MARCH 2010
FACULTY OF LITERALLY OUTLANDISH PRACTICES A magazine for freethinkers, mavericks and laughingstocks
Editorial We would like to speak about two things here. One an enterprising initiative that we have undertaken and the other, a supernatural event that took place at FLOP that will hopefully transform journalism in this country. After the rip-roaring idiotic success of 3 idiots, thanks duly to glut of idiots in our country, we have initiated an ambitious research project that mandates your participation for its success. The name of the project is called 1001 idiots (or One Thousand and One Idiots), for we believe that all the idiot-cum-humans of the world can be boxed into these many types. An entertaining fantasy would be woven around the peculiarities of each idiot. Our goal is to ensure that this collection of stories dethrones the enchanting One Thousand and One Nights (known in the Occident as The Arabian Nights) as the crowning glory of the literary canon of the Orient. The first four idiots to enter this esteemed list are, without any surprise, the 3 idiots and the author of the 3 idiots. The fifth idiot is called the filibusterer. It (our research has shown that a four-legged donkey has more common sense than these two-legged idiots and hence we are using the neuter pronoun) is typically found in the Parliament. It is commonly caught snoring and would occasionally awake to say, “I have an objection”, and then go to sleep. The sixth idiot is called the Pedestrian Donkey. No, it is not the four-legged animal that is found on the pavement but the two-legged human that walks on the road when there are neat and tidy pavements available for the purpose. How does one spot this rare idiot? We would say, “They are not rare. They are everywhere. These majestic herds of idiots can be regularly spotted walking on the road alongside the respectable owners of four legs who would be using the pavement.” As you can see, there are many stories that remain to be written. So please write to us a story of a peculiar idiot that you have encountered. Our experts would then collate and categorize them. The complete collection will be published on www.1001idiots.com. You, needless to say, would get the credit for discovering the idiot.
gOOgle e y e swami
Now to the supernatural event. It happened when our adventurous photographer ventured into the thick forest in Southern Gujarat to study life of a new class of highly venomous tiger-eating spiders. According to the Government spin, these spiders were widely believed to have consumed the tigers transforming a tiger-lush jungle to a Zero Tiger Reserve. In a violent turn of events, one of the spiders infiltrated the camera of our beleaguered photographer and overnight, it acquired miraculous flying skills. We aptly gave it the appellation of Spidercam. It spins into the slimy nooks and crannies of the world and takes gory and filthy photos. These photos are published in an exclusive online magazine called The Grisly Gossamer (www.thegrislygossamer.com), the cobweb of gore and gossip. Owing to boundless gossip, we have established a special breeding farm to reproduce these spidercams.
As you can understand, these spidercams are redefining sting operations. Our first sensational scoop is the repulsive footage of the disgraced golfing superstar in the rehabilitation clinic. The pictures show him in coition with the lady nightingales of the clinic in Buddhist poses. We then sent a couple of these cams into the homes of the chief male editor of one of the top news channels of times now and the chief female editor of the capital channel of our country. To our alarm, the pictures reveal the chief male editor has breasts and his balls were missing and the chief female editor has balls and her chest is shy of milk containers. So watch out for the Spidercams and if you want to get into The Grisly Gossamer, do something really stupid before them. We have also started selling personalised spidercams on the website to those who want to become artistic photographers in matter of seconds. It comes with a state-of-the-art GPS. All you have to do is input the location. The cam will fly to the location and return to you with comprehensive coverage. You don’t have to move an inch from your couch. You can also provide simple instructions using keywords. For example, spy and girlfriend. It is an instruction to the cam to spy on one’s girlfriend. Thousands of these cams have been sold like hotcakes in the last few days. Numerous photography groups such as Photographers at Punanipur and Photographers at Pimprey have sprouted in the cities and are posing grave threat to the real photographers.
CPU spider human porn porn
cigarette holder
head
mp3 player flip to use keyboard
(Pepper spray holder comes as add-on in F-666 model)
LCD Screen (In-built Bitch TV Connection)
and this one was amusing. as each layer, each tired layer, melted, peeled or slipped off, the reflections
Strip Tease
on the aging mirror had stories to tell and lullabies to sing to ears that were too well-versed in human conversation. These are our stories. Stories that we don’t talk about. Stories that are easily ignored. Easier ignored. These are the stories about the times when every other story is done with. Manners left aside, friendships forgotten, favours misunderstood. Behind closed doors we are all different people. Behind closed doors we all know more… or think we do. Behind closed doors we do more with this knowledge which we scream out is so worthless in the ‘real world’. Here we know that this smile is not a smile, this tear not a tear, this scream...well... These words are just as empty as we are. We know about blood and tears and sweat and pain. We know that it was not from fingernails that we got scratch marks on us. We know the sharp objects from the dangerous ones. We know how to use the pointy edge of a paper cutter on our own wrist to make someone else bleed. We can make our own meanings and our own outcomes. We are the only heroes. Our carefully constructed images crumble as we stand in front of the speckled mirror and undress. On the other side of the mirror, the stories are different. And too far away to hear clearly. It only takes a minute to put that image to sleep and wander off into the distance with ourselves. We can give this indifference a new name. Call it something else and mellow its jagged edges. We can then float into the slumber of a child oblivious to the shadows sharing the bed with us.
