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.

Khorpude and Fernandes

"Ah, Khorpude. We meet again. It's been a while, no? A goddamn while. Twenty years. Bees saal baad. Everything about our little cat-and-mouse chase is so fucking filmy, no? Even that fucker Desai wants to make a film about us. He came to my Bandra office today only. These producers also have their khabris. He came with his newest chela, that director...hmmm...what's his name, what's his name?"

"Shayan Bannerjee"

"Haan, Bannerjee. Saala, these new chaps are ruining the industry. They sit in their fucking flats in Lokhandwala and watch European films, and they want to come and try it here. Alternative cinema, post-modern cinema, this cinema, that cinema. And these producers also are encouraging this sort of rubbish. This Bannerjee tells me that the public has become more intelligent, their sensibilities have changed. Khaak more intelligent. People will always want masala, romance, naach-gaana. Eh, you want a cigarette? Don't feel shy, men. You can talk to me openly. Nobody else is there. You want me to call you Khorpude bhai? Only then you'll talk to me, haan?"

"What Fernandes saab? I'm always open with you. You know how I enjoy listening to you talk. Ah, still smoking the same, I see? At least some things haven't changed. But I think time has caught up with both of us, saab. Three of us, I should say. You, me and Bombay."

"Bombay, Bombay. Nowadays, it's become fashionable to call Bombay your randi, your whore. All these arty people, like this chutiya Bannerjee, they'll go around making films and paintings and saying they're inspired by Bombay, their muse, their whore. But Khorpude, we, you and I, we said this thirty years ago, didn't we? We know her moods and her dirty little secrets better than all these pretenders. But true, things are changing. Look at Parel, where you used to be the raja once. A fucking acre of land was not sold without you knowing about it. Now, bhenchod, Lower Parel has become Upper Worli.

"What to say, saab? It's sad that baba has to see all of this. You know that he used to be a big man in the old days. When he was chairman of the Union, Thackeray himself used to come to have aai's adrak chai. The foreign hotel people brought down the chawl, giving a pittance as compensation. I have a nice place in Andheri. I told aai to take baba there. But he refuses to have anything to do with me."

"We must live with the consequences of the choices we make. But sometimes I wonder, Khorpude, whether we really have a choice? Take love for instance. We never choose to fall in love, no? It is inevitable. We know it's not good for us, that eventually it will wreck us and exact its price, and still we find ourselves falling, slipping..."

"Fernandes saab, since when you have become so philosophical? But men have been known to ruminate as they grow older. Very true, saab. You've definitely heard about my love story, saab. Splashed all over the newspapers, and they also made that film about it. Saab, I've thokoed many women in my days but I really thought this Radhika was different..."

"What yaar, Khorpude? You should have known better than to think that a film actress would be different. They're the worst of the lot. She was the one that did you in eventually. She was the one who told the Crime Branch that you were holed up in that flat in Jogeshwari. That's why you're sitting here in this lock-up."

"I became a fucking majnoon. To the world, I was Khorpude bhai, the king of the Bombay underworld. With Radhika, I could be Manjesh. You know saab, she was the one who told me that there is a difference between loving someone, and being in love. It is possible to love a lot of people, but you can be in love with only one person. Talking of love, how is bhabhi doing saab?"

"Your bhabhi and I are divorced. She was sleeping with another man. You know that Sharma? The sub-inspector who busted Ismail Pathan's smuggling racket in Uran? Haan, that one. I'd gone to his house to collect some files on a case we were jointly working on, and I saw her there."

"What did you do, saab?"

"I removed my revolver and pointed it at them. I was disgusted, shocked, even though I suspected something was on. I didn't think it had gone so far. I almost did a Nanavati, but then I put my revolver back in my holster, and walked out quietly."

"I would have emptied the fucking cartridge into both of them, saab. There and then only. How did you deal with it?"

"I drank, Khorpude. For six months, I was a fucking bevda. It showed on my work, and I was transferred to Goregaon station from the Crime Branch. But then I realized that I needed to take control of my life, piece myself together again. These boots are made for walking, Khorpude. We must make our peace with the imperfections of human nature."

"Let us leave this talk of love and loss. I've grown old saab, but not that old. Tell me, what are you going to do with me? I see no way out this time. This is not like the old days, when there would be hundreds ready to give their life for me. I've heard you've rounded up most of my boys. You remember that time when you interrogated me twenty years ago? Commissioner saab himself escorted me out of the lock-up when I was bailed out. And you remember who had furnished my bail bond? It was Patil, the man who became the fucking CM two months ago. It's all a game, saab. Now that I have nothing to offer, no one has anything to offer me. It is time to pay for my sins."

