Little Red Riding Hood

Alice sat quietly, as her mother laboured away in the kitchen. What she was up to, she couldn't tell, but she had been hacking and ploughing through mounds of dough in an effort to make muffins, something her grandmother hated anyway.

Her grandmother never liked anything in the first place, she was not a nice woman. All she did, was groan about imaginary pains and the decadence of her family. She cared for no one; rolled in heaps of money and wouldn't spare a penny to an ailing lamb. Understandably, she lived alone in a stately estate, void of anything human save a pitiful maid who, for hitherto undiscovered reasons, tolerated her general misanthropy and lumbered on, suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, after her husband chose not to be.

He hadn't left without leaving behind his son, equally spiteful in every way. He chose to marry, against the guesses of many, and chose a wasted woman, who listened to anyone with a vial full of heroin and a hypodermic syringe. The reason for this unlikely twain to come to be baffled many, the closest anyone ever came was that he genuinely loved the woman. She had a valuable quality; she knew what she wanted, and would do anything to get it. All he had to do, was dangle a needle in front of her and she'd do the rest.

Their by-product was a little girl, perfectly ordinary girl in every way; she was not exceedingly beautiful, but would still fit in an open-casket. This was the girl who'd witnessed many things in her life. Drunken women came home every night and any questions from her mother were answered with daggers and cigarette burns. They would fight for hours, as strangers leered on, expressions suggesting sheer indifference.

Last night turned out to be entirely different; as her father clutched the railings up the creaky staircase, a drunken blonde on his side reeking of dried vomit and cigarettes, his wife was preparing dinner. As the little girl peered out of her room, a meat-cleaver fell on her father's neck, as he swore and spouted obscenities. It was a dance of discord, a drunken man and a stoned woman have lousy reflexes. With half his head spliced, he waved a dagger at the screaming company he brought and rammed the glinting blade into her palate.

Alice clutched her doll, terrified of the blood, as she watched the final blow from her mother that hacked his head off his shoulders, the expression of cold fury frozen in his face.

Job done, she collapsed in the living room; she was spent. Alice shut her door tight and prayed for something to happen. She spent the night under the bed shivering with fright, praying for something to happen, desperately waited for someone to wake her up, tell her it was all a dream. She felt faint in the closed surroundings. Panting for breath between sobs, she rested her head on her shoulders and closed her eyes...

The next morning greeted her mother in a frenzy of activity. She cleaned the entire house for the first time since they moved in, the dried blood on the walls were scrubbed clean and two huge bags stood in a corner attracting flies. She flung them into the incinerator and proceeded to make muffins for her grandmother.

"What happened last night?" enquired the curious little girl.

"Nothing. Nothing happened. Why do you ask?" her mother was quite flustered to discover that her acts had a witness she hadn't realised, "Your father's gone out, he'll be back any minute. Muffins?" she pointed at a batch of freshly baked muffins with blood-soaked mittens.

Alice helped herself to one. Whatever had happened last night, it was not pleasant. The house seemed to know something, it smelt different, it felt emptier, cleaner. She desperately tried to strain her memory, but all she could recollect was a faint cry and a lot of red.

"I think I had a nightmare last night." she remarked to her mother.

"How come? I didn't hear you scream. You always shout out when you had a nightmare. It's probably nothing. I-it's probably all in your head, you know, you do have a wild imagination..."

Her mother smiled weakly. Any other person would've seen through her shaky fingers, blood-soaked apron, and a flustered demeanour, but nine year old girls cannot see through such intricacies of human nature. She did sense something she couldn't put her finger on, though, but repressed memories are difficult to discern in a tender mind.

"Honey, could you get these muffins to granny? She's really sick and needs your help."

"Okay, will you come with me? I'm scared of Mr. Lupus. He keeps staring at me whenever I go out."

"But Mommy has things to do, sweetie, I really can't come with you. I wish I could. Mr. Lupus is a nice man, he drove the monster under Susan's bed away. He can't harm you, will you go? Please? I know you're brave."

Alice nodded, defeated; she wanted to be a brave girl. She took the basket of muffins, pulled over a red cardigan, her favourite, and walked out to face the chill autumn air.

As she walked about the park, Mr. Lupus, her neighbour, seemed to be reading the paper on his front garden. She started humming a tune she vaguely remembered to cheer her spirits, and proceeded about the park at the edge of the village. Mr. Lupus was reading the paper here as well, she didn't understand why he wanted to read the paper wherever she went. Taking a detour, now sweaty and nervous, she missed a left and ran as fast as she could. She didn't know how long she ran, until she faced a desolate street. Leaves were heaped on the middle of the road, no one was in sight except for Mr. Lupus, reading his paper by a bench below an apple tree.

By now, Alice had begun to panic, she screamed at him, while he just moved into the shadows as a car wound its way, crunching leaves in its wake. It stopped just short of the kerb, and the headlights seemed like a pair of patient eyes, observant and ready. By now, Alice decided it was best to get away and ran as fast as she could into the woods. This would turn out to be a bad idea, as she discovered about a half an hour later. She had a feeling she was going in circles, every leaf looked familiar, every footstep in front of her seemed like hers. Finally, someone came up to her.

"You seem lost. What do you want, my dear girl?" a kind, almost too kind a voice enquired.

He was tall, at least that was what Alice thought, auburn hair lay rustled on his head, with grey eyes that seemed out of place in a person whose voice was so warm, so understanding in a way she couldn't explain.

This what what she wanted, she couldn't bear it anymore, she immediately hugged him and cried. She cried like she never did before, she cried till she couldn't breathe, she cried till her eyes were so swollen, she couldn't see where he was taking her. She didn't have the strength in her to resist anymore, she let him guide her into the silver sedan that she saw pull over earlier. She climbed in; Lupus showed no signs of existence. Relieved, she closed her eyes, not caring where they took her, as long as it was home. He took the basket of muffins she was supposed to give her grandmother and kept it aside. Not knowing what was going on, she yearned for an answer, but was too terrified to move, let alone question his actions.

