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Sunday, December 20, 2009
Return of L'Ombre BrilleWhen
you can't beat something, what do you do? Why, you join it! Simple. And of course, you wonder why do I say this right up,
eh? No mysteries here, folks. I refer to my keen ability to provide you wholesome fare here only very occasionally. If I tell
you work keeps me busy, you should spot a lie being served up with watercress around it. Smile lightly and refuse the offered
pinch of salt since you don't need to take it at all. On the contrary, being the knight parfait, I will tell you the bald, ungarnished truth: I procrastinate. Kal kare so aaj is invariably turned around to Aaj kare so kal. And for my readers—sounds so bloody warm, I tell you!—who don't quite speak the italicised language there (Hindi, my dear
friends, spoken by the teeming millions of this vast land), well, that Englishifies into Do today what you'd do tomorrow and Why
do today what you'd as well do tomorrow? respectively. In other words, I let my I would wait upon my I
wouldn't, as my gurudev so pithily puts it. Par excellence. Er, Gurudev,
you wonder? Why, the maestro himself! The one and only Language Magician, Maitre Wodehouse.
Last time I put some
fiction 'extract'—not quite an 'extract', which implies there is a larger body of work from which that piece was drawn
but something rather on the lines of a 'fictional' fiction extract implying that the so-called extract could have been an 'extract' had the larger body existed, which it didn't of course—and
hoped you sporting fellows would take a few pot-shots at it. No such luck! My hopes have been dashed, in the larger-picture-sense!
But I daresay I had a racy bit there with some careless humour thrown in... but guess the casting of the net—hardly
the couch!—was imperfectly marketed. Which of course goes to show that all those marketing guys are not really sitting
on their respective fannies and cavorting in their umpteen gabfests (tarry a little here! ‘sitting on their fannies
and cavorting’? Surely mutually exclusive, those two together?) only but are actually doing some work to ensure
the good and honourable stuff they are marketing is indeed made known to the paying public for them—the latter ones
here naturally since you would hardly expect the marketeers themselves falling for their own machinations—to loosen
their tightly drawn purse-strings. My suspicion is the marketeers only buy stuff they genuinely need whereas the paying
public—to wit, the non-marketeers, or to stretch the point a bit, marketeers not marketing that particular good—are
enticed to part with their hard-earned—and in some cases, ill-gotten—moolah to acquire perfectly unnecessary goods
and maybe even services.
I have an idea, absolutely fresh off the oven, just teeming with possibilities. The only
fear I have is of it being filched without so much as a 'by your leave'—particularly since I have no clue what that
expression means and secondly, if you have seen how we drive in our country then you wouldn't seek further evidence of complete
scroundel-ish behaviour and the total absence of morality—and being palmed off as a genuine, true-blue someone
else's idea, leaving me desolate, disgruntled, and Ghajini-ish.
And poor(er). I cannot stand for it. So hear ye, hear ye: Note the date of this posting and know ye all that the idea that
will shortly burst forth here is mine and mine alone; I stick to it closer than the Maestro's 'paint on the wall' simile.
It has never appeared anywhere in the public domain till date and with this appearance here, is introduced as the freshest
bit of the best-est thing; I assert the right to be noted and accepted without demur as the sole creator of the idea. So,
the idea.
Now, hold on to your patience (since it is a virtue and is a quality much sought in people that hardly have
it). Let me fill you in on a bit of a background. While it may strike you tangential and a non-plussive (now, am on a word-inventing
spree!), repose your trust yet. And lend me your ear. (By the way, did I tell you about the time when I had, in a moment of
overt cleverness, requested a lady to lend me her mouth? I had merely wanted her to answer a question I had posed, honest!
).
In my evening perambulations
I get to see some of the soaps on television that are patronised by the many-headed (I must admit, there are two that
I follow myself, the names of which will remain a closely-guarded secret for indescribably classified reasons but you could
check with the aforementioned marketeers). Each seems to have a few nasty characters that cause untold misery to the long-suffering
saints who make up the other twenty per cent of the characters in the soap, and carry the burden of everyone else there. The
nasty, brutish lot are however the ones that cause the story to move forward; utter goody-goodiness will be so boring that people would use them as sedatives. Or as sugar
substitutes in their hot beverages.