"Are there any moral absolutes, Khorpude? I don't know. I don't think I ever will. But we most forge on, doing our business, until we are turned to dust ourselves. And now that you've brought it up, I must tell you that I've been given the job of turning you to dust. They say that if I do it now, they'll be able to make the morning papers. 'Dreaded gangster of the 90s gunned down in Jogeshwari encounter'. That's what they want Bombay to wake up with."

"Ah, the Bombay Police. Still up to their old tricks, aren't they? I've lived life on my own terms, and I'd love to go on mine. Let me script my own obituary. Let me kill myself, so that my spirit will remain unconquered. And let Bombay know that I took my own life. If anyone deserves to know the truth, it is her. Grant an old friend his last wish?"

"Ah, the quirks of the erstwhile king of the Bombay underworld. You've been a worthy rival, Khorpude and a worthier friend. For all your misdeeds, you deserve to die. But I know your heart is in the right place. And for that, you deserve to choose how you want to go. My father always told me that a saint is a sinner for at least one, and a sinner is a saint for at least one. I'm not that one, Khorpude. But I'm sure there are many. Goodbye, my friend."

Pondicherry

Popular philosophy, and vomit on feet,
Narrow bed, and hard, hard seats,
Photography, yes, at the end of streets,
Our minds, children, did they really meet?

Wayfarers, and fare on the way,
Chilli parothas, and metaphysics if you may,
Wheels of joy, on the rocks we lay,
Unencumbered by structural suffocations, what say?

Talladega Nights, not quite, but they did seem right,
Pink coffee and vanilla lace, say what you might,
Days full of promises, nights of mellow delight,
Did we weave fresh patterns, or was our tailoring trite?

A golden orb in the middle of the gardens,
There is only one way this can end, my resolve hardens,
A piece of pork or bacon is called lardon,
The reality convicts, children, the imagination pardons.

Precious Objects

precious objects appear doomed and irrecoverable in the very moment of their perception (Freud, On Transience)

60 word fiction-II

In the post-modern world, he'd read, there are no moral absolutes. He'd tried finding solace in other philosophical abstractions, in the works of men and women who had devoted their lives to the pursuit of elusive answers. In their defence, he thought, the questions were engaging enough. But this time, there were far too many miscalculations in his moral mathematics.

60 word fiction

The cigarette hung impossibly suspended between his index and middle fingers. He turned towards her, and watched the last rays of the Bombay evening do a tap-dance across her face. She turned away, and now her almond eyes seemed to be taking in all of Malabar Hill, on the other side of the water. There was nothing to be said.

The Poets Lied, I am Denied

The title has nothing to do with the post. The title has everything to do with everything else. Cryptic, no? Ha! I'm like that only.

The real point of the post is this: Afternoon naps are the closest I'll ever come to seeing God. Afternoon naps are when my fears come alive, when my dreams die. Afternoon naps are oddly satisfying, and they leave with me with voids in places I never thought existed. Afternoon naps tell me, "You're a douche, everything is not going to be okay."

The breeze is carried in through the mesh on my window. Snatches of conversations outside the mess. The words float in the air, mocking me, watching me make a fool of myself. As the thin cream curtain billows to the purring of the blades of the brown fan on my ceiling, the words dissolve, and become something else. I imagine the rusty shutters behind my thin curtain. I think about getting up, pushing my curtain aside, and running my index finger up and down the shutters, and watch the red-brown flakes fall off. I think of it as a new start, but the afternoon manages to convince me that I'm a sucker for beauty. It seems to whisper from somewhere near my desk, "You're only romanticizing the breakdown. Again." I forget about heaving my upper body to set in motion the process of getting up and touching the flakes. I am drowsy. My sleep is dreamless, mostly, yet, when I wake up, it feels as if I've dreamt.

In the afternoons, I am convinced that there are indeed such things as ghosts, ghouls and wailing banshees. Not only of the past, but of the present and of the future. I'm oddly satisfied that I don't scream, don't pull my hair out and shout out loud. There is indeed beauty in the breakdown.

P.S: This one's for you, Fudge. For introducing me to the phrase 'beauty in the breakdown.'