The White Man's Appendage

No matter how many lies Pinocchio tells, his nose will never match that appendage protruding from the White Man's face. It glides through the air, slices through land and skims over the oceans to land in places far away, with a thud that raises much dust. When the clouds finally settle, one can't help but marvel at how much wallop a singular nose could pack. The sheer destructive power of the White Man's Nose is a wonder to behold, a phenomenon to be feared, a force best not messed with. If it only kept to within a mile's radius of the face it belonged to, wouldn't this world have enough fresh air for all to breathe?

It all began with religion, perhaps. The quest of the Nose to spread the White Man's ideas and ideals. Since it was too far back in time for me to know enough about it to put it down as fact, I can only speculate that the Christian missionaries only got violent at first when they felt threatened by the already violent missionaries of Islam. We had missionaries before that too, as any Buddhist will tell you, for instance. And while I do know of at least one expansion campaign that ended when the king converted to Buddhism, I do not know of any that started for the same reason.

Never quite content with small fare from among their own populace, or those of countries near by, the Nose always itched from exotic flavours from distant lands. So it brought disease to a mighty civilisation, whose one big shortcoming was lack of immunity to various strains of germs, on account of not having initially lived lives filthy enough to birth the plague and such. Such a weak populace was not nearly good enough to take back home as slaves, so merely their gold and women had to suffice.

However, the black man, sitting blissfully in the original garden of Eden, was sniffed out soon enough by the prodigious Nose. I mean, it was only natural I suppose, given how long the Egyptians and Persians had already troubled the Greeks and Romans. Using the force of cordite, slavery was made in to an institution at a never-before imagined scale. "Uncivilised" as the black man was to the refined senses of the Nose, it was only too easy to treat him at a sub-human level, to say the least.

But not everything about the Nose is bleak. It also championed causes like capitalism. Even if it meant crushing local trade and produce abroad for better profits at home, even if it meant crushing local governments abroad for the sake of bananas, even if it meant creating monsters where none existed because socialism, in any of its avatars, was not paying off enough.

Ah yes, let me not forget to mention the spread of technology that the Nose has ensured, all for the betterment of the human existence, obviously. Profit margins have nothing to do with it. The colonists always knew what was best for the colonised, their superior technological ways always better than the savage ways of the natives. Why let the tribes fight each when they can play cricket instead? And why use the camera shutter technology only for photography when it can also be used to make machine guns?

Even morality is something that the Nose always knows the best about. And since it knows best, it is a sacred duty to shine the same light on so many lesser mortals that dot the planet. Of course, part of the morality is the discourse on how everyone should grow a Nose. A uniform world is the best sort, is what the Nose seems to think, according to me. A uniform world where the original Nose still calls the shots, which becomes easier to do as everyone will be more compliant.

So enter the nasal dance of democracy and liberty. Ah, this seems to be the chosen favourite of the Nose, resonating as it does with most people on the planet. Not that I am a fan of democracy, or even humanity ("Hitler had the right idea, he was just an underachiever": Bill Hicks), but even if I were to support this democratic quest, the Nose is certainly not the way to go. "People must have the right to follow their chosen path for the future, and since they cannot do it themselves, we must help them along the way." Wow. This is what they forgot to add. "Let us first enslave and ship fit people from all these foreign lands, kill many of the rest, except the servants of course, in the lands we choose to inhabit, take their possessions even if we were to spare their lives, build a vast empire based on the labour and lives of millions, treat the world as our playground and divide lands based on our conveniences or sense of guilt when we have to depart for home because we couldn't keep our shit together. And oh, let us not to forget to sow deep seeds of discord that shall give us the chance to come back here and play some more soon."

Ah, what a burden it must be, having a white man's Nose.

A Rant on Time

The face stationary and the hands ever moving, the clock ticks away, reminding everyone that at least till we beat light in a race, and even then only conceptually perhaps, time is not exactly waiting around for anyone. Things rise, the hands turn, and they fall. Many an Atlantis arise, the face stays the same, and they turn to dust. Steel and bone, it all eventually starts to rust. All the same, I suppose it will be interesting to have the cockroaches give their perspective, though.