Remya Sasindran
She and I She is your conventional dusky Indian beauty in a land of surplus where nothing is out of reach. She can cook. She can take twenty different tubes of food stuff from the supermarket that is two blocks away, empty them into a bowl, mix the concoction, put it in a plate, religiously garnish it with shredded parmesan, and serve it to you with an impeccable, perhaps practiced, diasporic, expectant look; to which you can say nothing but ‘Oh! It’s lovely/wonderful’ when the insides of your stomach are screaming ‘Oh no! Not this plastic trash again.’ She then proudly informs you that she doesn’t eat anything besides what she cooks at home since everything outside is so ‘processed’.
She has one and only one obsession in her life now. Her boyfriend Juan! Every other obsession, she picked up en route to her life with him. He sells the white stuff. Initially he didn’t let her touch it but she soon found her way to it. It wasn’t difficult in the land of surplus anyway. Before he knew it they were both ardent admirers of ‘gear’, the only difference was he liked ‘drip’ and she didn’t. ‘Call me old-fashioned’ she says ‘but digging your nose and then collecting and swallowing the white stuff mixed with nose boogie isn’t a girl’s cup of tea’.
I do judge her when she’s not around. I do think of her all the time. On the surface I say, I’m searching for moments that she and I have shared where she has shown depth. I’m trying to find that person in her, whom I can respect. But I’m beginning to feel that I don’t want to respect her. I think I just want to be around her because she makes me feel better about myself.
She seems empty. But has her moments when the emptiness gets clouded by ingenuity.
I’ve only just met her. I’ve only just found out that she is a cleaning lady. But I still can’t look into her eyes directly. What does that say about me? Perhaps tried the white stuff … They say it makes you feel like you can do ‘anything’. Perhaps then I could look directly into her eyes and find out who she really is. But do I need to find out? No. Do I want to? Yes.
She seems empty. But has her moments when the emptiness gets clouded by ingenuity. Everything is disorganised, is in shambles in her own house. In other people’s houses she is called ‘a cleaning lady’. She keeps this aspect of her life from anyone new she meets. Sooner or later, they find out and begin to think less of her. She knows this process of metamorphosis; can see the change in the way they look at her. As soon as they find out, they start looking directly into her eyes, emboldened by the idea that she is used to taking orders. Before that they look at her a bit nervously, for she is beautiful with her long hazel eyes, big fringed forehead, her thin lips, and amicably moisturized skin. That’s why she doesn’t have too many friends; she knows she will lose them before even finding them properly, profoundly. She does have fleeting friends. They somehow cannot find it in their hearts to believe that she is being truthful about the fact that she has a degree in environmental chemistry or that she has studied classical piano for eight of her thirtytwo odd years.
Shruti Sharma
I’ve been feeling pretty empty myself lately. But I strongly believe I can never be as empty as her. And my clouds of ingenuity are much denser than hers. I’ve been jotting down things about her in my diary. I keep the diary locked when I’m in the house, even if she’s not. What is it about her? I think she is evil. I think there is something very sinister about her. Her presence smells putrid. Last night she shouted at me. It came out of nowhere. She told me I was being lax about the cleaning, and that I’d left the kitchen messy. I was completely taken by surprise. How could she be so strong? She is just a cleaning lady, an accidental academic, and an uninspired musician, nothing more … nothing less. Each time I see her I can taste bland, sweet, processed tomato soup. Tomato soup isn’t supposed to taste like that. The other day we made a desperate attempt at socializing together, mutually, for her boyfriend and my sibling; they are friends. She wore an outfit fit for a club, just to go to the pub at the end of the road. The nerve! I tried to make conversation with her but only when my sibling was around. I asked her if she knew of any interesting places I could visit since it was my first time in the city. She looked at me emptily. There was a bit of powder around her nose.
Normally one would tell the other person if they had the white stuff on their face in public, so that person could clean themselves up. That was the polite thing to do. No one wanted trouble. But I didn’t tell her. “Go to the big wheel” she said coldly, so coldly that she looked blue. ‘The most touristy spot on the whole freaking planet’, I thought to myself, ‘who does she think I am?’ Later my sibling asked me if she and I had spoken about interesting stuff. I looked at my sibling sternly and said “The dimwit thinks I am as dumb as her”. My sibling disappointedly said, “Please, just make an effort, we are living in their house, they’re doing a lot for us. Please just … just be a little social, I’m not asking for too much”. Sell-out! Juan is a DJ as well. He plays decent music I wasn’t jumping with joy tonight, it was all right. He plays here every Saturday night. It’s a club. Could this place be any smaller? There’s only one toilet! Only one! For men and for women, and they all use it for one thing and one thing only. No, not to empty their bowels! There’s a proper table and everything in there! Everyone who comes out of the toilet is usually cleaning their noses. A black man just came and hugged me; he was my sibling’s and her friend. He pressed something into my hand. She looked me directly in the eyes. The nerve!.
Then she took my other hand and led me to the toilet. We had to wait outside a long time; there were many people in there. Once it was empty she took me inside. She gave me a little bump on the end of a credit card. I didn’t know how to snort it so I clumsily dropped it. She scolded me again! The nerve!
