Welcome!

Sit down,

Take off your shoes,

Would you like some tea?

Have some cookies,

Eat your brownie!

Put on this unicorn horn,

Smile

Now hear me ramble –

So, what is this blog about?

Frankly, even I don’t know. I needed some place where I could talk shit and maybe, hear your crap. So, I opened up a wordpress account and created this blog.
This is a place where we can chat and have some ‘intelligent’ conversations. Well, not really!

Who is the target audience?

People who have escaped from mental asylums, intellectuals, dumb-asses, art lovers, art haters, philosophers, laymen, stand-men, sit-men, teenagers, oldies, truth-seekers, lie-seekers, people curious about the world, people bored with the world, YOU!
Basically, anybody who can read the peculiar language called English.

Great! Where do I start?

Scroll down blind-boy (or girl, whatever).
Or you can check out the footer of the blog for some categories.

Categories

And then?

Comment, like, tweet, share on facebook and don’t forget to follow me on twitter.
And lastly, add the blog to your reader –

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Google Reader — read my blog in your mobile

Instapaper — a boon for online readers

The Bubbles

The bubbles fly higher than the pollution of the city — above the stink, above the toxic, suffocating smoke which chokes the hope of life in children who will never see adulthood.

Their origins are always ironic, in places especially designed to cull the hope, the dreams and hence the rebellion they encapsulate.

I see them.
I see them floating above the monument in which names of the men who were thrown and ofcourse, killed in the fields where they stage the theatre of madness. They call it war.
The sacrificed goats are named as ‘martyrs’.

And yet the bubbles are born around the green fields of this temple of horseshit.
They dodge the flame which burns with the purpose of slaughtering these mutineers.
They float above it, mocking it with their survival. 
Dreams can never be killed with the warning of a gun and the command of patriotism.

A general tries to scare some children with his blabbering. “March,” he screams and they play tag. “Obey,” he shouts and they show him the finger. When he threatens them with court martial, they fling some mud on his face.
The children are the ones who create the bubbles.

The bubbles try to surpass the sky. Many burst on the way. Some become stars.
All stars are bubbles who have reached.

I see the stars from the valley which was once heaven. What happened?
They burst the bubbles.

But they will be born again.
Expect them.

The people had eaten into the tales of the soldiers and the spies and the terrorists. They had believed them when they had said that the individual is born to be the whore of something larger — to religion, to the nation, to the cause.

The kids walking in the streets know that its a fuckers-tale, meant to procure large-scale prostitutes from the streets of the city which was once a dream itself.
They will rebel.
They are the bubbles.

They’ll rise again. They have to, for that is the law — the individual is larger than the swarm.

I imagine them floating to the place from which their city derives its nickname.

My city derives its nicknames from its dick.
In its streets, the morality-whores search the streets for girls who are free. They try to chain them with brooms and bangles and kids and marriage.
“If you love your culture, stay at home.”

But when they go back home, their bubbles take down their propaganda and their looting machines with a mask of anonymous rebellion.
They come back to the streets, strutting, their fiery eyes unafraid and their hands clutching knives to hack the penis from which my city derives its nickname.

Their rebellion floods the city with bubbles of fire.

A tower is under construction. It is the bubble machine that is the future of the world.
Children work hard on it. They give it endless hours of labour, sweat and their sweet smelling dreams.
It is meant to purify the air of the city, to filter out the toxic blood which pollutes its river.

It is the future of the city.

The city is the future of the world.

It is coming.

The bubbles will flood the streets.

Expect them.

The Urinal Palace

 

They trace their lineage from the vermin of the throne.
This age has shown them their place.

Their palace now lies in the stinking urinals hung up in the corner of the street for people to pay their rightful obeisance to these sluts of power.

They enjoy these golden showers, often opening up their ass to satisfy their lust for silver cum from men who had licked their feet the era before.
Greedy whores.

Their eyes see only the glitter, they gobble up shit thinking that its gold which their ministers adorned their asses with.
They call out to beggars for the ‘gold’ which they live on. They like it stinky, and liquid — filled with diarrhea.

They truly are the children of shit.

Earlier they had ripped the innocence off the children with their swords and guns and wars and rapes. Their habit still persists.
Whenever they hear their giggles on the streets, their dicks, lathered in the bloody filth of the past, hardens. They call out to them, tempting them with stolen candies and toffees picked up from the streets.

Little skulls form a pile behind a urinal.
Their jaws are wide open — as if in an eternal shriek.

No one hears them.

A little child is tethered to a urinal in front. He is gagged with a 100 year old underwear, bloodstained, cum soaked just as the queen liked it.
He is the sacrifice.
Coyotes in khaki come in their jeeps.
His existence is snatched away into oblivion.

