Man of Action

Sitting lonely.

Forlorn.

Except for your thoughts. Resounding off the walls.

Coupling. And stringing together plans.

It is time to act now.

Get up. Flush. Recapture your life tonight.

The Network

In Need Indeed

"Did you ever think that ... maybe we talk too much? Just sitting here, every now and then, talking?"


"So ... you wanna do stuff with me? Dude, I'm not so sure."


"Not in that sense, insanely insecure prick. I mean, a little less conversation. More activity? Get out there? Do things?"


"Look, calm down. I just don't want to jeopardise our relationship. We're friends. You don't want to lose that do you?"


"No, you git. When I say do things, I don't mean do things with each other."


"That's good. Because we're friends. And that's all that it should stay as."


"Yes! Alright! That is not what I mean..."


"Good then. Just to lay it out in the open, friendship is more valuable than love. Of any kind."


"I know! Now, will you just please listen?"


"Go ahead. All yours."


"Thank you. As I was saying - "


"By 'all yours' I mean, of course, that the floor is all yours. That's all."


"Anything else? I mean, let it out. More to add? Any more metaphors to subtly drop? Corrections to make? Puns to spill?"


"None at all. You may carry on your selfless task of bringing up to date with the whirlwind that is your fine mind. Did I tell you how much I admire your parents for the fine job they've done? They don't make DNA like yours anymore."


"That being well and good. But, like always, here we go, at it again - "


"Hey hey! Watch it with the puns."


"God. Ok. I'm only saying that we're doing this again, talking and talking. We should be out there, devouring the field. Making the moves, assessing the crowd, taking a pick, hitting the button and ..."


"The girl rejected you, huh?"


"Yeah."


"Which explains the urgent expediency and expressed concern over the lackadaisical demeanour towards getting jiggy with it as often as possible?"


"Yes."


"It won't work."


"But why not? It's all a matter of trying hard enough. One can't accept defeat so soon. One must fight, struggle, maybe fail sometimes but always rise to the challenge again. Such is life. Obladi oblada. Etc."


"True. Everything you say is true. But you must account for all the variables before you consider the wisdom in trying again. For instance ... "


"What kind of variables? You mean, level of rejection? Expression of disgust or not on her face? The velocity with which she rushes to a new guy? Multiplication factor of sad joke intensity?"


"Allow me to complete the list for you. Stinson's Law of Slap Intensity. The Proportional Balance of Mockery to Ridicule. The Self-Destruct Laws. The Mujahideen Stroke. And so many more. But, you see, yours aren't these problems at all. You can come back from these ones. Bounce back, if you prefer that. Or rise from the ashes, if you like the idea of having golden feathers."


"To the point, please? What is my problem then?"


"Your problem? What do you mean?"


"You exasperate me. Since we have already traversed across the realm of discussing a conscious decision to take charge of life and carpe diem it to hell and back, to the wide grassy plains of oft-promulgated and widely discussed theorems expounded by damned you ... let us please at least finish it. Why don't I have success?"


"You tell me."


"Do I crack too many jokes? Do I need to buy a different perfume? Should I cut my hair shorter? Keep it longer? Buy her all her drinks? Flatter even more? Simply set my goals low? What do you say? Tell me, again, my friend, how I should run my life. What is wrong with me?"


"You are ugly, my friend. Yes. As simple as that. Being ugly, your choices are limited and your goals have an upper limit set infernally low. Women, who would be open to being approached, tend to run away from the sight of your Halloween pumpkin heading in their general direction. Your parents, might I say, got the brains okay. But they forget to adjust for the looks, and we are left with a remarkably hideous specimen before us.

Don't get me wrong. Maybe you weren't always like this, and that is why you find yourself unable to adjust. Maybe those warts weren't always there. Nor was the sickly green skin. Maybe your teeth weren't going every way before and your eyes held some evidence of life. Maybe your voice rose above a squeak and your manliness was more pronounced instead of actually pronounced.

It is fascinating. The astounding degree of pure ugle that you have managed by now though, makes a return to the normal impossible. You are my friend, yes. As I gaze upon your ruined countenance, I feel a tender pity, a sprinkle of sympathy, some compassion. Also, nausea."


"Oh. Okay. I see. Hmm."