I am not interested in the white stuff anymore. It’s just another thing I am not good at. I can see myself in the mirror. I am doing that really poignant thing where you look into the mirror and ask your splitting image, ‘Who are you?’ ‘Who are you really?’ ‘Do you know this person you’re looking at?’ ‘Do you condone her actions?’ ‘Are you her?’ ‘Is she you?’
Then it was her turn. She took a lot … in comparison to what she had given me and what I had dropped.
She is now lying on the ground, and shaking a lot.
Then it was her turn. She took a lot … in comparison to what she had given me and what I had dropped.
Sigh! And I was hoping I would finally get a chance to look her directly in the eyes …
Our Hero : Temptations
Our hero, a 5 year old boy is fair Has seen apples fall without interest Has also noticed the blur at high speed With equal indifference Has even heard his father talk about theory of relativity And at this age, with all this baggage, he finds himself overburdened. So our hero, who will be 6 in some time, decides to concentrate on chocolates. Chocolates, his uncle, his favourite uncle, says are the darkest temptation since Cleopatra. Our hero has heard of her a number of times, always in the same context. Cleopatra, according to our hero, is the darkest temptation after chocolates. He had also heard of Octavius Caesar from somewhere, but couldn’t remember the name as it was too long. He remembered what chocolates were called though. They could be eaten, one could allude as a justification, but for a five year old let us assume no justifications are needed. And then he did remember what context the name, Octavius Caesar was mentioned in. It was at a cafe when his uncle was having a mix of dark chocolate with some flavour of coffee and mentioned how chocolate was almost killed by the strong coffee just like Octavius Caesar had tried to kill Cleopatra. It was one of the instances when our hero heard of the name, Cleopatra, one more time. He went back to his pastry, which had some flavour of chocolate. And now according to our hero, a strong coffee is the strongest thing after Octavius Caesar and also according to him strong things kill temptations. But one thing he’s confused about, how then, strong temptations don’t kill themselves!
Santosh Dwivedi
Happy Valentine's Day
My girlfriend had a colorful top central incisor in her mouth. It was green after gravy-laden dinners. Brown after eating chocolates. Blue the rest of the time. Truly speaking, it was disgusting to look at. The horrible tooth of the matter is she boasted about it. So on The Valentine's Day morning, I punched her in the mouth. She dropped unconscious. The tooth fell out bathed in blood. It danced on the floor for a while and drew a bloody middle finger to me. When she came to her senses, I presented her a diamond ring and wished her A Happy Valentine's Day. Then I told her I buried the tooth next to her favorite plant in the garden. She was overcome with joy. She then chewed the meat and the beets that I had prepared with exceptional elan.
Boffin
I still: suspended gravity where blackwhite life dies I flow: liquid glass no mold of my own design I rise: ivory rage Destruction, after all, comes full circle. Flick wick. Stark dark. Warm storm.
Mukta Patil
Ice-block God
Shield heavy, so sword supports A weary warrior Blood soaked So earth smells Of victory But if it were so The dust would carry Least of his own shadow And harshness of his swipe Through the thick misty air As he’d recall The last words spoken And heard And one such word Today shivering lay And read Ashes. He read My Ashes.
Santosh Dwivedi
Shivering
Door
the sketch i did today was a mere reminder that I could and so it finished was as it started shadows bore witness to the light there is beyond the door left ajar and aching for decisiveness so when I drew some lines I drew for if nothing else that i could offer in the name of what i asked for the door one way or the other
Santosh Dwivedi
mine for the keeping.
Borderline part 3 Tell me, what is the wisdom in running away from an armed man? Stop screaming now… . With great relish he landed a kick on the man’s side. Holding his victim’s injured leg he dragged the screaming man inside a room. As he sat down on his chair he noticed for the first time that the man was foaming at his mouth and quivering on the floor like a man in convulsions. His eyes were open wide in horror. He wiped the sweat on his brow and rubbed his jaw, the old timer had still a lot of spunk left in him, though he had clipped him hard on his jaw. As he lit a cigarette and scratched his forehead with the nozzle of his revolver he asked, “So, tell me. What is the similarity between you and the man who has his brains in his ass?” He sucked in the toxic fumes and breathed out, “They both get royally screwed doctor”. It was not always like this, but then the cancer became the epicentre of my life. Life always takes you strange places, places so breath taking or horrific that you forget to breathe. I am a “Boderliner”, a freak, last gift the cancer left me. Yes there are things that go bump in the night; I guess I am a person who just “ b u m p s
back”. I see the dead, they see me. We interact; one can say we have a symbiotic relationship. Time for another surprise boys and girls, remember how I was cursed? Well that left a mark. Every living thing has a soul, now as I am a human I can only feed off a human soul, not bats, though that would be fun. The dead are here in our world for they have unfinished business, if I help them resolve their issues, they ‘fade into the gloom’. The residual energy that is left behind is my bread and butter, that is what is keeping me alive. I roam from place to place searching for lost ones, victims of accidents or murders, children of unfinished business. Before you judge me, I am no rover, I do not prey on other folks’ misery, I just ease them. Everything in life has a price and as I provide a service I do charge a fee. Energy cannot be created or destroyed; it just changes form, from one to another. When conversion of energy takes place, loss is inevitable, the dissipated “fairy” dust is what I live on, after the gloom consumes the spirit it spews out dust which is life sustaining for me. I just assist in the process of dissipation; whatever I find in the path to their nirvana I s