So
these villains—as we love to call them—or 'characters in a negative role' (this term now so popularised
by the countless TV awards—the sheer number of such awards eventually ensure each soap and all artistes are ultimately
decorated), if you prefer, get to have all the fun. They get to do what I suspect most people would love to do too—only
they are too conscious of themselves—and usually have a whale of a time: dress up to the gills in the most weird outfits
they can, make the funniest faces—mistakenly assuming them to be scaring people witless—say the most wicked things
they could... and get paid to do all those. And, I almost forgot: wear the funkiest bindis and jewelry (if women)
or only jewelry (if men). They certainly have all the fun. Whereas the good ones—the goody-goody weenies—are always
moping around, wringing their hands/ faces/ foreheads or any other body part commissioned to express anguish, bemoaning their
fate, wailing at the Gods—ever wonder how each household seems to come equipped with a splendid mandir, complete with shiny marble flooring, serene white marble statues/ statuettes
of the Gods, shining lamps with ever-glowing wicks, etc.—and weeping copious tears. They might get to wear shiny clothes—particularly
if the producer is kind-hearted and has a large budget—and drive nice cars—against the rakish sports models the
villainous ones get to vroom around in—but are pale shadows in terms of interest. Your heart might be all melted for
them and their brand of behaviour practices but you wouldn't want to change places with them. After all, who would want to
mope around when you could snarl, sneak, cavort, and snakily pounce on the helpless? And dress like they do, to boot? That's
a no-brainer, as our brethren from the richest democracy love to say.
Oh? You say you have lost context of what we had started out discussing? Like that idea I
was about to spring at you? It’ll happen yet; there is light at the end of this tunnel and hey, it is not the
light from the oncoming train! The idea will be served, hang in there.
So, these villains are having all the fun. The goody two-shoes are getting pasted every time
and are up against it all the while. They serve the weirdest of evil schemes and make the lives miserable of all concerned.
At times I daresay you feel you’ve had enough of gritting your teeth and bearing the complete lack of spine of these
non-villains. I am sure you’ve had occasion—and not infrequently I suspect—to wanting simply to get into
the television set yourself with the nearest blunt object at hand and braining… who? Why, the do-gooders of course!
Why would you want to attack the villains in the show, who make up the engine of the vehicle of the show and drive the blasted
thing forward—or backward per your perspective or inclination, take your pick? The show would stop forthwith and you
wouldn’t know what to do with the suddenly freed-up 30-odd minutes! Don’t you agree?
It is generally agreed that one could remove other characters from such soaps but
never the dark ones since TRPs (Television Rating Points, for the uninitiated) would plummet prompting purges, murder and
mayhem at the channel headquarters. Since these blackguards are the lives and souls of the parties, I was thinking, why
not start a new show that would be peopled only with these villains who play themselves? That is to say, merely as
an example, not casting a whit of aspersion on the blackness of their characters by their exclusion hereof, Dadisa
plays Dadisa—herself—in this new show, which, for the purposes of this piece, is named, let’s say,
“Kale Kartootein”, (or, “Black Deeds”). She is up against it, matching her wits with, say,
the redoubtable Ammaji—she of the flaming eyes and impeccable Haryanvi rusticity—or the matchless Punpun-wali,
the drawling Ranvijay or any or multiple of the myriad others.
Can you imagine the bonanza? The sheer delight of evilness all over, slithering forth from
each corner of your 21”/ 29”/ 32”/ 40”/ 46” or more? Mouth-watering possibilities! I squirm
in anticipation and the hands-rubbing prospects… if only!
And that, dear reader, is my idea. Get these fiends all together and reap the benefits of sky-rocketing TRPs.
And you cannot overlook my little contribution (only my modesty prevents me from crowing with success already) and thus, make
your own little contribution towards the uplift of my finances (my modesty yet again reflected in that second ‘little’).
And
with this idea planted in your fertile minds, I melt away into the yonder setting sun. Adios, amigos.
Sun, December 20, 2009 | link
Friday, November 13, 2009
Friday the 13th...Mesdames et Messieurs! (And now, having shot the bolt on my French, I switch
smartly back to English... clever, eh? Wise, certainly.  ) As you might have noticed--being really smart--I am here after a pretty while, some twenty days. Plenty has happened in
the meanwhile, and being tuned to accepting a few roughs with the many smooths, I will dwell on none of them. {That took you
by surprise, now admit it!}
Instead, let us talk of something entirely not connected to any roughs or smooths.
Let me take you, gentle reader, to an alternate world. Peopled with people like you and me but making a much more
electric passage through the ether of life...
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Curvetting swiftly between the rifling bullets, he sprang on to the staircase over the bent and twisted bannister and
sprinted up the steps to the first landing, bending low; the last bullet had barely missed his pumping right arm during the
last second of that sprint up the steps.
The light was hardly enough to make out the sparse furniture in the room.
And what were there were broken. The firing had stopped... for now. He quickly--he was always quick--patted his pockets,
muttering, "Where's the torch..." before he spotted the shape at the belt above his left hip.