The car pulled over to familiar surroundings, it was a stately manor, Alice had no clue why they stopped at her grandmother's place. He asked her to get down, and took her in.

Alice wondered why her grandmother sent these men to pick her up. As she walked in, she knew her grandmother was not involved in this in anyway, she had no clue as to what was going on.

How she came to the conclusion, she didn't know, it was just a feeling. She did know, when she saw her body being wrapped up in a bag, Lupus wrapping her up. She let out a sharp gasp when she realised her grandmother was dead and froze. She didn't know what to do. Lupus had killed her grandmother.

"Hello, Alice. You know me, I know you. This is Hunter, by the way."

The man with the grey eyes nodded at her.

"What did you do to grandma?" she trembled, sobbing.

"Oh nothing, she's sleeping." Lupus smiled as he picked up the phone to call Alice's mother.

"You see, Alice, I lost my job, both of us, Hunter and I did, as a matter of fact, a few months ago. Grown ups don't have parents looking after them, you see, and they need money to buy things.You are going to spend sometime with us, till your mother helps us out. We're not going to harm you in anyway, don't look at me like that. I promise I'll return you to your mother as soon as she helps us."

The phone kept ringing in Alice's home. Meanwhile, Hunter picked up the basket and looked inside. There were a batch or two of muffins inside, with a note on top. He opened it.

Dear Gertrude,

Your son is dead. I think I killed him, and I don't think I can live with that.

I hope you take good care of Alice, Goodbye.

Yours regretfully,

Dianne

He swore out loud, and pointed a gun to Alice's head. Lupus didn't know what was going on till Hunter thrust the letter into his hands and Alice watched his expression chance from bewilderment to cold fury. A gunshot pierced through the large living room at the exact same moment it did in Alice's little flat, as a woman fell to the floor as a gun flew from her hand across the room.

Triumph en' Cheval

Whanne gnarly groves and knotted Weald

Stoode grene and callow 'cross the feld,

Whanne raging river and brawling brooke

Crept and crawled through every nooke,

Times were black, the skies were grea

Sōls that naught, was ever gay.

For a fær maiden had borne

A heart broken, another torne;

Split asunder, slit in twain,

'Twixt two knights of valour magne.

We battled on, I and he,

Death in life had come to be;

We did spar through day and night,

Sabre pierced with all its might.

Arms were clashed and armour crashed,

Steeds crippled and sore skin gashed.

"Death to thee!" did I crie,

As we stepped, eye to eye.

Like Chaucer's verse I wanton trie,

In owen grese, to make him frie.

Steed caught steed and steele met steele,

Lances snapt and plates did keele.

I thrust his left on my vile blaed,

As my own arm was unmaed.

The crimson tiff went on on foote,

The blaed, my knee was firmly put.

Till the worthy foe was smote,

Knife was hacked and gyred abote.

There he lay, skewered and hewn,

Half myself away I'd strewn.

The rest in me revelled with pride,

Of bloody venge for my dear bride.

I had won, with chivalrie,

My own pyrrhic victorie;

Bled and spent, I shut my eye,

Nevermore'd I open, aye.

A Dream come True

'Twas a grey Saturday, clouds looming low over the sombre city of Madras, (I don't care what the old fart who simply refuses to die thinks, it'll always be good ol' Madras to me) and it was decided that it was time we saw another movie. We got a bunch of equally jobless oafs to accompany us, and Satyam Cinemas got itself filled with die-hard Nolan fans who gripped their popcorn bags tight to hold on to their little anchors of reality, their own mass produced mouth-watering totems, as the iconic Warner Brothers shield wobbled into corporeality. Inception is an epic movie, the much awaited event of the year when Christopher Nolan, the genius of our time, unleashed the latest behemoth that steamrolled into the box-office, taking the world by storm, pushing through the sky high expectations that weighed upon his shoulders. As an undeclared work on science fiction, unlike others in its genre, it refuses to explain the science, focusing on the fiction instead, leaving the physics of his wonderful world to our imagination, something that his Prestige set the stage for earlier. Nolan has a standard cast, good actors are a gem too few, and Leonardo DiCaprio wormed his way into this elite club of silverscreen heavy-weights through a flawless performance in his role of an architect of dreams, the "extractor" of intelligence, devoted husband, loving father, and a curious analyst of the mind who burrows into the deepest crevices in the human psyche. He is tasked upon the inception of an idea in another's mind, I simply won't reveal more, a tricky and dangerous journey into a mind willing to defend itself at all levels of invasion. As dreams build on, the complex storyline unseen since Memento grips you by the neck and plunges you into a world where anything is possible, from the streets of Paris folding unto itself, to dead wives sabotaging your every move.. The scale is huge, the budget limitless, and cast impeccable and Nolan; all your ingredients for the perfect movie. Watch it, or God kills a puppy everyday you don't.

Ars Archerica

September is the month in which Festember is held. Ignoring the oh-not-so-clever portmanteau and all the snide comments that surface, I'd prefer concentrating on Festember's gallant efforts at equipping our students with state of the art technology and pseudosciences and holding mundane workshops for said purpose. The two workshops that stand out this year are the archery and hypnotism workshops, but not the alchemy workshop which was planned initially, as the world-renown alchemist Nicholas Flamel was not available on that date due to the fact that he went kaput five hundred years ago when he foolishly drank copper sulphate solution mixed with rat poison thinking it was the elixir of life. Apparently he was spotted hanging upside down from a streetlamp, stark naked, singing " Found a Peanut" at the top of his voice, a few minutes before he snuffed it. Bereft of the alchemy workshop they had planned, they resorted to the next weird sounding word in the dictionary, Archery; the word Astrology was consciously ignored as it was mistaken to be Astronomy, a real science which apparently is frowned upon. Unlike hypnotism, people have actually witnessed the effects of an arrow jutting out of a loon's spleen and hence I have a soft corner for this tried and tested, albeit completely pointless art. The poor lambs failed to realise Archery wasn't fictitious. Therefore, on behalf of the clowns from the archery workshop that is to be conducted in lieu of better things to do this Festember, I would like to brush you up with some tips on how to shoot people in the most inappropriate of places in hours of dire need for said target's scarcity. The first step in shooting projectiles into mid-air is the acquisition of a target. A target can be anything from a dartboard to the dire rear of the sore-headed loser with a sense of smug superiority, strutting about you getting under your skin. It can also be the poor unfortunate chap at a distance doing nothing to annoy you but you want to shoot him anyway. So, with the target set, our next move is to equip ourselves with a shooting instrument. It can range from snipers and crossbows to blunt pencils and maliciously shaped stones. We cover all these tools and the techniques and how to use them and inflict the maximum damage with special emphasis on day to day objects like the crossbow.