I haunt old train stations, highways, grave yards and battle fields, the more recent the deceased… more life force can I extract out of the dust.. I am not making bones about it, I need it to survive, not much to it, never asked this nightmare to twist and mould my reality in its own image. I am a creature of my surroundings, a man trying to make a living. There is a fine line between professionalism and becoming too involved, I am not a philosopher, but more the things change, the more they remain the same, the more you get involved in the world of horrors, I inhabit you, slowly you lose your sanity, so you have to walk a very fine line. Life was a black and white canvas before torrential rains created a slimy grey mess. I know this is not a bad dream, they do not trouble the “awakned” ones, my dreams are just full of screaming lost souls, do not know what the place is, do not even want to know. Hell has many levels or that is what is said to us, most of us cannot fathom what lies in those realms, where no light has ever penetrated, where the cold grips at a man’s heart and saps away all will. If that is where most of us are headed after we die what is even the use of this life? A coin always has two sides, for brief moments I have witnessed clarity.I have seen a strand of shimmering light tear into the fabric of our world and gently guide away lost souls. But it is rarely so. The kind of life you lead and the kind of death you had, lingers in your immediate after life. The world that you wake up in will contain the horrors, hopes, desires and fears that made up your life and death, most spirits recreate their moment of death over and over, an infinite loop which goes on, in most cases till most of the energy fades away into the gloom or is dust. I do not harvest souls, its just that on I am on top of them on the food chain. But its not always easy picking, sometimes the dead do not lie down quietly, violent spirits or stubborn people prevent releases of earth bound souls. Those are the cases I stay away from. As I mentioned before, a fine line I have to walk, sanity is
something I hold on to by a hair strand, anyway. The night is my cloak, or is it my shroud? Rhetorical questions have become my life, not something one should be really proud of. It’s still a pack of lucky strikes for me, and two pints of o’l jack for me to help me get through the day. I can usually make out where an earth bound sprit lies, kind of like a magnet drawn to iron. Profiteer or savoir I do not know, just need to stay alive, I read old stories, follow obituaries, and follow ghost sittings from all over the country in my quest for survival. Desire is a powerful force, more often than not a spirit will stay behind because of unfulfilled desires. We are generally running for our life, literally since the moment we are born. We are just rabbits being led by the proverbial carrot. Even in death this delusion of grandeur does not leave them. They still think they control the reality they are trapped in, all just cogs in a machine which was never meant to be perfect by God. A monster is made , not born, I am no better than a vampire, wonder if I even had a soul or has it already faded into the gloom all those years ago. There are times when I wished that I never saw what I did, and there are times I truly feel humbled… sometimes even confused. I wish I could have done something for her. The reality that she maintained around herself, despite how she had met her end made me question many things at many different levels. she was only fifteen when her life was cut shot by a man she had known for almost all her life. Do not remember clearly how I tracked her and the other little girls down, maybe it was the large ditch beside the road which attracted me, or maybe she summoned me there. At first the images that filtered through were fragmented and confusing; they hit me like a strong right hook. It left me groggy and I lost control of my car. My head was ringing from the bashing it received, it would though cost far less than the damage done by the ditch to the car. The images came back this time stronger and louder jarring me; the feeling was familiar
like those very first few times I witnessed the gloom. Painful, nauseating and very chaotic. The images and the darkness made things hard to see, my confused senses didn’t pick up anything. Even the gloom was suddenly flooded with white noise. I went down on my knees and puked out my dinner. I am sure the warm night didn’t hear my pleas and cries for help. It was still dark when I woke up. The taste of my bile and the nauseating feeling was still there but I could sit up. In front of me stood a little girl, she was dressed as if it was cold. High gloves, a cap, warm woollen jackets and high heels, I was sure she was a spirit, but I did not find a trace of violence on her. She had the most beautiful brown eyes; somehow I managed to get on my knees. I reached for my hip flask and took a swig; the taste of bile was a bit too much. She shone dully in the black, patting myself all over I lit a cigarette, took me sometime to gather my wits. A few swigs and drags later, my jagged nerves were soothed, a light wind had picked up, it made me realise something sticky was running down my forehead, hopefully not a deep cut. Scratching my head I looked at the spirit’s face. She looked scared, a bit hurt. No manifestation of bruises or any apparent violence… could have been a road accident, a broken spine, but those apparitions usually look grotesque with broken spines and dislocated shoulders. They have open sores on them and have a confused gait, usually lashing out at any entity which gets too close to them. She didn’t look older than 15. Instinctively I felt like comforting her, but who she was dragged me back to reality. She had summoned me, she needed something from me, inhaling my last drag, I flipped the cigarette. “Tell me? What’s your story darling?” she simply smiled, and reached for my forehead with her fragile hand. “I was once very young, so young I used to think the world is made up just of my house and the yard that lay in front. I remember my father. He was a hard working man, an outsider who had to make do in foreign lands. My
grandmother used to hold me close at nights and tell me stories”. I was expecting her reality to be a watery grave or a burning wreck, I thought I would see her writhing in agony, lashing out, screaming for help. Her reality was made of a room, with a bed in it. The room had a single big French window and a table in the corner of the room laden with books and a small almirah…that was all it had. The room had no door, which was strange; I saw her lift her hand, and a warm blanket covered her. She looked at me and smiled. “Do not worry, my friends will be joining me soon, we need your help, beyond these walls lies our tormentor, the keeper of the place, it prevents us from vanishing into the gloom”. The room was warm, and I felt no sores on me. The girl was manipulating her reality, maybe she was feeding off the other entities inhabiting this place. She let out a small giggle, as I noticed her crooked teeth, and pointed towards the wall behind me, three more little girls, as old as my summer appeared.