In order to recreate the fortresses they so loved to lived in, the moles have made their fortifications with blood-tipped iron rods and bottles which stink like intestines.

It rattles like a snake when the new vermin speed past them in their imported cars or helicopters.

Sometimes they stop for a piss or a shit.
As if drowning the city in their sewage wasn’t enough.

But the old diseased refuse, “No incest with ugly brothers,” they say, “No use collecting the same HIV in the ass.” They like variety.

They spit and leave, pissing their pants with their blown up egos shattered. They are so used to fuck that they have forgotten how it feels to have their asses ripped apart. They have forgotten their childhood.

The old hags wave.

They know that its only some years after which they too will join them in their ass-whoring.
That’s part of the game.

“We’ll be waiting,” they scream.

And the cycle of death completes itself.

Iconoclast — The Death Of The Idols

Growing up always involves the exploration of the world and picking out idols who you think you want to be.

Self-discovery always involves shattering of these idols and discovering who you really want to be.

At that crucial juncture of growing up I had worshiped particularly three idols who are still the main inspirations for me — Lady Gaga, Ayn Rand and OSHO, in that chronological order.

And I am happy to say that the iconoclasm has happened for me some time back.

Lady Gaga is perhaps the only one in the pop world who is substantial enough to be called an inspiration, at least for me.
I always had a neurotic, bizarre, outrageous artistic streak in me. In her I saw it reach its ultimate point.
Her philosophy of individual liberation was my philosophy even before I heard of her. It was like she was made of the echoes of my screams, which were insubstantial at that moment of time.
She was the rebellion I always wanted to be.
Here was a woman who did what she wanted, and the criticism didn’t touch because she was so fucking amazing in what she did. She was a rebel not just for the sake of being a rebel, she was a rebel who had a solid foundation. No one could point out and say, “Its just empty fireworks, it’ll disappear with the smoke”.
And most of all, she was a woman who was fucking strong.

But now, I guess that strength is waning in her somehow.
Her next ARTPOP album is rumored to have a song, GUY (Girl Under You).

In an interview, she said, “Any kind of feminist has valid views for herself about what it means to be a feminist, but, as a new-age feminist, I would say I quite like the transference of strength I feel by submitting to a man – being under him,”

So wearing make-up, smelling delicious and having suckable, kissable, edible things between your limbs is something I find strengthening because I know that when I pick the right guy, I can let him have it.

The rebellion in her is officially dead, I guess. That’s what happens when you finally get to have your ‘prince charming’ and you fall back into that patriarchal norm.

When I had discovered Ayn Rand, it was a time when I desperately needed her ideal of selfishness.  For during that period, I had realized that there was nothing greater than the self.
But what irked me since the beginning was her idea of morality. She believed that the ‘ideal man’ should be like a monolithic block of stone, with no contradictions and just blindly following his moral ideal.

What bullcrap.

It left no scope for growth, for growth always means contradictions. And her sense of ideal man or woman is something which is against my current philosophy. Making everyone a prisoner of ideals and pushing them into that impossible path of selfishness ruins the individual. Everyone will then want to be the same, that ‘PERFECT’ man or woman.Moreover, I was not sure about her being a strong feminist rebel. In the fountainhead, the hero rapes the heroine when they first meet. And the heroine wanted it.

This brings me to OSHO. The one man who still inspires me the most.

His idea of morality was organic, spontaneous and so flexible, so alive.

He believed that when you are truly aware of a situation, then you have the freedom to choose what is right according  to the context rather than some code.

Moreover, I loved his book on politics.

He embraced the body along with the mind, the world along with the soul, the self along with the other, the west along with the east, Science along with Spirituality. He was harmony.

But of course, it was too good to be true.

His quotes on homosexuality made me uncomfortable,

As a homosexual you are not even a human being, what to say about a second-class citizen? You have fallen from dignity. I have great love for you, but that does not mean that I will support your perversion. You love me, but your love is meaningless if you cannot understand what I am saying. Be heterosexual. Homosexuality is just a habit that you have got, an ugly habit. Drop it. It is simply a question of dropping it, because it is not natural. Wild animals in the jungle are never homosexual; but in zoos, where females are not available, they turn into homosexuals. All your monasteries are zoos! Why are you becoming part of a zoo? Gather courage: Why are you afraid of a woman? My love is for you. That’s why I am condemning homosexuality continually — because I want you to become natural again.

That is not to say, he was homophobic. OSHO’s contradictions always made it difficult for him to be labelled.