• Choose your target with utmost wisdom. Remember, your ammunition is limited but the number of people you'd like to shoot is not. Therefore, discrimination is required to prioritise your targets from the most annoying to the least.
• With target sighted, your next task is to position yourself in the most prudent of poses. One would not like to lose the element of surprise. An arrow coming out of nowhere is our desired result, while propping yourself up on a bow larger than you and jumping around making an ass out of yourself is not. Remember not to look too obviously stupid with any weapon mentioned previously.
• If your weapon of choice is the notorious cross-bow, do not forget that you're wielding one of the coolest objects ever invented and using one without the characteristic evil grin will yield undesirable results. For best efficiency, smiling like the devil will help, on grounds of intimidating your enemy and rendering him helpless in the face of such evil and maniacal laughter.
• Get yourself an arrow, preferably not very sharp, to make sure the target experiences hilarious disfigurement. Why do a clean job while you can bludgeon his bones spilling pools of blood all over? So, with such an arrow acquired, position it on the cross bow and pull back until you hear the wood creaking uncomfortably under the stress. Do not pull too much as that would render the weapon useless even though, it is extremely satisfying to break something with your own bare hands.
• Now release the tension, and no, we do not mean going to the loo, stop sniggering at smutty toilet humour, and observe as the arrow darts forward lodging itself onto the target's posterior. Watch how the target writhes in agony trying to relieve his colon of the arrow. The aforementioned maniacal laughter would be prudent at this point.
• To improve upon the outlined technique, dress up in green tights, wear a funny nancy looking hat with a feather on top and speak with a comic sounding Shakespearean accent. Not only will this make you look cool, it'll also give you an excuse to steal your target's wallet and enjoy yourself at the food stall, calling it stealing from the rich and feeding the poor (yourself).
• Try the usual apple on the target's head routine. This will improve concentration as you will be faced by heavy distractions in the form of brightly coloured apples trying to catch your eye as you try to shoot the target's desired organ. Moreover, an apple next to a bleeding person is sure to keep doctors away ensuring said target's slow painful death in the absence of medical assistance.
• Remember, improvisation is the key, so try using poisoned arrows for enhanced malice, or one could even use longbows if one so much feels inclined to do so. They have brilliant range and ideal for shooting that poor unfortunate chap at a distance who did nothing to annoy you but you want to shoot him anyway.

P.S: Do not try this at home. Doing so will seriously hamper your prospects of mastering long distance shooting. Try it where you have free access to vast open spaces and plenty of morons to practise with.

P.P.S: The title Ars Archerica was inspired from Ars Poetica, a moderately, nay, extremely hypocritical treatise in verse by a certain Archibald MacLeish, written when he got sloshed after his girlfriend left him saying he was not manly enough for her. I just thought I'd mention his name and credit to keep those damn copyright harpies at bay.
-Tsfu

Great Expectations

I recently read a book, a good book, finally. Dickens can never disappoint, as it turns out, and as far as I'm concerned, he's the finest novelist of all time, in terms of plot, style, character and structure, and so many parameters that judge a good book. Although, he tended to be very autobiographical, he never failed to deliver, and he was at his best when he penned down The Great Expectations, a literary masterpiece that flows out of the pages and into your mind, woven into it the entire fabric of Victorian society, with all its hypocrisy and sham, to expose the vulnerable underbelly of the most industrious empire of its time. Dickens has always been keenly critical of his society, something that made him very unsociable, but also a piquant genius who saw through the veil of the Victorian elite. He brings out the human in every character of his, who are real people, with real emotions. The plot revolves around Philip Pirrip, or Pip, who, as a child, loses his parents and is brought up by Joe, his elder brother, and his odious wife, who, for all her bitterness, actually loves her family with all her heart. Orphaned at a very young age, he yearns for a sense of identity, characteristic of Dickens' own reflective and introspective proclivity. With a bit of Dickens himself and a lot others of note in him, Pip begins his journey as an apprentice in the workshop of his brother, a blacksmith, a job he despises. At the age of seven, he is interrupted rather rudely in the middle of his ruminations in front of his parents' graves, by a coarse convict, bound by shackles but seemingly not by the norms of civility. Pip is scared into stealing food, leaving a scarred sense of lingering guilt in the child's mind. He is constantly worked to conformity by his sister-in-law, and a noxious uncle, a Mr.Pumblechook, and his sense of guilt stems only from the fact that he stole some food, an act of wrongdoing by Pumblechook's standards, while Dickens consciously umbrages the act of giving food to a hungry man, in social criticism of the values held by Victorian society that chooses to overlook acts of charity in favour of idealistic forthrightness. This little act of forced charity sees Pip's life turned upside down, with the burden of Great Expectations on his shoulders, a cold, lifeless and yet stunningly beautiful Estella, and her disturbed guardian, Miss Havisham, who invites Pip as a boy to humour Estella, leading him to form a close bond with them, and later believing her to be the cause of his fortunes, well or ill. Plot stretches into the bowels of London from Dartmoor, a conspiracy to smuggle a convict out of Great Britain is also thrown in, and finally crashes with a twist only Dickens can pull off. It is a milieu of emotions, stark realism and social critique in Pip's quest of maturity when he finally understands who really matter in his life, and the evanescence of good fortunes are not to be ridden along, when he climbs up the social ladder leaving loved ones behind. Even when Pip takes Joe's gratuitous affections for granted, even when Estella cruelly breaks Pip's heart, even when Miss Havisham heartlessly manipulates Pip's desires holding a grudge as old as herself, they remain very sympathetic, with their vulnerabilities and passions, deep character and most of all, a very human side being the impetus for all their actions. On the whole, the book is a very deep treatise of human nature, a podium portraying Dickens' genius, and a literary machination that preserves the very essence of Victorian society that funnily takes place, actually, in the Georgian era. Great Expectations is a living fossil, that brings puffy shirts and pantaloons, and with it, the whole smoggy dank and derelict London, with its snooty elite and parallel indigence back to life.