"Life has played a mean trick on you, my friend. Yes, yes, sit down by all means. Take a chair. Take two. Let it sink in. Accept it. The world is a horrible place, and you are a repelling man with a face someone farmed with a tractor upon. Easy does it."


"So its not even my fault? I'm just ruined, without anything I can do about it? No luck, no lucky, no walk into sunset?"


"Life is a rapist, my friend. Carry pepper spray. Always."

Horcrux

"A Horcrux is an object in which a person has concealed part of his soul."


"So...?"


"Have I told you how often you sound to me so terribly naive? So ill-fitted in that look of a smart somebody? What gives your parents right to raise a child that would look all the parts of an intelligent, sustaining human being but inside be as empty as a shell?"


"What did they think they were doing? Why did they have to do it? Why didn't they strange me as an infant? I know it already. You told me all about myself last week. To continue? Some sense, please?"


"Conceal part of your soul to protect yourself. Wouldn't you want to protect yourself against your greatest fear? But no, wait, really. I said it last week? Encore tonight? I feel more ... inventive!"


"It was a double tonight. Hence, the dramatic 'inventive'! Seeing this Horcrux idea of yours as utterly original and spontaneous then, the greatest fear, may I take a shot in the dark, is death? And you want to kill me to split your soul? Am I correct, sir?"


"Tchah. Tchah, you numbskulled stain on the otherwise charming handkerchief your family makes. I know what that Horcrux is."


"Well then?"


"In your, might I say imbecility..."


"Well?"


"Well, might I say imbecility?"


"Oh of course. Go on. You may say imbecility."


"Stupiditude. In your humble stupiditude, you fail to recognize your fears correctly. You aren't really afraid of death. No. Death is all around, everywhere at once. Every day. If you were afraid of death, you would be, well, dead of it already. We all know death. It's coming for each one of us. So it's not really fear for it you have. No?

It's hurtling towards us as I speak. Are you scared? Right now? Are you? Its coming, right now it is."


"So it's not death. What is it? Tell me again this new fact about myself. What am I most afraid of, mahareeshee?"


"Love. Losing it, having it, holding it in your grip, flying with it, lying with it, killing it, saving it, nurturing it every waking moment, burning in it. Even ignoring it in a small party.

You can live with anything, if you can live with knowing that death is always coming for you. But you can't live with such responsibility.

What you, what we, want is the glorious idea of love holding us in it's arms, caring for us all the time, enlightening us. You want love to hold your life. So much easier to let it go, watch it tease from afar, only urging that we accept it and it will come back. But you won't. It's not a gift, you see. You have to keep it. You have to hold it. Every single day, you have to wake it up and give it a bath. Feed it, nurture it. Grow it. You can't do that!

So ... Horcrux."


"To save me from my fear of love?"


"Don't be so daft! You aren't afraid of love! Listen to me! You're afraid ... the responsibility. Because when they grow up, those beings, they coil around you. Supported on you, they grow and they entwine. Taking your energy to survive, your strength to stand and rise. That is what scares you."


"So ... Horcrux?"


"Yes. You have it after all, some of that delightful family gene. So, Horcrux. If you keep your love whole and together, it stands to fall and be destroyed together. All of it, at once, in one swift stroke.

So, Horcrux. You split your love, concealing it in a Horcrux to protect it. The more the parts, the greater the protection. And you will stay alive."


"How do you store your love in an object? Not that it wouldn't be cool! Easier to safekeep than to risk losing, eh?"


"Have I told you lately, how every day in every way you surprise me with your, might I say, idiotine?"


"Not that again! You have, you have. Back to the topic? Where's the bad part still? Horcrux equal to Bad Thing. Right?"


"Right you are, Russian child-prodigy. You see, if you split your love, you lose your colour. You lose the variety of juices that make your skin glow that way and your hair shine in the golden sun. Things like that.

You will live, but as a spectre. Or a spectator. To life. Be less human than the rest of them."


"So ... how do you make a Horcrux? What does it look like?"


"Horcruxes are people. Your friends. Your unending search for endless lovers. You split it into them, just so its never enough for a single person. But not too less to be noticed. No one gets enough. Everyone gets some."


"How do you do it then? The splitting? Isn't it an act of violation, against nature? How do you do it? By committing an act of evil - the supreme act of evil?"