When I opened my eyes, we were in the ditch. I could smell the cool air and the heat made me slowly sweat again. “Dig here; I want my mother to know” it was a command but it did not sound like one.” Voices of the other girls filtered through their reality, my summoner started to walk deeper into what appeared to be corn fields. The field was freshly harvested. It was late in the year, the weather was sweltering .I wished it would rain, the hurt came back with the heat. Reaching inside my jacket I put a cigarette to my lips. Before lighting it, I took out my pick axe and shovel from the boot of my car. What was about to happen did not appear to be pretty. I tied my kerchief around my face, she must have died recently to have so much power over her reality, but the clothes she wore appeared to be at least a decade old. I staggered behind her, this was rough business, I have more scars on me than Woods had affairs, something else I am not proud of. Why can they not summon me normally at times? Even the dead have to be dramatic!
“My name is Ala, we need your help. When father left, mother was heart broken, my sister and I were taken care of by my grandmother but when she died in her sleep, mother broke down completely. She had to be sent to the asylum at the end of our town and as no relatives would take us in we were sent to a state run orphanage… the house mistress there was vile, she hurt us and stole all the things that was sent to us. She was fat from all the chocolates and cakes she ate and from the money she stole. But she was nothing compared to her husband, he was the one who would come to hurt us at night, he would beat us and lock us in dark rooms.” The room itself began to change, the sunlight faded and the window welcomed in cool moonshine. “They hurt us, made us work and made us do things”, said the girls in unison. “All we wanted to do was to get out, for that he buried us, they buried us alive” their voices became louder, it became suddenly a shrill a sharp cry in unison. I closed my eyes so as to not witness the bright transformation of these little angles.
We walked for a short distance and she stopped dead, it was odd, there was no fresh mound, the grave she was in must be old. “My silver anklet, I want you to give it back to him” her eyes suddenly lit up with pure hate” I want him to see what he has done”. I removed my jacket and rolled up my sleeves. I dug where she pointed, for sometime, and then my spade hit metal. The spectre in front of me was visibly in pain. “Tried to run, tried to run”. I felt suddenly a cool blast assaulting my face; I was running breathless, and scared. Was failing, I could hear the roar of an engine behind me. I picked up my pace, I was running for my life, sharp barks from dogs running through the snow filled me with more dread, I could see the edge of the field but then….. I felt strangely naked and clammy. My breathing laboured, couldn’t see anything. Felt raw all over. Bites and scratches greeted me as I traced my skin. I closed my eyes as I felt a gash over my breast.
I found myself in the foetal position; I was shivering, though it was a warm night. The apparition in front of me was gone; in front of me lay its “dust”. I hastily crawled towards her mortal remains. I collected carefully her mortal remains; I slowly gathered it all in a vile and just took a small bit of it and consumed it. Her memories were at first silent pictures just flipping away fast, with every picture it became a bit faster, it gathered fantastic pace and noise and some how made its presence felt. I felt odd, floating; an all so familiar feeling slowly drifted me in and out of consciousness. It was a strange black limbo filled with tears and laughter with smiles and warm sunshine, home cooked food with black, bleak winters and cold, hungry stomachs. It was a strange ecstasy which spread like a sweet fragrance all over me. Sweet, sweet girl, you have suffered much. Hush now.. let me hold and calm you down, let me calm you down. Do not cry, you are safe, hold my hand. It is only dark, nothing to be scared of. It is scared of you as well, like a small animal. Hush now, come let me hold you. Let me lay you down and stroke your hair, kiss your ears and tell you I will protect you, I will be our sentinel. Waking up, feeling the strands of your hairs slipping away. Do not go so soon, you simply smile and point to you wrist watch. Your smile is faint. Are you angry or sad? I woke up.. standing up; I stumbled a bit and steadied myself. It took me several long breaths to calm myself down. Turning around I walked back towards my car. I needed a weapon for what I was about to do. I needed to do this; I guess sometimes being a fence sitter isn’t what is the right thing to do. I have seen death from very close quarters, the only time you are really alive is when you are truly dead. I carried with me a present which needed to be delivered. Opening my glove box was easy, finding what I was looking for was not. It was my baby. A custom made, Colt Government Model 1911 with dual compensators, a n d e x t e n d e d