There is nothing wrong in being homosexual. You need not feel guilty about it. One certainly has to go beyond sex, but that is as much applicable to heterosexuality as it is applicable to homosexuality. Heterosexuality or homosexuality are just styles of the same stupidity! You need not feel guilty. In fact, looking at the population of the world, homosexuality should be supported. At least you will not be increasing the population of the world, you will not be loading the earth more. It is already loaded too much. Homosexuality should be valued, respected — it is pure fun! Heterosexuality is dangerous. And what is wrong? If two persons are enjoying each other’s bodies, nothing is wrong. It should be their concern; nobody else’s business to interfere.

I believe that everyone has the right to choose their identity and be happy in it.

Of course, I don’t agree with OSHO at all when he says that homosexuality is unnatural/wrong.

And, thankfully, that prevents me from idolizing him.

In a way, I guess this was destined. Although I don’t believe in destiny that much.

It prevented me from becoming a slave to the idol, while sucking out enough inspiration and ideas from them.

And now, I guess, is the beginning of the journey to be ME rather than Lady Gaga, Ayn Rand or OSHO.Let’s see what the cocoon reveals.

The Shadows

They are everywhere.

Peeking from the roofs of the brothels,
Crouching in the lanes infested with malaria, Stalking every street dog, rabid and starving, Inside anyone who dares to enroach up on the streets.

The authorities have installed gigantic, yellow streetlights to scare them away. But they have thrived, feeding on the shit-coloured aura of these ‘sentinels’. Dont they see? The Shadows are mere children of light.

I see a man, with shreds of filthy khaki clinging on to his body, trying to cut away his part of the Shadow with a pair of rusted scissors. He howls as he chops off his toe. A little bit of his shadow grows.

On a wall on his right, a poster is pasted — “Obey!” It commands.
A saint sits cross-legged under a banyan tree. “Destroy your desires! Burn them! Liberate yourself! Free your soul from bondage!” He screams. But when the shadow engulfs him, he retrieves the gold shoved inside his rectum and licks the stinking chains.

There is a factory nearby. It claims it produces civilized retards. It calls itself a school. It is the shadow factory.

Lights — fluroscent, blinking, multicoloured, marquees, bulbs, tubes, LEDs — they are everywhere. But the shadows are all black. The black outnumbers the light, because it is one.

In the veil of the shadows, a woman walks in the gullys. A man pokes her with an iron rod, she bursts.
Intestines.
Instestines.
Intestines.
Long, tubular, filthy, bloody.
They are strewn all over the street.

I run.
Faster than ever.
The shadows follow.

I fly.
Higher, higher than the sun.
The shadows are above me.

It is a steep fall.
My skin feels like it will rip-off, leaving the musculatre exposed to the winds, to the hard-hitting clouds, to the shadows — dripping black poison.

I am on the streets again.
In front of my home.
I open the door, sprinting towards the bed.
It is there.

The shadow.
Dark.
It sucks all the light, though it is the child of light.
I can feel its breath.
It is there.
It is there.
I embrace.
It is me.

Reptilian Existentialism

They are in the belly of the machine.

Twined around the twin pistons which keep the engine alive, two pythons lick the hot steel with their forked, slimy tongues.

The black grease mixes with the poison of the snakes, creating a potion of death and motion.

Their hard, stony scales rub against the metal, creating sparks.
It’s hard to ascertain if the scales are skin or indeed iron from the machine.

Their eyes are LED s burning like beacons.

What are they doing there?

Does the machine need them?

Do they need the machine?

Where did they come from?

Where will they go?

These are some questions every snake shall ask themselves.

The Metro OR The Train

I am the city.
The train is its blood, running through the veins of the metropolis.
The train is my blood.
I feel my veins swell as the train surges past me; the numerous, hollow sockets on its steel, tubular body stare at me.
The train stops, but the doors don’t open.
It isn’t my train anyways.

It leaves a deep emptiness as it heads on towards another destination, like a deadly air pocket in my pulmonary artery.

I peer down at the rail tracks — it’s a deep dark abyss.
Vertigo — I feel my guts pushing up my throat.
I clutch the steel rails to prevent myself from being sucked into the abyss.
Another train arrives just in time to fill up the void.
I feel my heart beat again.

The doors slide open, an orange light blinks at the roof of the entrance like an enlightened third eye.
The voice of a woman asks me to stay away from the doors and to “Please mind the gap”.
The voice of a man translates the same into Hindi.

The doors close.

I am pushed towards the doors on the other side. It’s safe — these doors won’t open. Atleast up until the station which is my destination.

Skin touches skin.
Sweat mixes with sweat.
Breath mixes with breath.

The crowds are less today — I can breathe!