As yes, there are medicinal properties too, that the watch hides in its cogs and springs. Or so it is said. Something about how the water from those springs tends to heal wounds that doctors had steered a mile away from. About how the cog teeth close gashes that friends had seen, tried to help with and then eventually left you for dead. But what about an adherent of Bwiti who decimates the notion of a failing memory with the bark of iboga?

The length of the chain at the end of the fob is likened to the amount of time we have as conscious beings on this planet called home. Life itself consumes that chain for sustenance, and when the links are all devoured, the jig is up. Stupidity tends to be pretty hungry too, methinks. The biggest problem with these links though, in my view, is that they are hardly inter-changeable. I could never give you a link from my chain, which is still alright. But I couldn't even interchange two links in my own chain. Linear flow and all that. Raises then the question of how long originally was the chain of those that committed suicide?

The precision of the chronometer is only as precise as the person designing it. You put your faith in the machine, you automatically put your faith in the man. Something I instinctively shy away from, faith in its many forms. But precision derived from the body clock is as good or as bad as that of a chronometer, or at least as useful at any rate. No chronometer could tell you the precise moment to pull out and spill your seed on the ground, could it now? So I still choose to have a time piece.

Shit, just saw the time, and I am late for work. Time to hit the road. Another time then!

Bombay Bummer, Not So Much For Me Though...

As the heat starts creeping back in to Delhi, my office is planning to shift to Bombay. No, it's not like they move base in the summer to avoid the heat or any such. They are simply planning to move, is all. Makes sense from their point of view, if you ask me. They will become a more efficient organisation both operationally and financially, both of which they really need. Not that I think it will do anything much for their viewership numbers, but still.

The planned move is causing much heart-ache however, among those in Delhi who are not very eager to move, for whatever reasons they may have. Some have mothers who need medical assistance, others have new born children, some others just generally dislike Bombay without actually ever having lived there while others still are simply used to their current comfort zone and are too lazy or stupid to accept change. Of course, the fact that the company is not very willing to provide the cost of relocation etc is not exactly calming anyone's nerves. All of this is making for very entertaining atmosphere at work for me, where I am making public declarations now of feasting on others' misery for my amusement.

The only thing that is bothering me in all of this is that the company is not providing any details as to when exactly they plan to move. Once I know that date, I can accordingly fire off my resignation. There is no fucking way these morons are dragging me back to Bombay for a second time in less than two years. Especially since it has only been less than five months that I left that over-sized dump. No way am I putting myself through yet another summer of sweaty over-flowing trains and a deluge of garbage that passes off for monsoon for the sake of this job that I don't even want. I trust these cheeky bastards to hold off announcing that final date till the last possible moment, so that they can then cut some money from my final salary on account of me not having given them the requisite one-month notice. There is no low they will not fall to, in my opinion, to save even small change from the lowly-paid hard working few to foot the bills of the highly-paid hardly working many.

I mean, for fuck's sake, on the one hand, they are going around telling everyone how there will probably be no pay hikes this year because of general lack of money. On the other, they seem to have suddenly coughed up the money for this move. And on yet another, they do something stupid like introduce valet parking for the remaining Delhi office from next month! Go figure.

Purple and Green... and colourlessness

She comes again, a goddess from the heavens, raining at her beautiful leisurely pace, weaving her thick rich luxuriant Purple spell through the air, enchanting everything it touches. There a dab of Han turns the Greek beggar in to a king, here a spark of Tyrian turns the Chinese peasant's hut in to a palace. Electric, Royal and Red-Violet explode warmth upon frozen cities, vines climb out of the desert sand, while Prometheus and Sisyphus feel their pains numbing. The sound of Patriarch gives song to the birds, the fall of Veronica puts the rivers in motion, the sight of Medium brings the Olive Ridleys ashore.