and customised grips. I called her “Vera” for victory. Behind a mountain of waste paper lay my baby, snugly wrapped in her straps of leather. I slipped on the holster and attached the small spade as well. I put the vile containing Ala’s essence inside my jacket. I lit a cigarette and started to walk towards my destination. The orphanage lay a few hundred meters off the main road, beside the farm . I could hear the dogs barking, maybe they smelt my blood. I hoped they were sleeping. Gently I unholstered my weapon and removed the safety catch. Aiming into the darkness I started to take careful steps towards the gate of the building. Vera is a loud girl, the big mutt which had tried to attack me had its stomach splattered on the ground, the other dogs whimpered and cowered away, with their tails between their legs. Even they knew not to mess around with a wounded wolf. I could hear the commotion inside the building. I broke into a small jog as I made for the main entrance. My aim was spoilt becauseI was running. I had to be very lucky to make it to the door unharmed; I put all I had into me and ran as fast as I could. The door opened but I slammed into it hard. I found myself screaming as I fired through the door, after sometime I found myself clicking at my empty gun and the groans of the person behind it fading away. I was scared of what had I done. I opened the door and was welcomed by the dead body of a fat old lady. Her mouth was open with sheer horror, her legs lay splayed obscenely, her right leg was still twitching. You go ahead and punish people, and animals get put down. Without remorse I reloaded my weapon and emptied it into the hag’s ugly face. Looking up, I found my query running down the stone hallway which lay ahead. I reloaded fast and crouched down on my knees, years of hard living didn’t make me a crack shot but this time it was personal. I peered down the sight and inhaled deeply. I am a feather floating in
the wind; watch my flight into the sun. I eased back the trigger as I let go of my breath. Vera is a loud girl. The bullet blew the man’s knee cap. He kept yelping like a dog, I felt the whole building filled with screams, both from the living and the dead, it was a loud scream which shattered the scream of the doctor. I caught hold of his leg and dragged him into a room. He was really scared, good I said to myself. Sat down beside him on my haunches and smiled at him. “Tell me doctor, what happens to a man who has his brains in his ass and he gets butt fucked?” the man looked confused. He wanted to ask something, I grabbed hold of his throat and punched his nose. He screamed, loudly for an old man. I kicked him in the nuts for safe measure and shoved the vile containing his victim into his mouth, and shut his mouth closed. A final punch was called for. He started to shake violently as Ala’s memories flooded through his very pore, the screams of her dying body and those of his other victims. “You have no choice but to take it, you bastard!!!” I wanted him to know something. It was very difficult to deal with loneliness. Do not worry, the more you fight it the worse it will be for you. Stop fighting, accept it. Do not worry. It will all be ok eventually. I drew a hex of binding around him, and left him convulsing and arching his back there. I lit a cigarette and smiled. Good deed for the day done.
Deadeye
Cry for the Cranes
The public campaign to save the tiger is gaining much-needed momentum on social networking sites and blogs. But spare a thought for the Siberian Cranes, who are now considered even more endangered than the Tiger. These cranes have stopped coming to India for close to a decade now. The last crane was observed in 2002. According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the status of the Tiger is EN (endangered). This is one slot critically lower than the status of the Siberian Crane, which is CR (critically endangered). Further neglect would push these majestic birds into EW (Extinct in the Wild) and finally into EX (Extinct). The world population is estimated to be around 3,200. The eastern population breeds in north-eastern Siberia and spends winters along the Yangtze River of China. This wintering site holds an estimated 98% of the population but is threatened by hydrological changes caused by the Three Gorges Dam and other water development projects. The sparse western population spends its winter along the southern coast of Caspian Sea in Iran and breeds near the south of the Ob River, which runs to the east of the Ural Mountains of Russia. The central populations that nest in western Siberia escape its freezing winters and fly distances of 2,500 km to come to our lands. En route, they fly over Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and then to north-western India. They halt briefly at Abi-I-Istada Lake in Afghanistan. From there, they take around eight weeks to reach Bharatpur bird sanctuary in Rajasthan where they spend the warm winters. Now they are no longer visiting us. Experts say that recent wars and poaching activities in regions like Afghanistan may have forced these magnificent birds to change their migratory path. If we want to see these tall elegant birds return to India, there are only two solutions.
Stop the war... Stop poaching...
etihw
Black a n d white
Breathless
Kalliope Amorphous
Krishnendu Saha
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Krishnendu Saha
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o p e n t h e m e
photography
Krishnendu Saha
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Shot on the block
Swadha Swadha
Dismantled
Kalliope Amorphous
Bats to the Cradle
Frog
Imke D.
street photography
Sumit Chakraborty
Territorial fight
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Krishnendu Saha
Model
Sumit Chakraborty
Flower + Hat
Claire Atkinson
Abhiruk Lahiri
Three
graphic design
Saloni Sinha
Akash Thapa
Dark Art I am coming tonight........
Khushboo Sinha
connecting figments
DROID IN PROCESS
Saloni Sinha
mother and child
Manas Halder
Saloni Sinha
The Memoirs of Lev Razgon Boffin
Writer: Lev Razgon Year of Release: 1997
Together with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Razgon was among the founders of the Memorial Society. He was a member of the Commission for Clemency created by Yeltsin that worked for the abolition of death penalty in Russia and reform of the judicial system.
unquestionable loyalty. All those suspected of a breach would be shot or thrown into gulags. There would be millions who would go to the extermination camps for no reasons or for reasons that were pure fabrications of the State. A few survived.
