Blood Red - Drop 1

Welcome to my latest crackpot attempt at keeping up consistent output. From today onwards, I'm going to write 1 A4 sheet's worth of story and post it here. I know what my hordes of loyal and faithful readers are wondering: Why not chapterize? Why just 1 sheet? Do you actually think you will get off your metaphorical ass (or stay on your physical one) long enough to actually complete this? Well, I have a few answers to those questions:
Because fuck you. Because that's just the sort of random and arbitrary milestone I like to complete, and because fuck you. And, last but not least, fuck you. So, having completely alienated the 3 readers who constitute 90% of my fanbase (yes isn't it creepy? My remaining reader is only 1/3rd of a person!) and without any further ado, I introduce to you, the first instalment of Blood Red.

Blood Red - Drop 1

The girl's face peered up from beyond the murk of the city. Her eyes stared blankly ahead, her right arm outstretched in a gesture of supplication, her mouth slightly open. Behind her, a Mercedes waited for the traffic light, the sunlight catching its polished silvery hood emblem. Though the girl could be no older than eleven, her blank eyes seemed to hold some sort of portent. The light, shining as it did, shadowed the bottom of her forehead, plunging her eyes into gloomy pits from which little could be seen. Her ragged clothes resembled the vestments of some ancient oracle, as the chill wind flowed through the holes in her garments, billowing them in the wind like the wings of a grounded, recently roadkilled bat. As she stared balefully out at the world, her aspect seemed to morph the surroundings around her, turning the dull grey gravel of the roads into a wall of black and the flyover underpass into a cavernous mouth, waiting to receive prey. Vaguely discernible against the mouth of the underpass was a family. A child sat at the lip, staring blankly ahead at the motorcycle passing it by, as the father sat on the pavement of the road, his arm raised in a half-hearted gesture, his eyes jaded into dull grey orbs of resignation. The mother sat nearby, suckling a vague baby shaped blob at her breast. The Mercedes continued to shine smugly, its silvery emblem emitting a white hot light just behind the girl.

Suhan blinked his eyes and turned away. His face reflected his inner turmoil as he looked up. “I don't know how you take these”, he said. He passed the photograph back to Samrat, who knew too well how he took it. He had been standing at the crossing, waiting for the light to change, when the girl had approached him. The moment he saw her, saw the scene around her, the white light had flashed in his eyes. Mindlessly he reached for the camera, paused for a second to adjust focus and ISO, looked up into her pleading face and pulled the trigger. In the second he had taken to make his adjustments, her expression had set into the one staring from the photograph. He had driven away from the scene without giving her even a fifty paisa coin.

“Just lucky. So, what do you think? Do you think you can use it for your story?”

Suhan looked up from the picture, looked at Samrat, then turned away, eyes staring abstractedly into the wall clock. “It's a classic picture man. But I don't think I can use it. It's too dark, too frightening. Look at what you did to that little girl. She looks like someone from a horror movie. This sort of picture won't pull heartstrings.”

“Fuck, that's what she looks like yaar. You think she can afford to pretty herself up for the picture? She's starving on the street, trying to avoid getting raped, and probably hasn't seen clean water for a long, long time. What do you want her to look like?”

Suhan sighed. “Look Samrat, I understand. And I know what I'm looking at. But think of the goddamned readers. They need to see something they can feel pity and sympathy for. Not some sort of demon child, pointing some sort of blank accusing finger at them like they're going to hell. I need to find a picture that will pull at their heartstrings. Not something that will wake them up sweating in the night.”

Samrat opened his mouth to say something, then shrugged and put the photograph into his folder. “Fine yaar, if that's the way it is.”

“Listen, don't misunderstand me. I think the picture is classic. You need to submit it in a competition or something. It's just that I can't use it here man. Look, Mukherjee International is coming up. Why don't you submit it there?”

Samrat pulled the picture out, then shuddered. He recalled the act of taking the picture. He recalled riding away from the scene, and the guilt he had felt, exploiting a human being for the sake of a mention in a national daily. He shook his head sadly. “No yaar, I don't like competitions”. As he pulled out his duffel bag and put his things inside. “Anyway, best of luck getting the story through.” “Thanks man, I don't know how Saikat will feel about this. He likes upbeat, and I don't know if this will come through.” he grabbed the scrap of paper that represented his story, then headed towards the editor's office.

Samrat sat back, staring from his desk. It wasn't really his but that didn't matter. In the newspaper business, you can always find a free desk, just never the same one. He watched Suhan disappear into the cubicle, and listened. Scraps of conversation floated through the thin formica walls.

Ultimate addict

I have discovered that I have a problem. Even better than my problem,
however, is how I discovered that I have a problem. The irony of my
situation descended upon me when I googled the phrase "internet
addiction".

Cartoon Crickets.

Chirp chirp.

