjamin Franklin’s face….”

“Fuck you talkin’ about? That’s Rajnikanth smoking a cigarette”

“I’m so stoned.”

“That’s just the placebo effect. You just think you’re stoned.”

“ Would I do this if I weren’t stoned?” <>

“ Macha, I see it now da. That’s Benjamin Franklin’s face…”

We agree that we’re not completely zonked out, but somewhere in the happy realm between mildly buzzed and properly baked and go to bed.

Next morning, S requisitions the hotel’s modest kitchen to make us breakfast, after which we cycle to the marine park and snorkel some more. I see a shell on the top of this submerged table and I ask D to dive in forr it. He’ll have nothing to do with it. “ There are sea urchins nearby,” he lamely offers. R got bitten by a sea urchin on her last trip, and she’s been propagandist for the ruthlessness and ferocity of these marine predators ever since, so D’s spooked as a sheep about ‘em. He also adds, showing great imagination “ Macha, there might be an animal inside the shell da.” Faced with his spinelessness, I am forced to dive in myself to retrieve the shell. It is a good 8 feet deep, and it takes a couple of attempts before I finally come up gasping for air, the shell firmly in my grasp. It’ll make a good ashtray. D is a bit flustered when I call him a pussy wuss and also very taken aback that there is no ‘animal’ inside the shell.

We return to Mersing and hitch a ride with a guy who runs an event management company. He’s got a van and he agrees to take us to JB for a fraction of the price the cut-throat taxi drivers (those indefatigable entrepreneurs) are charging. It’s been a great trip and what’s more, we have three bottles of duty free booze in our bags. Hurray for cheap duty free liquor. Our joy is short-lived. We are accosted at emigration after a routine bag scan reveals our booze bottles. Nobody tells us nothing as two uniformed men lead us into an ante-room. There a cheerful middle-aged man takes our passport details, the history of the alcohols involved and apologizes for the fact that there is nothing he can do for us. “It’s the rules,” he explains. “We have a system.” We are led away to another building and put into a bare white room with a single bench in the centre. It’s unsettlingly reminiscent of a prison cell. They tell us to wait, lock the door and go away. I’m starting to feel like Kafka’s protagonist from The Trial. The door opens and a young, dapper officer comes in. I’m afraid we’re going to be strip searched. I know people attempt to smuggle drugs up their…you know. One hears things. “You’re free to go. You just have to pay the tax,” the smiling young officer says. The tax is double what we pay for the booze. We enquire as to whether we can just surrender the booze instead of paying tax. No go. Shell it out. Well, at least we didn’t get fined half a grand. Considering my life, it’s a miracle I got off this easy.

We cab it back home and buy some chicken rice for our dog Daisy. Yes we have a dog. A bitch actually. Daisy pretends not to recognize me. Damn these bitches and their play -hard –to- get ways.