Opium to Lithium: Epic Fail

Afghanistan is a pitiful place. It is the Kurukshetra where miffed world powers play the game of suicide checkers. Be it the good ol' US of A, or the Rumbling Russian bear, Afghanistan has been a worthy quagmire for all superpowers, present and past, if in doubt, wiki the First Anglo-Afghan War. For many years, this landlocked swamp of a desert (please note the oxymoron) has lived in abject penury, the economy buoyed by the sales of opium and the rigid tenets of pseudo-Islam, which abhors and eschews all necessities of life, leading to a country that has nothing and is seemingly happy about it, for if I suffer through my whole life, ploughing across miles for a drop of water, bleed through the nose for a square meal throughout my sorry existence, I shall be rewarded by Allah with seventy two virgins in heaven. It's morbidly funny, really, to see a country that's knee deep in the manure they created for themselves, woken up everyday with a suicide blast, only to spend the rest of the day fervently hoping for the virgins; and to make through the day without losing a limb. History has not been kind either, mainly due to its strategic location, leading to its status as a buffer state between the Russian and the British empires, which really means, if any country has a problem, they say, "Alright! You and me! Afghanistan! Now!". Their main export has been opium, for nothing else grows there, and their second largest export is prime battleground real estate. Recently, however, Americans have discovered $1trillion buried under the countless landmines and children's limbs in the form of mineral deposits. If this saves the Afghans from misery, it'll be another middle-east success story, to the likes of Dubai and Saudi Arabia. But lets face it, minerals are not oil; who's heard of the mineral wars, at least their previous export had the honour of world powers fighting over it (see Opium Wars). Most of the metals are recycled, and we're reducing the amount mined every year, unlike oil, which keeps skyrocketing by the minute. Even if minerals could save the swamp of a nation from its impending doom, Afghanistan, at this point boasts of more Western troops stationed in it than its population. With a ghost of sovereignty and economic freedom, there's little the Afghan government can do make money out of it. BP has recently said, quite emphatically, the it stands for Beyond Petroleum, and not British Petroleum, as everyone else thought, and minerals could be the next pie BP sticks its dirty fingers into. If the East India Company of the twenty first century decides to enter Afghanistan, even Uncle Sam could do little to stop that, they've only now realised what BP can do when crossed, with the oil spill and all. In the era of aggressive globalisation, the penniless miner who lost his left hand in the blast that killed no one stands no chance against capital leviathans of the West, he has more to gain by kissing the numerous landmines that dot the derelict landscape. If the mineral deposits could save this little nation, pigs can fly and horse feathers can be used as quills.

Holmes v2.0

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I hardly ever have the patience to sit through an entire film alone. I need company to watch movies, or I just quit and do something else, like watching TV shows, which are shorter than two hours. I don't know, it's just me; but the real thing I wanted to say was, I actually got around to watching Sherlock Holmes, the movie that came out in 2009, only now. Yes, only now, for all the fans out there who can't live without movies, I haven't even watched Avatar yet, (gasp now, you scum-bags) so it's something you can't live with, but I can, because I'm way cooler and I have a life. Anyway, enough with the abrasive abuse,
(Hyde: just one more, please,please,please,please, pleeeez!
Dr.Jekyll: Fine, just one more, after that, you need to pack up and leave.
Hyde: Sod off! cool, I'm done now)
I just wanted to pen down my experiences, like the dear diligent Watson, who meticulously documented every twitch and tick on Holmes' face. Sherlock Holmes is, as far as I'm concerned, the second best detective in the world, the first being, quite obviously, M. Hercule Poirot, nest ces pas? Poirot is not as serious as Holmes, he's a jolly bumbling chap who is like Jacques Clouseau, but uses order and method, a dear phrase of his, in catching the criminal. He's like a lovable grandfather who's funny not by his own design, and is a delight to have around. Holmes, on the other hand, is a more intense character, someone with an obvious astuteness about him, he's to be admired from afar, up close, only Watson could tolerate his OCD. Both are vain, and lovably so, but Holmes' vanity is more intimidating than endearing. Poirot, on the other hand, is more than sociable, just quirky, and his remarks are taken generally in good humour, till the end, where the criminal is outed rather dramatically by Poirot, and that is when the killer realises that this funny old man meant what he said. My impression of Holmes stems solely from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's works, not the ensuing fan-fiction, I have no respect for people who try to fill his shoes. The latest movie, however, seems to have crossed the line between Holmes and Poirot, Holmes is far more amusing, and Watson far cleverer than Sir Arthur's character. It was frequently quoted, by Directors of the West End theatres, "If there was a mop bucket on the crime scene, Watson's leg would be in it, and if he spots a clue by serendipity, all Watson would do was to blow his nose in it, and move along."
Watson, of Guy Ritchie's craft is infinitely more resourceful, I guess a century and a half of kithship with Holmes has finally rubbed off on him. Jude Law, by far, is the cleverest Watson of them all, their relationship being more balanced in friendship, than just a dewy eyed simpleton who's easily amazed by a cocaine addict's sorcery. It is quite enjoyable to watch two men, of camparable intellect, each displaying expertise in different branches of crime solving: forensics and medicine. Holmes here is more emotionally dependent on Watson than ever and Watson cheerfully let's Holmes manipulate him even though he knows what's going on, it was like watching a Victorian movie of House. A grisly,gruff brazen man who, for all his rationality, like a perfectly cooked christmas turkey: crusty on the outside, but soft on the inside, leans on a more emotionally stable man for pegs, who inexplicably supports this seeming parasite. Closer inspection reveals Watson needs Holmes as much as the other way round. Watson is a compulsive supporter as Holmes is a supportee. Watson needs someone waiting back at home who needs his care and support. Conan Doyle cleverly made him a doctor precisely for this reason and Guy Ritchie capitalised on this fact to create a more believable Watson, a man who is more of a deserving sidekick who does more than just make Holmes seem more of a wizard than he actually is. Instead of accentuating Holmes' intellect by using a dud of a Watson, like Conan Doyle did in his later works, Guy Ritchie created a man who made the duo look good, rather than just Holmes. Batman and Robin took a backseat in an equally Gothic Victorian London, more like Gotham city, than New York could ever be, the city DC comics actually modelled Gotham City after. Their on-screen presence was the best thing in the movie, but the story could have been more Holmes-ish. It was larger than life, more like a Victorian Bond movie. Guy Ritchie brought Victorian England to life, the only person to do so previously was Dickens, but Ritchie had the aid of images, while Dickens only had imagery, still, Ritchie is not as great as Dickens, but did a splendid job. As far as the plot was concerned, it was, quite frankly more James Bond than Sherlock Holmes, but the characters were most human, where they, especially Holmes and the specious Irene Adler, expose their vulnerability alongside their prowess, making them more realistic. As good as it was as a stand alone movie, it was not a Sherlock Holmes, it really wasn't.