A stench fills my nostrils.
It is the stench of the city.
It’s a mixture of unbathed bodies, expensive perfume, cowdung and pheromones.
Nobody knows where exactly it comes from, because it comes from everywhere.
It is the stench of the city.
The stench of me.
For I am the city.

A man with a white bush on his face, and a faded, disgusting kurta stands beside me.
He is talking, almost shouting.
I realise that he is talking to the steel pillar he is holding.

I try not to listen, but I do.
He screams about the President of the country and the Chief Minister of Bengal.
“They eat fish,” he says.
“They eat fish after removing the bones.
Dirty, dirty people.”

I try not to look into his eyes.
What if he comes to know about my Bengali lineage.
Fish isn’t so bad, I think, but I like chicken better.
He curses Bengalis again.
He hates Bengalis.
But I am a child of the world.

There is frustration in his voice — the kind of frustration which is birthed by the anger of being crushed by politics

It isn’t long before he joins them.
Madness is an asset in politics.
Actually, if you come to think of it, it’s a prerequisite.

Will you be the next President of India?

I walk away.

A woman asks a boy to get up from the seat reserved for ladies.
“Do you know who my father is?” He screams.

I hear the sound of a thundering slap.
The boy quietly gets up and stands in a corner, his face buried in his mobile.

I see a man holding a placard.

“Death to the rapists,” it says.

I smile.
Sometimes the city which gangrapes and murders and let’s people lie on the cold street, blood bathed, also transforms into a spring of hope.
It is like a god which is essentially a monster, but which also becomes a mother when it needs to.
All you need is a slap to change this city.

A tight, powerful, bloody, disgusting slap that makes its heart beat again.

My destination arrives.

The orange, enlightened light blinks again.

The doors open.

People swarm out.

People swarm in.

The doors close.

I don’t get down.
The journey is yet incomplete.

The Cafe OR The Awakening

 

The machine’s blades spin – cutting, slicing, and crushing the brown beans into dust.

An emaciated hand turns the lever in a slow, clockwise motion, filling the room with a shrill mechanical creaking.

That machine must be ancient, I think to myself. Maybe it’s an antique?

Only antiques ever creak that way.

My eyes gaze towards the arm to which the hand is attached to; I can see the aquamarine veins swell with the exercise.

Maybe it’s the hands and not the machine.

Maybe the hand is a part of the machine.

The machine stops.

The lid of the grinder opens; a seductive, dark smell of fresh coffee tingles my nostrils.

I can feel the  caffeine already taking hold of my brain.

My eyes wander, I see a dust storm raging outside the window. A pale Sun hides behind a haze the color of coffee.

The door of the café suddenly opens, and a woman with hair as long as a cape enters.

She sits besides me and we see the hand scoop the coffee from the machine.

The woman is not wearing any clothes; her hair covers her body like a giant, lustrous cloak.

Her breath caresses my skin.

And I realize that I am naked too.

The differences are pretty apparent – between her tender curves and my hard musculature.

And yet, we aren’t different at all.

We both have a heart which beats faster every second, we both have lungs which breathe heavily with passion, we both have brains which are intoxicated with the caffeine which fills the air, and we both have eyes which twinkle with anticipation.

She’s not just a woman.

She is womanhood.
She is the mother, the wife, the whore, the virgin, the priestess.
But she is also the father, the husband, the protector, the provider, the priest.
She is manhood.

And yet, she is none.

The emaciated hand distracts me from her, keeping a mug on the table.

It is filled to the brim, the fumes of the coffee wafting up to my chin, leaving it hot and moist.

We share.

I feel the wet imprints of her luscious lips when I drink from the mug.

I feel the caffeine flowing in my blood, making it hotter.
Does it make her blood hot too?

The coffee flows deeper, penetrating my soul. Slowly, it surpasses even my soul; I feel it flowing into her.
I am her.

What is the difference between me and her?
What is the difference between a man and a woman?
Is it merely the genitals?

“Do you like pink?” I ask.
“No. Coffee is my favourite colour,” She says.
Now, when I come to think of it, coffee is my favourite colour too.

I feel it flowing again.

Something changes, and I am no longer just a man.

I am manhood.

I am the father, the husband, the protector, the provider, the priest.

But I am also the mother, the wife, the whore, the virgin, the priestess.

I am womanhood.

And yet I am none.

The difference does exist.

It exists only because it needs to exist.
It exists only because it needs to be undone – that is its true aim.
When a couple makes love, when they reach true orgasm, only the kernel is left, the difference disappears.

That is the awakening.

The kernel is the truth

The difference is just a lie that leads to the truth.