Staring at this expansive white space, I can almost hear the cartoon crickets in my cobwebby brain, reminding me that I seem to have nothing to say. I saw a movie yesterday where a man stared at his face in the mirror and said "while there is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory... I simply am not there." Staring at this screen, I feel somehow similar, as if, confronted by the infinite blank voidness of this screen, all the pictures and smells and violent impulses that constitute me have fled, and there is nothing in there except cartoon crickets. I think I suffer from screen fright. Every night I open a new document, to pour my life out into. Once I'm seated in front of this beautiful, slightly dust marred expanse of potential verbal wizardry, everything disappears. I stare at the screen, stonefaced, waiting for something important to happen, or some sound other than cartoon crickets. Then I close the window and play Half Life 2.

Wait a second, those are real crickets.

Chaos

Reigns supreme.

Wasp vs. Spider!

I've always been scared of wasps. We've had this little hate-hate thing going for a long long time, the wasps and I. Both of us have scored some pretty significant victories, though they drew first blood with an organised ambush in a dark, abandoned outhouse. Of course, with the advent of the electric mosquito bat, I managed to get in a few as well. So, we have history. Perhaps they sense the negative vibes, or perhaps I just get stuck in stupid situations with wasps, but they are the species responsible for the maximum number of physical attacks upon my person. Cows come second.
Having run out of imaginative ways to make my life miserable, I suppose the wasps decided to try the old classics out again and see how they worked out. I'm talking about Killer Wasp Attack at the Outhouse II. All I wanted was to sit comfortably in my loo, read a book and be left alone in peace. Suddenly, a familiar hideous buzzing noise assaults my ears. Memories of fiery burning pain and laughing schoolchildren assault my solace, as I look up and dive, just in time to miss a careening carrier of venomous malice. The little bastard must have flown in through the crack in the window. He settled on the mirror and proceeded to preen his antennae. The entire time, I watched him with bated breath, fingers slowly reaching for the matchbox and deodorant spray. Suddenly I realised that he had stopped preening, and a strange creeping, tingling feeling began to crawl up the base of my spine. I tried to identify the source of this feeling, and realised that it stemmed from the fact that the bastard was actually looking at me. I had the distinct impression that the beady little compound eyes were staring into mine, daring me to make a move. I dismissed the thought, and nonchalantly reached for the deodorant. Scarcely after my fingers closed over it, the horrible buzzing began anew and I was treated to the sight of a yellow buzzing blur hurtling in my general direction. At this point, I abandoned all propriety and wildly sprayed deodorant into the air, forgetting in my joyous abandon that this sort of thing only works if you have a match. Enfragranced and incensed, the yellow bastard circled around for a second run and froze in its tracks. Or at least that was how it looked at the time. Within a second, the wasp began to struggle furiously in what appeared to be the middle of the air against nothing. Nothing, on closer inspection, turned out to be the web of a daddy longlegs.
I must interrupt the narrative at this point to point out that spiders are one of my favourite creatures. Most people are repulsed by their freakishly fast, yet jerky movements but I have spent many an evening entranced by them, staring up at my cobwebbed ceiling, watching them build their webs, slowly but industriously, and ever so beautifully.
At any rate, the wasp was stuck, and stuck fast. It had landed itself in the web of one of the largest spiders that I had allowed to take up residence in my humble abode, and was going nowhere fast. The buzzing increased in volume and intensity, but resulted ultimately in the yellow bastard entwining itself deeper When I was sure that the yellow bastard was not, in fact, going to break through and continue to wreak havoc, I stepped up for a closer look. A spiderweb is constructed in such a manner that if any insect is trapped within it, no matter where our friend the spider is, (s)he feels the vibrations and comes running to investigate. My friend had already arrived by the time I stepped up, and was busy with the important work of securing her catch. This was a truly fascinating process, and by tilting my head at the right angle to the light, I was able to observe how she would squirt webbing out of the sac at the base of her abdomen, apply a rear leg to the webbing, and then stick it to the wasp, then proceeding by an intricate working of her legs, to wrap it further in its own doom. When the wasp continued to struggle, and by dint of its final efforts, strain at the very structure of the web itself, the spider calmly continued to attach webbing to the creature, and then crawl off up the web, mooring it to the walls of the bathroom. The wasp continued to struggle and the spider continued to build, always careful to avoid the vicious stinger that flickered in and out of view at the base of its abdomen. In the meantime, I managed to take some photographs. I felt faintly voyeuristic, somehow as if I were intruding on a ritual I had no part of. I continued anyway. The wasp finally ceased to struggle, as if in resignation to its fate. At this point, the spider attached itself to its defeated opponent and proceeded to consume it.


Now, in case you are wondering, many spiders do not actually eat their prey preferring instead to inject their venom into the innards of the unfortunate, wait for said innards to turn into a mass of mushy goo and then suck at said goo like a slurpee. I watched, fascinated, for some more time, then allowed the spider to feed in peace. The next morning, the wasp was little more than a dessicated husk. I decided to allow the spider to keep its trophy a little longer.

Something wicked this way comes.