Le Dernier Point de Vente

As Festember's round the corner, oh wait, it's not, it's more than three months away, but still, that wouldn't stop us from frantically whipping up some publicity, we hope that it wouldn't be the failure we fear it would. As one of the pioneers of the freedom of expression as outlined in the Bill of Rights that I am, I fear some, ahem-hem, changes have been made to my voice as it fled towards the public ear. Yes, censorship has cropped its ugly head up, yet again, on our very own backyards (I don't mean my arse, its purely metaphorical). But in the noble cause for my words to reach the plebeian mind, I have posted what I have to say, as it were, no alterations whatsoever, except for the fact that, for the sake of sheer spite, they have been spruced up to inflame and blaspheme more than they did previously. It runs thus:
"As the more perceptive of you would’ve probably realised by now, the running theme for this Festember is…(drumroll) Western (Tada!). Well, in keeping with the tone of this theme, one might pursue many activities this Festember that provides satisfaction to oneself as well as pain to others (just like a good western Samaritan would like it).

* Dressing like cowboys help a lot, with the ladies crooning over you, as well as all the gay men. (courtesy, broke-back mountain, or bare-back, I’m not sure) It also provides room for entrance with a bang, well literally, a gunshot, or horse back, as it gallops its way through the dusty tracks of NITT. Walking into a saloon, with all cowboy apparatus, is an added bonus, and gives ideal opportunities to start a bar fight and kick some serious butt.

* I hear there’s going to be a bull-riding (just riding, not riding, you pervert!) workshop, or not, but still, what’s better than fighting every cow you see, which, by the way, is a lllot of them in the campus, and is a good idea to get some practice and prove that you’re not a yellow-livered sissy, which, the ladies love. (I apologise for constantly using italics whenever I want, It's just that I like doing somethings again, and again, and again, which, again, the ladies love.)

* As you’re probably aware, Festember is quite heavy on one’s pocket. While it was insightfully outlined in the Recession Blues article, the Western theme enables a couple of more innovative strategies for scrounging off the richer folk. As Chutzpah (I know, the name sucks, but you can only take a horse to the pond) so beautifully put it, intimidation helps, a lot. Dressing up as a cowboy helps even more. A pistol up against the back of someone’s head is bound to get you free something. The rugged bad boy image only enhances the malice and achieves said effect faster.

P.S. We, the content team, apologise for coming up with meaningless, hackneyed, desultory lists of utter pointlessness. As you, see, there’s only so much creativity in the world, and most of it is in other people. So, if you have any ideas or suggestions, or any constructive criticism to put forward, screw you, do it on your own blog, we might not be creative, but we still are snooty.

P.P.S Please come this Festember, we're lonely. (Courtesy, fellow writer)"

Ha! That'll teach you to stifle free speech...