And then, in a blinding flash of Orchid, Heliotrope, Psychedelic, Mulberry and Pansy, she surges forth, growing, flowing, soaring, towards what still resembles only a Green speck in the unfathomable distance. But soon, too soon, the speck is a field, a mountain, a continent, the planet itself. Persian, Fern, Neon, Office, Forest, Midnight, Harlequin, Celadon, all rise up in unison to escort the goddess down. Teal, Brunswick, Fern, Shamrock, Moss and Asparagus run ahead to make welcoming arrangements. Emerald, Pine, Myrtle, Tea and Sap put up a brilliant fireworks display while Army plays the band. India prepares the bed-chamber with Midnight in the middle of Jungle.

Sipping on Sea, Charma enters. In robes of Islam, Version 2.0 awaits her on the Jade bed.

From my corner in the colourless void, I watch them embrace. Then I go blind.

Long Overdue in 2011

Between two holidays, visiting family, entertaining visiting friends, usual shit at work, fervent onanism, watching anime and otherwise languid laziness, this page kept being relegated further down the to-do list that I don't even have. All the same, here I am now. Late, never, better, blah, bah.

Of the vacations gone by already, I ain't gonna really write about. Except to say that they were both awesome. The breathtaking salt desert and ancient excavations in Gujarat and a drive from Bangalore to Kanyakumari, with most of the time spent in the backwaters and beaches of Kerala. The only common trait between the two places: pretty hot for the most part.

I would have liked to put up my new year poem here, but I can't find it on my office computer or email. So I will give it a skip. As it is, it would have been more than 2 months too late. Screw that. Couple of things I have been contemplating though, in this calendar year. Maybe I should get those off my chest.

One, the idea of seeking company for entertainment, as opposed to entertaining the self. (The perverted reader is free to draw conclusions from the onanism reference above.) Living all by myself as I am now for the first time ever, I was a bit apprehensive about the pangs of loneliness that had troubled me greatly once in the past. But I was also sort of looking forward to it too, to use my time in a way I deemed fit without being encumbered by someone else's choices. I thought I could be a lot more productive towards personal causes (such as writing) if I wasn't always spending my time in company. However, this post comes after a gap of two months and about the only thing I have written in the interim was the new year poem. I haven't done much else either, except sort of vegetate. What I have been contemplating (another form of procrastination?) is how do I actually make good of this time I now have for myself. In other words, how to throw off these shackles of sheer lethargy that are weighing me down?

The other thing is my supposed charsi look. I happened to run in to acquaintances from school days, guys I hadn't seen in over 10 years, at the least. Three of them were over at my place one evening, two of us drinking whisky and the other two relishing their Breezers. One of the Breezer drinkers also partook of a spliff, which he himself had asked me to roll, soon after which he proceeded to the toilet to throw up, after which he passed out. Then he called me a week later to tell me that I should take it easy in life and that I looked like I was in to drugs and that my enunciation of the desire to maybe do a PhD some time in life confirmed his apparently ancient viewpoint of my being mad. When I rose to my defence about drug consumption, he said he was only doing his duty as a friend by warning me. Couple of evenings later, the younger brother of the guy who drank whisky with me some evening ago came over to my place for 10 minutes, in which he told me how the brothers had both lost 25 kg each in the last 6 months (and they both are still more than just your average plump) and then went on to ask me why I looked so malnourished, and that I should go easy on the drugs. Once again, I began a cursory defence but abandoned it half-way. Couple of days later, the elder brother calls me up and tells me how his younger brother told him I looked drugged and haggard, and that I really ought to take better care of myself and that I should also put on some weight. And this, after he had himself seen me twice in the preceding three weeks. Was he too blind to notice it himself then? Or did the brother confirm his lurking suspicions? Suspicions? Of what?!

I can't decide if my external appearance has, in fact, changed, unbeknownst to me to resemble that of junkies, and I am too blind to notice it, what with it being my own face and all, or if it is, as usual, just the world around me that still hasn't found its marbles, tied up as it is with typecasts and preconceptions, even if it about things it has not the foggiest clue about.