He died in Moscow, 8 September 1999.
Yekaterina Ivanovna was taken away too especially since Stalin had scores to settle with Kalinin, for Kalinin was an idealist. She was a long-standing revolutionary in her own right and would be accused of breaking the dreaded Soviet Criminal Code Article 58:8, Terrorism. For the greater part of her ten-year sentence, she was given the most gruelling work women could be forced to do in the camps. Fortunately, she was robust and accustomed to hard work from an early age and so she survived. Kalinin would plead Stalin to have mercy and release his wife so that they could at least be together for a time before he died. Stalin would relent during a sentimental occasion when victory was assured over Germany. He would indeed keep his promise and exactly one month after the end of the WWII, the release of Yekaterina Ivanovna was sanctioned. She however could not bring herself to go and live with her husband in Kremlin as she was frightened of accidentally bumping into Stalin. Kalinin was terminally ill when his wife’s release was secured. He would die a year later in 1946. The Queen of England would send a condolence letter to her when only a year before she was picking nits in a gulag camp. But most terrible of all were the photographs of Kalinin’s funeral, with Yekaterina Ivanovna following the coffin, with Stalin and his entire retinue walking beside her. She would bump into Stalin again. But Razgon would not have the heart to ask her about the meeting. What her feelings would have been is left to the reader to guess.
A great work in Gulag Literature
The Memoirs of Lev Razgon released during the period of Glasnost in the late 1980s is one of the Great Russian works in Gulag literature. It chronicles the eighteen years spent by Razgon in labour camps and in exile in various provincial towns and contains harrowing portraits of pro- and antiSoviet figures, jailers and executioners who feature in equal prominence along with victims. This, he explains, should not surprise us, for there were innumerable victims, and ‘to shoot a million people requires a great many executioners.’ In the end, they were all human beings to him cast in an epic human tragedy orchestrated by Joseph Djugashvili Stalin, known as the fat fingers with plump worms in a poem written by Osip Mandelstam who would be arrested and exiled in 1934 for this poem (he later perished in a transit camp). Lev Emmanuilovich Razgon was born into the family of a Jewish skilled factory worker in the province of Mogilev in Shtetl, Gorki, Belarussia on 1 April 1908. He studied history at Moscow University and on graduating, joined the Communist Party, and began his career as a journalist and writer of books for young adults. His marriage to Oksana Boky, daughter of Gleb Boky, a high ranking secret policeman in Leningrad, into one of the leading families of the new Soviet elite brought him into the higher echelons of the
Party, but Oksana’s family was among those targeted following the attempt to oust Stalin, and Razgon himself was arrested and thrown into the Soviet Gulag system in 1938 during the period of the Great Purge. He then spent the next eighteen years either in labour camps or in exile in various provincial towns. Oksana died in a transit prison on the way to a northern camp. While in the camps, he met and married his second wife, Rika (Rebecca) Berg, the daughter and leading opponent of the Bolshevik regime who had been imprisoned in the 1920s. In 1945, Razgon gets conditional release but is forbidden to return to Moscow and lives precariously in various provincial towns. In 1949, the Razgons get arrested again. Stalin dies in 1953; the Razgons were at last released when Khrushchev amnestied vast numbers of the camp populations. They were permitted to return to Moscow where he took up his former career as a writer, beginning in 1961 with a children’s book, and continuing to publish every few years in the same vein, as well as stories based on the lives of famous scientists. It was not until 1988 that he acquired widespread acclaim as a writer, when excerpts from his memoirs, Nepridumannoe (‘Not Madeup’), began appearing in Soviet journals. They were translated into English by John Crowfoot as True Stories, 1996.