Pride cometh before a Fall

After serious thought and consideration, I have to say this: the US is not exactly the ideal ally for a nation to have. After the little Japanese 'incident', no self respecting nation should actually bother meeting more than half way with the United States. When I say that, I say it with their most celebrated ally in mind, the United Kingdom. God knows what the British politicians see in their American counterparts. With the Japanese Prime Minister famously retreating with a long face, many fractures in the American sphere of influence bubble up to the surface. For starters, when they call themselves a peerless superpower, they're partly true; it is the only nation with no true friends. The only reason their allies put up with the conceit of American insular pig-headedness is because their arrogance is not baseless. They hold severe leverage against their allies and anyone caught rocking the boat face stern consequences. It is classic carrot and stick diplomacy, worse; it is practised on one's own allies. For all the world cares, they might as well send a gunboat into Japanese waters to coerce them into submission. Such hard-lined diplomacy, while it may seem 'cool' to employ, has disastrous consequences in the long run. Let's face it, American influence is rapidly waning with a rising China and a unified Europe, and the sun is bound to set on Pax Americana; and when it does, the USA will immediately find itself facing something ten times as humiliating as the Suez Crisis, something that still brings nightmares to the British policy-makers.
For those not in the know, the USA has not always been a superpower or this interfering in the past. There was another nation, something much smaller, but much more powerful when it comes to getting its way, and it was Britain. The British Empire, at its height, was the largest empire the world has ever seen, the closest our planet ever got to a single world government. Sprawling across all seven continents, it encompassed a quarter of the world's land area and a third of the world's population. The sun, literally, never set on the British Empire, it had possessions on all of the longitudes, meaning it was day, constantly, at some part of the Empire, or the other. Its navy was larger than the next two most powerful navies combined, and it ruled the seas, unchallenged, and was the global policeman for more than two centuries. Established as the most formidable colonial power by the turn of the eighteenth century, after the Spanish War of Succession, it continued to rule the world till 1945, from whence our hero of the story, the United States took over.
Why I'm delivering this eulogy for a dead superpower is that, the US can learn from its mistakes. The funny part is, the British Empire made almost no mistakes in its heyday. It chose the right alliances, made the right enemies, it never bit off more than what it could chew. Even then, it collapsed and collapse it did, rapidly. It decolonised rapidly, something it did more than willingly, for, as it turns out, in some twisted kind of way, the Disraeli school of thought was right all along, something which they themselves didn't believe, as they thought Empire was purely for profit and power projection, the flimsy reason given to civilise the world was just an eyewash, and they knew it, at least they thought they did. But by the fifties, the colonies were proving to be too burdensome to carry, and was discovered it had always been so as it got more out of free trade with the Americas than the crown colonies of Africa, India being the only exception. This meant, they could get on the high horse, and at the same time, unload some of the weight on their shoulders. Getting back to the point, even during the peak of hegemony, Britain never resorted to such outright bullying, even on its worst enemies. It relied more on its soft power, economic clout and vast currency reserves to get its way about. In fact, many allies resented the fact that Britain wasn't belligerent enough, especially during the run up of events during the First World War. If she had been more willing to fight, Germany would have thought twice before openly supporting Austria in its case against the Slavic nations, and things wouldn't have steamrolled into a state of total war. What I'm trying to convey here is that, there's much wisdom in most of what Britain did in its tenure as superpower and America would do well to emulate its parent.
The reason Britain never exactly faded into oblivion, and still holds considerable influence on the international chess-board can be attributed to the fact that it never rubbed in the fact that it could annihilate the entire continent if it wanted to, when it could. It never doled away ultimatums like free food to nations, nor did it wait with bombs on its doorstep whenever things didn't go smoothly. They appreciated the power held through negotiation. Even today, many British veterans in Afghanistan constantly brood over the fact that their American counterparts are completely alien to the concept of dialogue. It's like an adolescent with superpowers, only too eager to show it off. It was quaintly amusing when it was a new superpower, but now it is maddening to see such vulgar display of military might, overkill in most situations and used only to intimidate other nations into compliance. If we thought George Bush's incessant war-mongering was annoying, his successor's efforts at peace-mongering are even more irksome. At least Bush was only a thorn in the flesh of fundamentalists and tyrannical despots; Obama seems to be cosying up to them, annoying old allies in the process. Actually his policy of complete back flip on one's friends began even before he assumed office, with a foolish statement entailing how he considered Britain no different than America's numerous other allies and the relationship they possessed was nothing special. Whatever the stance's relation to reality, saying it was most tactless of the would be American President. I don’t know what he hoped to achieve by that statement, but I gather it was an effort on his part to look the exact opposite of Bush, anti-Bush, if you will. But he must understand that one can't please everyone simultaneously all the time, a grave mistake politicians make very frequently.
As to the little Japanese goof up, America could've been more considerate, open to their views and respectful towards their sentiments. But what they ended up doing was consulting the menu for Obama's dinner (apparently salmonella and caviar are more important in diplomacy than listening to one's ally) while the Prime Minister presented his case on the American military base in Japan, and further went to the extent of calling him 'loopy', a statement made worse by the fact that the Japanese didn't really understand how offensive the word was, and nations in these situations quickly assume the worst (In this case, however, I can't see it getting any worse). After lobbying for a one to one with the President for more than a week, a brusque twenty minute session with a man not even looking at your face when you talk is not what he'd have had in mind. Nevertheless, what's done being done; the Foreign Ministry didn't even take the trouble of entering into damage control mode, leaving the Japanese quite cool with the Americans. Another instance of such callous insensitivity was when the First Family paid a state visit to Buckingham Palace and Mrs. Obama not observing protocol by hugging the Queen, something her own husband is not supposed to do on a state affair. The Prime Minister gifted him a pen-stand, carved out of the wood from HMS Gannet, a ship that served anti-slavery operations off the coast of Africa, a very thoughtful gift, one might say, while the President returned the gesture with a collection of Star-Trek CDs, unplayable anywhere except in American players. As inappropriate as a state gift that was, the least he could do was to make sure it wasn't completely useless.
Anyway, not that a nation can be judged for distributing Star-Trek DVDs, I'm sure there are better ways to make one's allies know that they mean something to them. Even half a century ago, the way it handled the Suez crisis was most dishonourable, considering the fact that Churchill could've easily done the same to the US during the Korean War, Britain held considerable Dollar reserves at that time and flooding all its possessions would've collapsed the Dollar; and showed Eisenhower's deep Anglophobic tendencies. Its invasion of Grenada was even more disgraceful, something the entire UN condemned as a flagrant breach of international law. The same holds for the 2003 Iraq invasion, at least it had one ally to support its claim in that case. All I'm saying is that, the USA need not bow down to any 'inferior' power, but the least it can do is to not demand the sovereignty of their allies. It won't stay up there for long, and its current policies will make sure that when it falls, it will fall hard.

