Selvanathan

The men were all either bloody pansy intellectuals or street-smart buggers with two-day stubbles. Selvanathan didn't fit into either category. A spoke in the wheel of fucking mediocrity, that's what he was. And the women. With their fruit flavored lip gloss and figure hugging denims. The kind who would take your heart, and tear it into shreds. But, Selvanathan knew that they gave men, no, boys like him enough bang for their existential buck. In fact, he couldn't imagine a world without pouting women who tore hearts into shreds.

Often, he stood in front of the dirty mirror in the hostel bathroom (when no one was looking, of course), and practiced saying the word that the brash, stubble-wearing boys, no, men said with so much élan.

"Behen-chod"

"Buh-hun-chod, saale"

"Bhaanchod"

But, it never quite came out the way he wanted it to. He saw the writing on the wall. The earth had been inherited by men who could call other men sister-fuckers with conviction.

My Daily Defeat

It's the yellow scimitar again, a flash at first,

I move away just in time, a half-roll on my unwilling torso,

I run my fingers over my cheek, where the gash would have been,

There are many of them now, piercing my bedsheet-armour as though it were muslin,

It is a new day, and I am not prepared for the onslaught,

The flanks are narrow, the enemy relentless, I am capitulating,

I writhe about pathetically on the battlefield-bed, the creases like wounds,

Wretched technology conspires and the alarm on my phone goes off,

There is a clanging in my ears, it is the bugle of a perverse and unequal triumph,

I open my eyes, and survey the wreckage of my daily defeat.

Sloth

Shaggy big bear comes in my dreams. I'm somewhere in the Rockies. Or are these the Himalayas? I haven't been to the Rockies. Must be the Himalayas. Are there shaggy big bears in the Himalayas? Who am I talking to? What the hell, this is how it works. This stream-of-consciousness thing. This is how Kerouac did it. And all the other Beat Boys. And Girls. Let's call them the Beat People. Life of Pi. The yellow light in my bedroom. At home. In Bombay. Now, I'm meandering. Isn't it allowed in this stream-of-blah blah thingy? What is allowed? The meandering, silly. It is, but not to this extent. What does Bombay have to do with a shaggy brown bear. Shaggy brown bear or shaggy big bear? Same thing. Life of Pi, then. What is the role of historical specificity in alternate histories? Yes, this is an alternate history. Nobody cares about my history, alternate or otherwise. Life of Pi. They're making a film on it. They were shooting in Pondicherry. Ah, Pondicherry. How did we reach Pondicherry? We always reach Pondicherry, no, children? The three-toed sloths. Members of the genus Bradypus and the family Bradypodidae. They're reaching out from the shadows. Ghosts in pale brown. Or is it a woman in pale brown? Women? Dementors, that's what they are. Somewhere, eyes open with a start. Big brown eyes. Whose eyes? Ah, I know. Curtains billowing in the soft breeze. Not Dementors, they're my curtains. Only curtains. Damn, 8:40. Class in ten minutes.