The city is like a giant complex of smoke and facades, behind which a billion unspeakable things may happen in the course of a day. You may be living in an apartment block holding hundreds, but if your neighbours perform secret sacrifices to eldritch gods, you will never know. You will walk down a crowded street in the middle of the day, but if a hand should reach out and pluck the person walking next to you, you will never know. If all the members of your office are covertly engaging in organised mass sexual congress, you will never know. If you decide one night to go out into the dark and embrace your inner freak, whatever he may be, they need never know. In this sort of beautiful anarchic anonymity, strange things have the chance to lurk and grow. Strange, and perhaps even beautiful sometimes, but often merely macabre.
I love Delhi for its delicious urban legends. The flavour of the moment, for instance, is the Hammer Man. And before that, the even stranger story of the Monkey Man. This story is not about them. It is about the things you will never know about. Of course, if you're a sufficiently warped individual, there's nothing to prevent you from opening the manhole cover and taking a peek at what crawls beneath. And this is basically an effort in that direction. Witness:



I don't know what this is. In this crazy place, it could be anything, ranging from the mundane (some sort of MCD/DDA warning) to the misleading ( a bunch of students having fun) to the macabre (the symbol used to mark the spot where volunteers for blood sacrifices to Eldritch gods may assemble at precisely three fifty three in the morning, leaving no trace behind by three fifty six). It appears all over my part of South Delhi. On direction boards, on walls, on busstands. This particular specimen appeared on the wall of a flyover I was crossing. As you can see, its neither outrightly mundane or macabre. It's not your average skull and crossbones denoting danger. Rather, it is the sunken, emaciated image of someone's face, complete with eyes, a nose and a perfunctory sort of mouth. It's also not an overt image of threat or violence. The eyes hold no violence, instead, preferring to fix the observer with a baleful glance that seems to tread the line between bovineness and malevolence. There are bags under the eyes, perhaps to indicate some measure of malevolence, but more probably to convey suffering and depradation. The lines also seem to indicate that, while the person who created the stencil for this image (for I believe it is a stencil painted one, judging by the sharp, symmetrical outlines that accompany all the images, as well as the extra thick borders) inserted some of the features of a face, he clearly was aiming to portray a skull to the casual passerby. However, it is more than that. It is a portrait of a visage that is halfway between deteriorating from a human face into a vacant skull. Decay in its final stages before death. I would like to think of it as a message, but I am a little looney. I've asked my fellow Delhiites if they know what it is, but no one seems to have a clue. Very few others have even admitted to noticing it. Is it a desperate cry for help? A dire warning in the endtimes? A bloody marker for doings of unimaginable horror and depravity? You will never know.

Oh what a world it seems we live in

Ok, major update due...

First off, winter is here. Winter is back in Delhi. How do I know. Firstly, we've actually had great weather for the past three days. Secondly, and more importantly, an old, familiar smell has come back to me.The smell of the flowers that smell like cardamom.

The flowers that smell like cardamom have been with me for about three years now. When I had my first job, I used to drive back, or be driven back at 2 in the morining about once every alternate day. The flowers that smelt like cardamom were there. Of course, at the time, I used to think that the smell came from all the elaichi tea that all the night watchmen all over Delhi made in order to keep them warm in the freezing winter nights. Now I'm told the smell comes from a flower. It doesn't matter to me. It smells like winter. Like Rufus Wainwright and Neil Gaiman. Inextricably tied with winter.

Secondly, don't ever live on bread, jam and butter for a week. It weakens your bowels and kills your will to live. I've been writing lies about myself all week and subsisting on breadbutterjam to help me through the ordeal. Breadbutterjam for breakfast may be a good idea. After a week you begin to lose your humanity.

Thirdly, this must be my second month living in limbo. Living in limbo sucks. You don't know if you're going to hell or heaven. You just hang there, suspended in space, watching the stars above and the fires below, and wondering if you will fall or rise. The funny thing is, I think most people, whether they deserve to or not, believe in the fall. Somehow, I think limbo is worse than heaven or hell. Certainty flies out the window as you stare at the void around you. In hell, you know what awaits you, and if youre strong enough, you accept it and bare your chest to the flames. In heaven, you rest, peaceful and relieved. In limbo, you stare afraid, forever wondering whether you will fall or rise.

Fourthly, I've missed a bus. Or a train, or a plane. I've sat around at the stop, watching my carefully laid plans drive past, staring after the number plate and the passengers in the back window, friends all, crowding the back window, wondering if there's any way it will stop and let me get back on, hoping I'll catch the next. Plans and plans and plans... We always make the best plans in our heads. Real life fucks them up in unimaginable ways. Like my brother said, I should have had a backup.

Fifthly, I've begun obsessing about Rufus Wainwright. I've even begun imagining the conversations we would have if we ever met.

Me: Rufus Wainwright?
Rufus: Hey, yeah that's me, what can I do for you?
Me: Rufus
R: (a little worried) Yes?
Me: Can I ask you a question?
R: Sure man, as long as you're not asking the obvious ones.
Me: Do you really think that men reading fashion magazines is such a strange thing?
R: Oh what a world we live in.
Me: Blank eyed admiration.
R: Whatever happens, never forget Bolero.

Powered by ScribeFire.