42

Religion is quite a belligerent field, from the irrationally attention-mongering moral police of the Hindu extremists to the anti-western jihadists waging a crusade against modern civilisation. Throughout history, it has been the single most cause, and effect, in some of the cases, of brutal and utterly inhuman driver of mass destruction. From the mediaeval crusades against the Arabs, the Inquisition, witch-hunts till the holocaust and even today's religious fundamentalism, religion has made a very deep impact on human society. No other cause has had so many to die for, no other cause killed so many, and I'm sure no other cause has motivated man to do this much for this long. But what I don't understand is, is it all worth it? What do you stand to gain by killing someone who doesn't believe in the same God as you do? Why do we have this insufferable urge to make people believe that we are right, no matter how assailable we sound?
These questions don't really have an answer apart from the fact that man is a self-important, self-righteous, egregious brute who can't stand the thought that he, mind you, not she, but he, is not the centre of the universe, not the apple of God's eye, not the reason the universe itself was created, no matter how resoundingly rational, reasonable and indisputable the proof for such a proposition sounds. He is charged by his God, it is completely irrelevant whether such an entity exists or not, to cleanse the world of people who don't deprecate themselves in an attempt to please the Holy Lord who shall grant boons and reward only those who grovel under His feet and immolate themselves everyday in the name of virtuous living only sustained by a promise of eternal bliss in the distant future while the rest are condemned to eternal damnation through fire and brimstone in the deep flaming bowels of hell even though He loves us all unconditionally.
As I sit and contrive that particular ridiculously long sentence, I marvel at the inconsistency of organised religion, the scriptures that urge you to sacrifice yourself for the greater good, so that you may be the martyr of an obscure cause palpated only by more obscure catechisms lost in translation and misinterpretation for thousands of years. Metaphorical expressions are pettily quoted out of context, in most cases, literally, that end up with almost no water-tight vindication, the one answer given is He can do anything and a view that such an idea is controvertible is utterly blasphemous. Why is there such rigidity? Why can't we even think about the possibility that we might be wrong about how the universe works? After all, we were more wrong in issues much smaller in scale in the past, there is no reason why human intelligence should be infallible in this case alone. There surely must exist a reason more that just your rock solid conviction that you're right and he's wrong, before you kill somebody because he follows a different faith.
Is having a concrete view on religion that really necessary to win the approval of God, if he really exists? We have no way of knowing whether He exists or not, we have no way of knowing even if He cares about what we do, even if He exists, and here we are, fighting over His favour, snivelling under his Feet, killing millions over a mere argument over how our universe actually works. Should we really pray to Him and His scriptures to win his approval? What would happen if we don't? Will He get angry because you don't fawn over Him? If He really is that petty, He doesn't deserve all the attention, if He's as magnanimous as the scriptures quote, He doesn't want all the attention. Either way, organised religion is futile, it is inconsequential whether you have a religious view or not. Even if it is not so, how qualified are we to make an assessment? How does every Tom, Dick and Harry have a religious view, something that explains how the world works, when only few hundred years back the very same people were burning other people alive on the stake for suggesting, "Hey, how would it be if the Earth were not flat, but actually spherical?", with more proof for asserting the claim than all proof that all religions can muster up to back their claim.
So the next time someone asks me what my religious views are, I shall ask them what they feel about Bosonic String Theory and whether they really believe that a tachyon exists or not. So perhaps, if everyone believed, really, really believed, that it does, may be, just may be the universe might unravel and reveal all it's twenty six dimensions to those who do, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I shall acknowledge the power of belief over the truth when that happens. Till, then, no one is entitled to an opinion over how the universe works for we're no less ignorant than any munch-happy cow that ruminates in my college over life, the universe and everything and the significance of the number 42, among other things, while at the same time, complacently sitting about, strategically blocking my way through the shortest route to my class. One can opine only when they have the faintest idea, while we try to figure that out, try not to kill anyone on your way to eternal bliss.

Idiots of Us All

I don't know about other third world refugee camps, but Trichy does not have good cinema halls. I discovered this fact a few weeks ago, when pestilential friends of mine beleaguered me into acquiescence to a ridiculous suggestion involving an air-tight claustrophobic nightmare that called itself a cinema hall and 3 Idiots, making me board a rickety bus that galloped its way across the obstruction course that connected our campus in the middle of nowhere to the ghetto of Tiruchirapalli. Ignoring the dull tipsiness that blanketed our heads, we got down the bus in front of a dilapidated pile of rubble made to resemble a building. Now that we reached the cinema hall, we arrived at the conclusion that we had little left to do other than walking in and try giving the much hyped adaptation of the stale soup of literature that Chetan Bhagat spewed into the society in the form of the written word a shot. I had the misfortune of sitting through the movie 3 Idiots, with all it's ballyhoo, lock, stock and barrel. The film, contrary to my initial expectations, was terrible, it really was. Every film is spawned by a central theme, an idea it tries to convey. In this film, it was the oppressively pungent atmosphere of an engineering college, amusingly christened, the Imperial College of Engineering. Not a very bad central idea, quite a good one and will make a brilliant movie, if only it was executed properly. It was this execution, unfortunately, that made this movie so intolerably abysmal. For starters, it was a heinous idealisation of an engineering college, with the stereotypical absent-minded professor who is also, incidentally, a ruthless jerk, running the place. Ironically, he was the only lovable character in a world of over-acting self-righteous pin heads the movie seems to be a part of. The other characters were just around to nod their heads to the all perfect Aamir Khan, who has it all figured that education is all about getting drunk and marking territory in teachers' houses, feline style, and if the professor gets angry because a drunken idiot is passing water in his hallway, he's a tyrant. Besides such fallacies and moral inconsistencies, the film has little to offer apart from Aamir Khan ranting on about why he's right and everyone else is wrong. The humour, something I've heard is rib-tickling, is actually stale, recycled and let's face it, it's simply not funny if you know the punchline even before it is crassly delivered by first-rate actors who for some unseen reason chose to parody themselves instead. The acting was a celebration of mediocrity; an unfortunate turn of events because even after a star studded cast and a sky high budget, wooden expressions on Aamir Khan's face is not the expected outcome. All he ever did was act like he was on dope, with a floating far away expression on his face, something to make Orlando Bloom proud. Most of the scenes were awfully artificial, it was almost like the director got his actors sloshed, let the cameras roll and simply hoped for the best. The script was shoddy, unplanned and plot twists included in the last minute for convenience were jarringly apparent. The ending was as far-fetched as Bollywood could make it and it was insulting to the viewer's intelligence that those scenes were actually intended to be taken seriously. At the end of the day, the film was unfinished, half-baked and incomplete, it was an idea that would have been more appealing if left an idea. Frankly, aall was not vell.