The
beam of light that struck out then revealed the sordid state of affairs within the room, well, more of a dilapidated hall
than a room really. He kept his head low and a very keenly wary eye out for any of Cantor's henchmen.
He thumbed
the well worn hammer of his pistol yet again, the prick on the fingertip reassuring. As he planned his next action,
the room suddenly lit up brightly and a loud--in that surcharged quietness reminding one of the calm before the storm broke,
it did seem unnaturally loud--click reverberated. Immediately, a voice sounded tinnily, as if from small speakers set at full
volume cracking at the edges, straightaway recognizible as Cantor's, playing over a recording device. Old Cantor up to his
old tricks, he thought, in this case, never speaking himself but letting his pocket recorder do that for him.
Why
on earth would such a powerful criminal always avoid speaking himself even though putting in an appearance himself? Did he
have a high, squeaky voice that he did not want to advertise, he, being an astute--at times, certainly--investigator, thought...
but his mind was dragged away from this rather engaging line of thought as the tinnily announced words registered on his blazing
mind...
"Mr Nine," for he was only known by that name alone--even his own mother sometimes addressed
him thus against her better judgement--and Cantor too was none the wiser. "Mr Nine, you will refrain from firing
your gun any more for my men have you covered!"
Nine--yes, gentle reader, I am sworn to protect his identity
as well and alas! as his chronicler, I take that oath seriously enough since I do believe he fetches me my meals more or less
regularly--immediately ruled out the first six options that struck him as outlandish for he noticed that eight men had peeled
off the walls now, with menacing guns in their hands. He had failed to notice them earlier since Cantor had, with fiendish
cunning, dressed them in off-white coveralls, right down to gloves, enabling them thus to blend perfectly with the dirtyish
off-white walls to which they had been facing till now.
Only the seventh option struck Nine as perfect
for this occasion. A perspicacious young man, he knew the limitations of his admittedly amazing skills at extricating himself
from perfectly impossible situations. This new idea filled him with confidence and zeal, which, after all, are the only things
that make a difference to anything.
"Okay, Cantor," he spoke lazily, his voice betraying no tremor, "you
can have my gun. Ask your seven beauties to stop shivering in fright..." Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Nine is a tremendous
believer in the psychology of the individual, and he knew Cantor would immediately notice the mistaken number he had mentioned:
seven instead of the actual eight henchmen.
"Okay Mr Nine," the tinny voice now spoke, "I give up.."
This was rudely interrupted by the click of a button and a muttered expletive sounded before another click caused a new sound
now, a whirring of tiny wheels: Cantor was hurriedly fast forwarding his speech tape after that rather embarrassing faux
pas to a more appropriate set speech.
While Nine was striving to make sense of that, Cantor's speech stand-in
spoke up again: "Mr Nine, that is wise. Now, you keep where you are while two of my men will go up to disarm and bind
you. Keep still and be wise..."
Despite the unintentional humour, Nine knew he was in desperate danger. He
worked alone never trusting any potential assistant to remain unscathed; he did not want to be saddled with the need to rescue
such bumbling assistants... though at times like these he did feel the need for some external help. But he trusted his innate
good fortune--that managed every time to extricate him from fairly hairy situations regularly, in fact so regularly that he
sometimes thought of getting protective insurance against odds catching up with his run of such good luck--to again come to
his aid.
All this while, with one eye, he noted two of the eight heavies stepping up to the edge of the staircase
gingerly. Seven and eight... what advantage could he take of that bit of disinformation that he had so casually chucked at
Cantor... Nine thought furiously but nothing worthwhile struck him yet. Just to spice things up a bit and play upon
the psychology of the individual, to wit, Cantor, Esq., he said, "Oh Cantor! Look at your boys! They're stepping as though
on broken pieces of glass! What're they terrified of? Here's my gun, held between my forefinger and thumb... come and get
it, boys!" The mockery in his voice was not lost on Cantor who thumbed a button yet again on his recorder, quite clearly
searching for an appropriate response.
"The Swiss banks are safe as houses, Mr Nine..." the tinny voice
broke out before being slammed shut yet again along with a violent but muttered expletive. Another whirring was heard while
the two overall-ed henchmen stepped up the stairs perhaps a mite quicker and then a tinnily roared voice was heard: "Go,
you oafs!" Apparently Cantor had found an appropriate response after all.
The two henchmen presently reached
near the top of the landing where Nine crouched. While one remained on a step below the landing, the other came up closer.
Just then, Nine flicked his powerful flashlight straight into the eyes of the closer man to dazzle him. And caught him on
his chest: the man was immensely tall and Nine's clever and audacious plan to dazzle and scramble (D&S, type 1, as he
had noted it in his Ops Manual) crumbled to dust.
