Nadir

Yes, I have hit rock bottom. Half Dead. It is pretty hazy at Ground Zero.

This is gonna be fun. I wrote this really morbid description of _____'s face for an assignment in the creative writing course. I was searching desperately for inspiration, rather a singular face that could be well described. Lo behold! I hit upon our very own Antichrist superstar. Guess who?

Read on...

There is a solitary chair in the middle of nowhere, where darkness envelopes you, consumes you, that is, except for the chair illuminated by a pale, deathly glow. I do not care to trace its source, for my eyes are fixated on the chair. I have been promised a tryst with the face of the enigma that is ______, and so I look on closely with fear, apprehension and expectation. The pain of hypnosis almost starts to overwhelm me, and precisely at that moment does his face choose to bestow upon me the great ‘honor’.

The ghostly countenance emerges suddenly from the darkness to reveal its contours; a surreal silhouette from the black halo. The pitch black hair encapsulates the face all over, except for a couple of places from where _______’s patented white skin, made up with the executioner’s paint, glistens through. This is the white, and surprisingly not the black, that beats the resonant rhythm of Satanism. It starts to pervade the atmosphere around me. Stillness surrounds the face. Time freezes in its tracks. A hand moves ever so slowly in a none-too-subtle antichrist reference to slide the hair away to give me that stunning first look. The skin, though smooth and blemish-less, oozes insanity and depravity out of every single pore. The eyes look at you with scorn and sardonic glee, in all their glorious asymmetry, peeking out of a cloud of grease ; one reflects blue and the other white, a white without the central black plum, a white that sends spasms up your spine. The pupil, maybe, has sunk into oblivion – the inky blackness where he has spent most of his wakeful adult life, or perhaps he has chosen to pluck it out in one of his fits of murderous rage. The large lips are painted in shades of black and blue, in violent contrast to the rest of the face. They break into a lop-sided, condescending smile, a smile that combines with the eyes to mock at my faith, to deride the conventions that I live by. The smile also reveals his sharp, yellow teeth; the canines resemble those of a bloodthirsty vampire. They shine in the horrific ambience with a yellowish light, with the dull shimmer of corroded copper. The forked tongue that seems to have been dripped in blood, is reminiscent of the painting ‘Army of Darkness’ where the tongue of Satan embraces indulgence and perversity. The forehead is emblazoned with a tattoo, a fractal image of the esoteric, pagan symbol of Satan, the inverse pentagram that contains within itself a symbol of a gun in red. The aquiline nose with flaring nostrils seems to dart poisoned arrows at you, those that could slice opinions with lazy arrogance. The hollow, sunken cheeks seem to have been scooped out of his face. The piece de resistance, his ear rings that act as the perfect reflection of his persona, dangle by his jaw line. The devilishness of their design and the stark lines in them seem to dance of their own volition, to an ethereal, other worldly rhythm. Yet as _____ walks towards me I feel the distance grow. The farther his hand stretches out to touch me with its wretchedness, the more space seems to expand. Suddenly the scene melts in a whirl of color in sharp contrast to the simplicity of hues on the face.

This is pulp fiction, as is ________.

Keep the guesses going!

Two minute poetry(?!)

This is an amalgamation of Maggi noodles inspired two minute formula to pen down crap + Billy Joel inspired not-as-arbitrary-as-(we didn't start the fire) list of words and the poetic license of the free verse. Hahaha. So the topic I decided on was a list of things that make a modern day run-o’-the mill movie.

What makes a movie?

The budding writer
Latent talent? Or the recycled cliché?
Scavenging production houses
Perspiration,
Slammed doors on the face;
Approving investors found,
Warner Bro’s? Miramax?
Taut Screenplay, Farce auditions
The Casting Couch
Of Beauty and the ephemeral lust;
Ravenous recruiting, Beverly Bills,
Art, Music, Lyrics and Crew,
A megaphone and steaming brew.
Hoarse voice and the trivial hirsute (!)
Swaying Camera –
In a mystic dance;
Emotions titillate, Love
And the Raging Sex.
All the action and stunts :
Scintillate!
Editing done and cans packed
The red carpet rolls –
Dazzling Décolleté
Critics take centre stage;
Caprice, Rave, Ratings, Contentions.
Multiplexes, Millions, Money$
Blustering outta the blocks.

Underdogs and Sentimentalism*

Back to the good ol’ days of watchin cricket. I have been brooding and thinking about things that promise a lot but only end up disappointing me. So it was a welcome change to watch a lot of sport and of course the dazzling penelope's et al on the red carpet over the weekend (My mum was surprised to find me awake at 6 00 am Monday morning and commended my determination to wake up early to catch the Oscars !)

As i said, I watched cricket over the weekend after maybe , hmm, eons I guess . It was Australia Vs New Zealand, and as always I rooted for NZ. The fervent hope that some kind of a miracle was in the waiting lingered on and on, even though the match was clearly heading the Aussies’ way. This has slways been the case. If it were India versus any other country, I’d obviously back India. Any country vs Sri Lanka, Any country it would be. These are the couple of axioms which I adhere to zealously. Else, I realized it was something innate in me to root for the underdog. I thought of the other possibilities. Zim V/s SA, Zim it’d be to the last ball, though there’s not even an infinitesimal possibility that they’d win in the present circumstances with Mugabe breathing fire down the asses of Streaks and the like. Pak Vs Aus, definitely Pak. And on and on, I can go ahead with umpteen examples. This not only applies to cricket. Now this is a thought that strikes me. I remember the times when I'd join a new school (I’ve changed schools four times in my life, though these have been really early in life) and feel that singular delight I could take from coming from behind, from an unknown guy to beating the established figures at the new school. NOT sadistic pleasure, please. I guess it is an inherent trait that used to show its head this way in my childhood. Now it probably peeks out silently, sometimes without my knowledge, through other actions of mine. Why even the suave Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca plays the eternal underdog Rick Blaine, where he fights wars on the side of the underdogs. So the question arises: the same one that Captain Renault poses to Rick, is the underdog always necessarily a sentimentalist? Is he a cynic with a gossamer veil underneath which there lies the quintessential sentimentalist? Hmm Am I such a person? I definitely know that are no deceptive facets to my character. There’s no question of me hiding behind a secret and unreal veil.. I’m convinced about this. But I still cannot answer the latter part about the sentimentalist. That may require a bit more introspection, that'd be when I attain higher levels of joblessness!. Of course, skipping topics randomly is my forte, as you would have realized by now. :d

*Now is that even a word in the English language?