Bring hellfire and brimstone down on this baby. Set her to rot among the innermost recesses of Dante’s inferno and there let her be eaten by flesh consuming homunculi. Place her gently in the filthy cradles of what passes for civilization, let her be a black beacon for all that is unholy, a clarion call for lust, debauchery and all manner of vile and beastly abominations. Deck her in the rotting flesh of aborted fetuses -, their first and last cries still on their lips,-and let their putrid, purulent flesh serve as both cautionary tale for the unborn and dinner gong for the scavengers and predators that roam these heathen plains. Christen her whore of Babylon or vestal virgin and let her parade the cobbled streets atop a slow chariot, bedecked in innocently beguiling white, and give prepubescent schoolboys and lascivious old lechers new vistas to envision while they spank their monkeys. Stalk her silently through the night, as she roams the fleshpots of the ancient city, surrounded by filth but herself untouched by it, exuding animal magnetism but herself impervious to any and all manner of beast that chances to lay eyes upon her. Follow her into the dimly lit cathedral, where priests in habits preach repentance to creatures of habit, and recidivist hypocrites recite hail marys for rape, murder and grand theft auto. Watch her as she kneels upon the wooden benches , her triumphant gaze of total degeneracy twisted into a sardonic grin by a weak attempt to look repentant. She has these people in the palm of her mind. Every man in the church has a hail mary on his lips and a Jesus fuckin Christ, she’s divine on his mind. Every woman in the church recognizes her as the nemesis of relationships, the kinda wench who could make any man dig his grave and lick the shovel clean. Every woman in this room would kill to be her, every man would kill to have her. You, however, do nothing, you are merely an observer of the moment, an amanuensis to the meanderings of this unnatural creature, a chronicler, if you will, to this chimerical concoction of complex contradiction that not even the toughest tongue twister could give justice to. She hands one of the priests an envelope. Dark, cloaked hands reach out and touch her from the shaded confessionals as she passes. Hooded acolytes whisper with trepidation the secrets of popes in her discreet ears. She nods perfunctorily and moves on, a ship that passes in the night, leaving in her wake a congregation of people who now believe , in god , in a higher power , in perfection, truth and the golden ratio, but will always wonder whether what they saw an apparition or not. Later, some will claim to have touched the holy water she grazed her forehead with or the hem or her skirt as she walked. They will all be liars, and live forever tormented by that fleeting glimpse of a vision. They will see her in the backs of bars and deserted alleyways and the tortured pathways of their own mind, but when they reach out to teach her she will vanish, ghostlike, ethereal unknowable. But these burdens are theirs to shoulder. Your work lies ahead of you and is real. With stealthy tread, you tail this otherworldly siren through crowded oriental bazaars and deserted streets in the dead of night. You watch as she controls her army of devotees, each of them proud and honest and loyal, but reduced to cowering piles of stammering subservience in her presence. Witness her weave her invisible web, sometimes by deception and deceit, but mostly by just being herself. Into the cities libraries must you follow her and sit and thumb idly through Kafka and Umberto Eco while she peruses dusty tomes whose leathery pages and cryptic words have not touched flesh or seen eye for uncounted eons. Then hurry behind her nimbly as she leaves wraithlike, with nothing but a soft fragrance and chill in the air to ever announce she was coming. Into a throng of street vendors she passes, and many drop their wares and jaws as she pierces through the motley assemblage like Abhimanyu raging through the Chakravyuha. A flash of black hair, a swish of skirts and she is lost from view, swallowed up by the overwhelmed crowd. Perhaps she is onto you, perhaps she has cottoned on to your little game of cat and mouse and is giving you a run for your money. You are not without skill, in fact, your reputation is enormous, your talent undeniable. But she is past master at the old game, at any game. And she can make herself invisible as effortlessly as she makes herself a locus for attention. You put your ear to the ground and try, Matt Murdoch- like to place her soft tread amid the ruckus of the bustling bazaar. To no avail. Then you hear the sound of baying wolves and screeching chickens and you know you’re on the trail again. You follow the sound and see her skirts duck behind an old farmhouse. The chase is on again. An hour later, when she thinks she’s lost you( yes, you’re that good ) and has settled into the plush armchairs at the Hellfire club, you slide in softly behind her and quick as lightning, grab a single strand of hair from her perfect head. She winces, turns and finds nothing, ( oh yes, you are that fuckin good ) and convinces herself she imagined it. By this time, you are back in the shop, stacked with yesterday’s furniture posing as yesteryear’s antique, and china-made curios to fool the undiscerning tourist. From a deep recess in a drawer, you pull out a doll, an ugly looking clay monstrosity and tie her lovely hair around it. Then you go into the backroom, drag out a chicken, two rattlesnakes and in two shakes of a lamb’s tail you’ve got three slaughtered beasts blood collected in the ancient bowls. You adorn yourself in chicken feathers and shrunken skulls and drag out the only existing copy of the necronomicon. The chicken feathers and the other paraphernalia are peripheral at best, but the old gods have learned new tricks. Privy to the bastardized versions of silver screen voodoo, they have come to expect nothing less . Vengeful, mercurial spirits these, whimsical, unforgiving and jealous; one treads lightly.So you don your ludicrous outfit and drag out the dolls, the blood and the pins. You draw your pentagrams and prepare for the long night ahead of you. Before the sun comes up, she is going to be supping with Satan. Serves her right. She shouldn’t have panned your latest book. You fucken hate critics.