An urgent voice spoke; it was the second man on the step below
the landing. "B!" "B? Bee? Be? Bea? B.." as Nine processed this new byte of data to no avail, his mind
a whirling hourglass, he realised that that was addressed to the immense man towering above him. "Ah, code names!"
Nine concluded with satisfaction. "B! I will cover the *unprintable* with my gun while you knock him cold!"
the man on the step below said.
"Well done, R!" commended the tinny voice from below. Cantor was a fair
man and gave his henchmen credit where due and deserving.
"How on earth can they remember who's which letter..?"
wondered Nine as B leant low with an arm raised into the inky blackness above. "Wait!" Nine screamed. "I can't
see your other arm!"
Inspiration had come late but come nonetheless to Nine.
B paused, his mind
clearly as big as his body but with an amazingly small alertness component rattling inside, warning him not as well as it
should have. "Eh?" Clearly, B was a man of few words and waited patiently and expectantly to be explained further.
An oath emanated from the throat of R, equally clearly the man with better sense than his giant companion. "B!
On your guard! Nine is a dangerous customer!" Cantor's response at this stage was only a furious whirring of his tapes.
This praise for his abilities pleased Nine oddly. But thrusting aside that rather feel-warm thought, he pursued his
opening gambit with B. "Let me shine the light on your arm so that I can see it, okay, Mr B?" Only a grunt emerged
from the gentle giant's puzzled throat. Nine swivelled the light into the black inkiness, judging from the trunk-like arm's
base where it was possibly up further... while R let loose a series of expletives, not quite clear addressed at whom. Cantor
whirred still in the background below.
Nine swung the light to the top of that leg-of-a-young-calf-like arm and
then quickly, savagely, swung it back and into B's bewildered eyes. As B's eyes flew open and then shut from that shining
light, Nine struck out with his left foot, aiming at B's trunk-like legs, aiming to sweep him off his feet, admittedly an
ambitious task to be attempted on a man of such generous dimensions. And R leapt right up, growling murderously. Cantor's
whirring meanwhile had stopped; apparently he had run to the end of his tape on this side and he would have to switch to the
other side before becoming able to lend himself to his rather odd form of speech again.
Nine's well-shod foot hit
B's right ankle thickly; he felt he had kicked a stone column. But nonetheless, R's leap up had caused him to attempt to occupy
the same space then occupied by B and the laws of physics being unimpeachable and impeccable, he failed in the attempt in
a rather telling manner. As both B and R would learn to their detriment in their annual performance appraisal with Cantor
later, this was a rather signal failure. Nonetheless, tearing ourselves off from this rather interesting peep into B and Rs'
futures, let us see for ourselves how the present was panning out for these worthies of Cantor, who had, in the mean time,
managed to change sides of his tape on his recorder and was again plunged, literally and figuratively, in searching for a
suitable remark.
R crashed into the broad back of B, wide as 747's hangar doors, while Nine's kicking foot thudded
now into B's left calf, though with lesser force having spent much its energy against the tree-trunk right leg. A combination
of the two caused B's centre of gravity to alter somewhat and he toppled rather impressively upon Nine, with R on his back
and tangling with his legs. The immediate agony that Nine felt was akin to nothing that he could compare with. The air whooshed
out of his lungs and his body felt crushed under a barn that had suddenly crumbled upon him. Apparently R too was pretty winded.
Only B seemed bewildered by the turn of the events. Below, Cantor had finally found what he thought was the response
he had been desperately groping for, "A-to-Z, go get 'em!", though there was a complete mismatch between the
tone and the situation on the ground: the tone conveyed joy and satisfaction while the situation at hand demanded
bafflement and revenge. At this encouragement however, two more of his hitherto struck-in-wonder henchmen started up the staircase.
Meanwhile, B raised himself up bearing R upon his back from the crushed-below Nine, and with a very gentlemanly "'msorr'"
muttered gruffly.
"Thank you," said Nine--for the niceties need to be observed even during conflicts--and
slid out with alacrity from the lumberingly rising B, still with R stuck upon his back. "And now, I go!" With that
he was out and once again racing up the stairs towards the first floor, while you could hear the screams of outrage from the
outfought R and the grunts of the belabouring B and the thuds of the steps of the other two henchmen climbing up swiftly,
melding nicely with the fleeter sounds of Nine's racing feet. Cantor below had found the most apt expression to the situation:
"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" he went in shrill rage.
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Gentle reader, this is fiction of course. Genuine, original and unadulterated, and meaning to offer no lessons, no Morals
but just plain entertainment. If you would be so kind enough to leave your comments below--if you have managed to read this
through, that is, I would be much obliged!
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Browse by again in some time and you might find interesting stuff.