Art

I was pondering the other day, what exactly is art? Is it the depiction, in any chosen medium, of any moment? An idea? Perhaps it is the act of palpating whatever the artist was inspired from? We will never have a concrete idea of what exactly art is. It is a hydra, whose nine heads grow into nine more heads every time one head is cut off. It is constant, it is ever changing, it evolves with the human mind, it is tangible because it is abstract. It is the most incomprehensible achievement of mankind, where a world of energy is put into something completely unnecessary, at least from an evolutionary point of view. It is not needed for survival, yet how did it become what it is today? It has grown with mankind, it has personalities of it's own; personalities shaped and chiselled by minds, millions of them, into what pleases something so mundane and physical as the senses we possess. Be it the subtle notes of Lacrimosa that melts a stone to tears or the magnetic attraction of the Mona Lisa, virtually nothing, in it's basest form, and somehow fascinates the human imagination into seeing a woman smile; just a very normal day-to-day affair, a mere smile, and it has captured millions of eyes, hearts and most importantly, the enigmatic fascination and attraction of brilliant minds. We try to make sense of the world around us. We can't live without this marvellous trait, so necessary for survival, that we have it hard-wired into our brains. This is simply the only way in which we can see our surroundings; we need the world to make sense, we want order, a pattern we can relate to, a pattern that we need to find, or invent, the case is purely subjective, and applaud ourselves for looking at things that never possibly are. We crave the satisfaction of understanding or recognising something as familiar; we bask in the happiness of the known, one of the prime reasons for this particular habit of the human race. So, a mere sheet of canvas with organic pigment dabbed on it strategically finds itself ogled at by thousands who never seem to get enough of it because it resembles something we know, something like a woman smile, a scenery of lush wilderness, a sight that invokes feelings of tranquility in us. This is art. It can never be explained in a sentence. The more we try to define this, the more abstract it gets. It is an institution that relies solely on how one can look at things. It is the only aspect if the human mind where everyone is right, everyone is wrong. It encompasses everyting our mind can conjure, a fully formed kinesthetic in one's own head to the most intangible swirl of colours that show nothing and yet make you feel the subject inside you rather than show. We have made art grow with us, from the simple cave drawings to today's impressionist abstractism, art matured under the nurturing care of the human mind. It blossomed, grew into a butterfly but never cocooned, it was always on the upper trend, purely because we call it upper trend. Art has no direction, no depictions of the woolly mammoth in the caves of Europe are bested by the Last Supper, considered the pinnacle of refined, "civilised" renaissance art. We call ourselves as most evolved, we call an oddly shaped rock aesthetic; we are, because the world is, which in turn is because we are. Similarly art is, because we are, we are because world is, art is because world is and we are because art is. Art can never exist on it's own, it needs us, we need art, as it is the only medium of interaction with our environment. But then, it is only in our head that we communicate with our universe. Objectively, the universe is nothing but fragments of a one-time explosion, we, nothing but a mere accident. But through the lenses of art, we see a different world, a world that nurtures us, cherishes our existence, where we matter, where we are not just insignificant clots of space junk stuck in a moderate planet. This is because we see ourselves that way. This is the way we create art, that is the way we are created. We adore ourselves, we need art to adore ourselves, we adoreart. We are art.

The Lost Book

I inflicted a certain book by a certain author upon yours truly. Said book was The Lost Symbol by the lost Dan Brown. I understand completely that he has done lots of research before writing a piece of fiction as fit to hold water as Labsman Filter Paper TM, whose review is under serious consideration and may feature in consequent posts, but frankly, I'd be more delighted reading those research papers as they were, rather than reading it with a bunch of colourless characters appended as footnotes, shamelessly parading themselves openly inviting Mexican-born Hollywood directors to make a flimsier movie out of it. The book pans out to a five hundred odd pages, every chapter ending with cliched cliff-hangers that made no sense, much like the science that backed his research. The plot revolves around the unrealistic Robert Langdon, a Harvard symbologist who's perfect in everyway, thank you very much. He's a stud, with eidetic memory, a perfect physique, a deep rich voice and is also (Drum roll), a professor(Tada! Applause). Give him a pair of wings and X-Ray vision and voila, Superman's second cousin stepped out of his closet and is out to save the world from evil villains trying to take over the world with the help of a pyramid and objects of similar consequence. The other characters are equally idealised, and I've noticed this with every single book of his, there's always a female, single, eligible and voluptuous, (did I mention superhumanly qualified in their respective fields?) and always around Langdon, dewy and wide-eyed, as he lectures her on abstract symbols and answering questions no one asked. The plot in itself is tiringly predictable, with Langdon and his trusted femme-fatale side-kick running from the security agency of whichever country they step on, an old trusted friend of Langdon thrown in to answer a bunch of more questions and also briefly provide sanctuary for these fugitives even though the charges against them make no sense. The whole running from the government routine, I trust, is a cheap ploy to make the story seem racy and fast-paced. It was interesting in the first book, little so in the second, and downright annoying now. One can't hope to come up with a new novel by just changing the locations and the names of the bad guys. The only change between his previous works involving Langdon and this one is that there's no insane plot twist at the end that would make you go rolling your eyes saying, "Not again". Anyway, Brown delves in the world of the Freemasons, a deeply secretive and childish little club that no one cares about, other than deluded conspiracy theorists who love glorifying small tunneling mammals to mountains. The book also dabbles with Noetic science, as mainstream as alchemy and astrology, among other things. It also talks about providing concrete answers to the most fundamental of questions that have plagued humanity since he started walking upright, ending the book providing vague metaphorical references and rhetoric, something we already know.(Hello? 42 is more definite an answer to life, the universe and everything). I don't blame him for not knowing the ultimate truth, but the least he can do is not jump around claiming to know everything.(By the way, if the secret answer is coded so well that only the best and the brightest can decipher, how did Dan Brown do it?). In the end, The Lost Symbol is just literary evangelism trying earnestly to portray religion as a scientific method, fooling no one whose I.Q is greater than that of a dying jellyfish. On the whole, it's just another hollywood style suspense thriller manufactured by people whose only talent is cheap showmanship aimed at wooing the obese, gullible Joe American.