I feel like crap. I just ate a box of Pringles. They put something in it that makes you never want to stop popping them into your mouth, but once you’re full and the chips are over, you feel polluted; vile and filthy like you can feel all your arteries just got clogged with cholesterol. The same thing happens with Kentucky Fried Chicken. It feels good while you’re eating it; finger licking good. But once it’s in your intestines, it produces quite a fucked-up feeling that their slogan cannot quite capture. This fucked-up post-consumption feeling is one that is best epitomized by that great social lubricant, alcohol.

Many is the time when I have woken up next to a buxom, naked wench in a totally foreign bed. My first feelings are ones of thankfulness that I survived the debauchery of the night before. Then I find an arm around my waist which I find is paralyzed. I just cannot move it; only my other two arms can move. My other two arms! Holy shit! I have only two arms.

Sweet Bacteria of Liberia! That means… With a sinking feeling, realization dawns.

It is with rising trepidation that I turn a sidelong glance at the owner of the other arm. On a lucky day, it’s some really hot firecracker who merits a two page spread in Penthouse. On most days its women whom only total inebriation, the resulting lack of inhibition and a hall of mirrors would make attractive. On particularly unlucky days it’s the office slut or a vindictive ex who’s been hung up on me ever since we broke up.

I look at her again.Damn! She’s naked. Did we do it? Double damn! I start to imagine the baby. My eyes, her nose. It’d better inherit her hair; mine looks like Medusa’s. If it’s as fat as her, it will never hear the end of it. Fuckity fuck! This is gonna be one ugly baby!

What in “Bob”’s name was I thinking? Was I thinking? I was probably too shitfaced to. Had I been drinking? The beginnings of a headache present themselves. I take that as a yes. A second glance at the girl confirms it. No way I’d have hit that if I were sober. Not even in a last man –last woman on earth scenario.

Women get to have a morning after pill. All I get is a headache which, if it were an earthquake, would put Krakatoa to shame. That and an uneasy feeling that I might have contracted crabs, gonorrhea, syphilis or a million other STDs. Well, women get the headache and STD worries too, but atleast they get the pill. I, on the other hand, get the unparalleled pleasure of attempting a slip-away without waking the sleeping behemoth next to me.

I get the horrible feeling I always get when it comes time for the split-without-wake maneuver. I am reminded of the last time I attempted this,(unsuccessfully, I might add) and the promises to self that accompanied the nasty talking to I received from the recipient of my carnal attentions the night before. I promised myself then, like I had a hundred times before : Never again. Then I pray to “Bob” for deliverance and vow to renounce desire, contribute generously to religious conversion campaigns and try not to seal as many clubs. “Bob” does not listen. “Bob” helps those who help themselves; that’s the way He rolls.

How the fuck did I get so hammered? Damned if I can remember what I was drinking last night. That’s usually a sign I’d been drinking tequila, a Spanish drink which means (I don’t remember doing that..) in the original Spanish. Tequila. To-kill-ya. One Tequila Two Tequila Three Tequila Floor. I went on till Five Tequila six Tequila seven Tequilas More. Then Nine Tequila ten Tequila eleven Tequila Door. Accompanied by a whore so fat that when she steps on a weighing machine, my mobile number shows. Well, not an actual for-money whore, but the kind which considers sex payment enough. The kinda wench not unlike the neighbourhood bicycle, in that…



Damn it, man. Focus! Don’t go off on a tangential sexist rant in the middle of a code red emergency. I gotta get outta here pronto without waking Ms. Beached Whale. She’s clutching me with all the protectiveness of a mother lion. Even a gentle tug will wake the beastie. I’m reminded of that Roald Dahl story Poison, where a guy’s got a krait on his stomach, under the sheets and he can’t even change his breathing pattern for fear the critter will strike.
I look to the A-team for inspiration. There’s one episode in which one bloke steps on a mine and moving his foot will trigger off an explosion and blast him to smithereens. Sarge gets him outta the fix by replacing the weight of his foot with a similarly weighted stone in a deft, nerve-wracking maneuver. I decide this is gonna be my modus operandi. All I need is a pillow and “Bob”’s your uncle.

Wouldn’t ya know it? She’s sleeping on the only pillow in the room. By now I’m seriously freaking out. I can feel a panic attack coming on. Don’t wanna face her. Can’t face her. Can’t hear her saying Call me.