The coffee is finished.
I am spent.
The woman has disappeared. Maybe, into the coffee coloured dust storm.
I peer down at myself.
I have disappeared too.

In the end, there is only an empty mug on the table and a dark, seductive aroma of the coffee lingering in the air.

–X–

When Will The Ravens Come?

Shed the skin,
Burn the bones,
Let your heart go numb.

Drown the Sun,
Kill the light,
Let the Ravens come.

Tear the flowers,
Cut the trees,
Let the worms eat.

Raze the cities,
Murder the nations,
Set ablaze their rules.

Spread your arms,
Open your mouth,
Devour thy dark end.

In your lungs,
Incubate;
Death births the new.

Eat, eat,
Maggots eat,
Suck the soul from me.

Grow, grow,
Serve yourself,
The Ravens sit hungry.

In the ruins,
Under the Moon,
A couple makes love.

Feathers, beaks,
Inky skin,
The love of dead zombies.

A nest of petals,
Sprinkled seeds-
An orb of potential life.

Shed the skin,
Burn the bones,
Your heart will so revive.

In Defense of Shock

What if I take off my clothes, put a wig on and dance with a fire-spouting mechanism latched onto my crotch?

What if I put a dead shark in a tank, fill it with formaldehyde and display it in a gallery?

What if I fill a vessel up with urine, drop a crucifix inside and proclaim it as a work of art?

You will probably be shocked, maybe peeing your pants in the process, and label me as an attention-whore.

Or worse, you may call the police or a mental asylum to drag me away and spare your poor heart from such horror.

There is also a rare possibility of my antics kindling your fascination and pleasing your eyes and Oh-So-Bored-With-This-Routine-World mind.

But will you ever ask WHY you got shocked by seeing my crotch on fire or a crucifix submerged in piss?

Does ANYBODY ever asks why they react the way they do when they see a piece of shock art?

I think they do not.

When Lady GaGa wore the meat dress in the VMAs, my first reaction was of disbelief.

Of course, it was fake meat, right?

Later, when it turned out that it wasn’t, I was utterly disgusted and all I could think to myself was, “This Fucking Rocks!”.

And that’s the magic of shock art — its effect is immediate.

It incites powerful emotional responses; it makes you feel.

But sadly not many people investigate why it makes them feel the way they do.

In my opinion, which was never really humble, shock art shocks us because it dares to probe into our darkest anxieties, fears and desires.

When Lady GaGa wears a meat dress, we are shocked because we are scared of death, and the rotting meat disgusts us.

When Damien Hirst preserves a Tiger Shark in a vitrine and showcases it in a gallery, we are shocked because the shark is dead and yet it seems so alive.

When Andres Serrano takes a picture of a crucifix submerged in his urine, it shocks us because he mixes one of the most sacred symbols of humanity with one of the decidedly profane things of our society.

Shock Art transgresses.

It is disgusting.

It is perverted.

It is the mirror which we never want to see.

And that’s exactly why it is one of the greatest kinds of art in the world.

Shock Art is the slap of truth on the face of the society — it forces us to deal with reality. And maybe even achieve catharsis in the process and get rid of these anxieties and fears.

Thus, Shock Art could very well make our society psychologically healthier.

And in this basic argument lies my defense of the art that shocks.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s too hard writing a blog with fire spouting out of my crotch and a dead Tiger Shark staring back at me.

Adios.

–X–

The Slap

Rickshaw Puller

Today, the rickshaw in which I was returning home, brushed against a speeding bus.
The rickshaw’s right wheel’s tire was pulled out and its steel frame was bent and ruined.

The bus driver, it seemed, didn’t even acknowledge the presence of the poor man and the vehicle which he drove before the accident.
Probably, the driver expected him to disappear before daring to give a dent on his bus.

But he didn’t.

It was probably then that the driver realized that he exists. And he wasn’t happy about it.

After some confusing moments and an echo of someone’s palm hitting somebody’s cheek, I realised that the conductor had slapped the rickshaw driver.

Nobody said anything, there was just the bus conductor’s stream of abuses and the honk of cars stuck behind the bus.

Sensing that things were getting serious, I quitely slipped out and hired another rickshaw to take me home.

After 10 minutes, the bus went away, the rickshaw went away and the traffic moved on. Everything was back to as it was before.

Except for some questions in my head:

Did the conductor have the right to slap the rickshaw driver?

Why didn’t anybody object to it?

Why did I quitely slip away?

Should I have interwened?

Would it have been prudent if I had done so?

Would the conductor dare to touch the man if he was driving a car instead of a rickshaw?

Would the conductor slap the man if he was wearing a suit instead of a torn tshirt?

He would’ve probably used a gun instead…

Or maybe not.