"Your superbly subtle sarcasm leaves me, once again, in awe of your family tree. Mere mortals they could not be. But, yes. By an act of evil - the supreme act of evil. You split love by killing yourself. Killing rips the soul apart. The wizard intent upon creating a Horcrux would use the damage to his advantage: he would encase the torn portion in another person. A new person."


"By killing yourself? Isn't that just, dead then?"


"Not kill as in death. Disregard death, my stupid child. Wipe it off your slate. You kill yourself when you cut a loved one out. Lower someone in your life from their deserved position. Make them common-place again.

Live in the pain and the misery for a while. And when the love comes choking out of you, you spill it on some one else. Let them have this regurgitated love. To hold and to love back. Let them have it. Better than you.

You will stand then, over time, lost to the glow and all that shining sun. Not able to recognize the signs on even another person. Not understanding the reason for that stupid smile. Over time, you will find, Horcruxes have a mind of their own. They will not come to you whenever needed. And just like the fictional ones, these too can be destroyed by another, intent upon destroying, finally, you.

So you will stand, thin unbreakable strings clamping you. Occasionally one will pull, then the other. All at once, not too much, not too strong. But just a little. Not enough. But not too less either. Pulling you here, pushing you there. Making a fool out of you and your mind.

Your torn soul will wonder what causes this mischief, and why is all the rum gone.

You, my fluff-brained buffoon, will forget what you have done. Where did you hide the parts? How do you make them whole again? Where are they now and why don't they love you anymore?"


"And life will become a struggle against a million chains, pulling and pushing at random, enslaving the man and bending his back. Eh?"


"Right you are. You really get me sometimes."


"So, isn't it better to not have any chains in the first place? Stand clean? Not have anything to do with the love and the split-up? Or with ties and with a half-million half-baked loves?

You're saying it's best to abstain from it all? Not bad. It makes sense."


"It doesn't make sense. You have to have it. In wholeness. You have to."


"Why? Why take the stupid risk of tearing it off and leaving shreds here, there and everywhere? And on everyone. Why the chance, when everyone seems to fail?"


"Because of the colours. Because of the glow. The golden sun. All that stuff."

Things I Grew Up On

Now I only remember ... MOJO JOJO!





God knows how many times I've seen this movie...





"They're dancing in the aisles in Sharjah!"

The peak of my cricket-fan fervor. I think Indians were meant to stay underdogs forever. I cannot support a dominant Indian cricket team.





Power Extreme Treme Treme! Also include minor fascination for Crystal Kane.





Fall over laughing and perish, die, cease to draw breath. The absolute funniest episode I ever saw.





Classic cartooning days. Boomerang on Cartoon Network.





Some images cannot be shaken from the mind of a young and innocent child, even after 15 or so years. Kindly note how they 'do it in the road'.





I'm yet to meet anyone of my generation who grew up not watching this. In the Hindi dubbed version.





The absolute pinnacle of underdog greatness.

A Fool's Hell

"What do you think happens when people invent their own lives?"

"In the sense of creating a reality? How do you mean?"

"I mean, you and I, we drink. Right?"

"Well, yeah. Cheers, by the way. What do you mean?"

"Cheers, it is. I mean, when there isn't enough time to have done all that you want to be doing already, and you don't really like waiting for life to come - what do we do? We invent our lives."

"So, we make believe our victories? Pretend to have lived more than we have?"

"More importantly, we pretend to have suffered more than we have. Life's greatest lessons lie in suffering. So we pretend to have suffered and seen and pained and shelled ourselves. More than we ever could have, in so short a time."

"So everybody's a liar?"

"If you believe it yourself, you're not really lying. True deception, so much like a true high, resides in believing your lies and in your dreams and in your nightmares."

"So, anyway. What happens if we do...invent our own lives?"

"We age. Faster and faster. The more the illusions, the stronger the belief. The more support from all sides, the more the people to sink with. The greater the despondency, the worse the misery, the more true the reality. And so, we age.

We are who we believe we are. The lines take over our faces. The back droops. The spirit dies. Quicker and quicker. Our voices begin to croak. Our memories grow hazier and black-n-whiter without a shadow or a fog or a cause."

"A shade too melodramatic, perhaps?"

"Smoke rises from the lips, blown out of a tortured lung, carrying with it a piece of frivolous, eternal, lost youth. We are brokers, you and I. And we sell short our souls."