“ Honey, love you. Mmm…” She’s speaking in an undertone. I am so fucked. The gig is up. “ …that’s it”, she continues, “ mm…right there. You hit the spot…”

What the fuck? What’s she talking about? Then it hits me. She’s sleep talking. And dirty sleep talk at that. Must be having a dream. About what…Sweet Guinea Pig of Winnipeg! She musta been dreaming bout last night. As I hear her continue to whisper trash talk, my last reserves of self-respect slip away. “Bob”, kill me already.

I can’t take it anymore. In one fluid motion, I jerk her hand away, grab my pants and head for the door. She’s awake. “ Hey…” she calls. I’m at the door. Sweet freedom awaits. I love the smell of freedom in the morning. Home is just a cab ride away. Shit, fuck, shit. My wallet’s not in my pocket. Must be on the dresser. I pause, but only for a second. Its not worth it.

Pulling up my pants, I run bare-chested and bare-footed through the corridor. I rush into the street, steal some coins from a blind street-side busker and call a friend. “ Hey, this is me.What the fuck, dude? You were supposed to watch my back.” I launch into a tirade of expletive that could teach a rapper a few things.

He starts laughing like it’s the Three Stooges and the Monty Pythons doing a double act. “ I tried, man. I really did.But I kinda gave up when you punched me in the nuts for trying to take you home.”

I gave him directions and he picked me up. I got home and spent the day feeling like a righteous turd.Never again, I vowed. 

But I digress. Like I was saying, eating a full box of Pringles makes you feel like crap.

If I had a dollar for every day I’ve wasted reading books and watching movies , I’d have a lotta fuckin dollars. If I had a dollar for every day I spent studying, I’d have a negative amount of dollars (don’t ask me how this is possible). If I had a dollar right now, it would increase my total net worth to one dollar and thirty cents. If Bill Gates had a dollar right now, his total net worth would be one dollar and thirty cents, give or take a gazillion. If I had a dollar for every time I wished I was Bill Gates, Bill Gates would wish he were me. If I had a dollar for every time I was broke, I’d be able to finance the fuckin’ war on terror. If I had a dollar, I would convert that dollar into some cheap-ass inflated currency like the Indonesian rupiah so I could feel rich in that currency. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve placed my kidney on sale, I’d have a fistful of dollars; just enough to pay the ferryman.

If I had a dollar, I would take that dollar to a casino and play the low-stakes tables. I would double and quadruple that dollar a dozen times till I made it to the high stakes tables, where I would double and quadruple again. I wouldn’t stop till I had a billion dollars to keep my lonely dollar company. Then I would buy me clothes and a diamond ring and a mockingbird who can sing and vodka to keep the cold away. I would buy me a house and some dvds and a couple nights with an expensive hooker and a real bed. I would buy the finest wines and the finest veal and gain entry to the finest clubs. I’d have so many concubines it would put Solomon’s harem to shame. I wouldn’t stop buying until the bottomless pit that is my soul is full again. Leather jackets, fast cars and plasma screen TVs will define my lifestyle. Until one day, discovering that all the material possessions in the world haven’t given me happiness, I will renounce everything I own, convert to Buddhism and take to the hills in search of mystical nirvana.

Enlightenment awaits. But I need that dollar first.



 

The tao that can be spoke of is not the true tao
Nor is monkey described monkey nor cow spoke of cow
And if Fate it is you speak of, or destiny or God
Then curb yer tongue ye scoundrel, you prevaricating sod
For all that you give tongue to must of course perforce be false
For truth is but what’s silent and heard but by the walls
And zen that you give voice to, nirvana you utter
Is baseless vile baloney that belongs in the gutter
For everything is maya and nothingness is all
Suffering is predestined; Humpty Dumpty bound to fall
Humpty Dumpty re – incarnated as a tree
And in a million years, Dumpty’s soul may become free
From the cycle of rebirth, from the suffering of this earth
Denial of desire will give birth to earthly mirth
But mirth is not the answer, ultimately one should try
To fade to black, to shunya, to merge with sea and sky
If nirvana is your goal, nothingness will satisfy
So stock up on some cyanide and die mothafucka die…