The Memoirs is a beautiful work of tragedy. It is an autobiography composed of twelve short true stories written on lines similar to other works of genius, Kolyma Tales by Varlam Shalamov – another monumental work in Gulag Literature – and Periodic Table by Primo Levi – which beat The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins in some polls to become the best popular science book ever written – who was one of the first group of writers to write about the Nazi holocaust. There is a widespread opinion in literary theory that fiction is dead and that it no longer captures the stark realities of human existence. This criticism reached the crescendo after the 9-11 attacks. But does fiction have a different role to play in Literature? This book however poses a big challenge to it. There has been so much written about mass executions, terror, wrecked lives and decimated lives that may prompt the reader to consider this effort as superfluous. But Lev Razgon quotes Anna Karenina, Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, to justify his undertaking. He wrote these memoirs as an obligation to those perished in the gulags to tell their stories and a duty to posterity to tell the truth. But to the reader, each unhappy book diminishes the happiness just as John Donne would say: ‘... Any Man’s death diminishes me...’ It increases his cynicism and it leads him to question the morals of humanity. The first story is about Yekaterina Ivanovna, the wife of the Head of State and President of Soviet Union, Mikhail Kalinin. Razgon would not know, until a chance encounter, that one of the prisoners at his Ustvymlag base camp in Vozhael is the President’s wife. When he comes to know, he feels crushed at the vision of her working in the wash-house at the base camp, carefully scraping nits from the grey, newly washed, prison-issue long johns with a piece of glass. Stalin during the Great Purge made his henchmen arrest close relatives of the Communist Party and government officials and Red Army leadership. There was only a single quality that mattered to him. It was
The second story is about Niyazov, one of the executioners. Razgon would meet hundreds of people who had been through the prisons and camps, and read dozens of books, both memoirs and historical studies but none of them could tell him how so many people have been murdered. He wanted to know how they did it. We know how the Nazis carried out their killings – rounding up people, taking them away, dug the mass graves, gassed or shot them and then destroyed the bodies. But how did the killers in gulags do their work? Niyazov would be the person who would supply the answers. From the conversations with him, Razgon
crunches the numbers. The special operation at Bikin where Niyazov operated existed for almost three years. Excluding the holidays, weekends, it functioned for a total of 770 days. Every morning on each of those days, four trucks would set out from the Bikin compound for the Distant Hill. Six people in each truck, a total of 24. It took 25-30 minutes to reach the waiting pit already dug for them. They clambered down, clung together and then shot. As soon as the executioners left, the pit would be filled and a new one dug for the next day. This special operation disposed of 15000 to 18000 people during its existence. These operations would function regularly and efficiently, filling the ready-made pits with bodies – in the hills of the Far East, in the Siberian forests... Thousands of unnamed graves, in which lie mingled the bones of hundreds of thousands of victims, are now overgrown by bushes, thick luxuriant grass, and young new forest. The executions differed in one respect from the Germans; the men and women would be buried separately. The story ‘Military Men’ refers to his generation, which he calls the dashing of one’s ideals. A generation when he would before his very eyes see gods die, those gods whom they had created. In A Play With A Happy Ending, he enlists the help of the great Russian actress, Korchagina-Alexandrovskaya, to free Pavel, one of the drivers at Camp No. 1 in Ustvymlag. Pavel was thrown into the camp for five years for agitation. The true reason was his casual remark in a pub against the actress that how she who was on her last legs would be fit for political work. One of his companions would inform on him and he was thrown into the camp system three days later. When Korchagina-Alexandrovskaya comes to know that a person and a family is suffering for a casual remark, which she thinks is probably right, she uses all her influence to free Pavel. She and Razgon succeed. The story about Mikhail Sergeevich Roshchakovsky is about two men who had known power and were close to ruling circles. Two conflicting portraits, one of Roshchakovsky who is preparing himself for the formation of the Great Russian State and the other rusticated and leading a happy contented life as a peasant in the forests of Crimea. Roshchakovsky was a convinced
monarchist,
nationalist and anti-Semite unlike Razgon who is a communist, internationalist and a Jew. They become good friends in Camp No.1. Roshchakovsky was arrested in 1937 and was given five years as a Socially Dangerous Element. He thinks Stalin has been heaven sent to restore Russia to its former glory. He believes that Stalin is building a Great Russian nation-state. The second portrait is of Vladimir Fyodorovich Dzhunkovsky, who was considered the most handsome general in the Tsar’s retinue and who had an open affair with the Grand Duchess Elisaveta Fyodorovna, the Tsarita’s sister. Ten years earlier in 1928 when Razgon was twenty and leader of a Young Pioneer Camp, he would go for a holiday in Batiliman in Crimea. There he would meet an old man who would supply them daily with a large basket full of tomatoes, aubergine, bottles of young wine and cheese. Then during one of the walks in the mountains around the Laspi inlet, due to the thick covering of the Juniper trees, they would lose their way only to find a clearing, quite free of all undergrowth. There they would meet this old man tying up bunches of grapes. He would introduce himself as Vladimir Fyodorovich Dzhunkovsky, the once governor-general of Moscow. When the February Revolution broke out, he was asked to resign because of his links with the former Tsar’s family. He left for the Crimea where he owned a small estate and would observe all the great events that shook Russia as a spectator. When the Soviet regime became firmly established, he thought it improper to remain on his former estate and took a job as a lighthouseman and would everyday light in the kerosene lamp in the small lighthouse at Sarych standing on the edge of Laspi Inlet, close to Tesseli. As a former tsarist office-holder he was now deprived of this job and would decide to become a peasant. He rented some abandoned land in the middle of the Crimea nature reserve, cleared it and planted melons and vegetables, and restored the wild vineyard. Dzhunkovsky says that there is only one way to end your days with dignity: try to stay healthy so as to be as little of a burden to others as possible. Old men must not lament the past, they have already taken from life all they can, the good and the bad. Let the young organise their own lives. Each article of the Soviet gulag criminal code is an abbreviation of plain letters. To be marked SVE, a Socially Harmful Element, denoted a common criminal
offence and it was handed out to criminals, those who had infringed the passport regulations, prostitutes, petty thieves and rapists. These were, in o ff i c i a l t e r m i n o l o g y, ‘ s o c i a l l y acceptable’ persons. Camp instructions stated that only they would be appointed to the administration and services or as office workers and specialists. To be classified SOE, a Socially Dangerous Element, meant you were a political offender. Next in severity came KRA and ASA, Counter-Revolutionary Agitation and Anti-Soviet Agitation. Then came KRD, an entire series of Counter-Revolutionary Activities. Sometimes the letter T was slipped in, meaning Terrorist activities, KRTD. People with that code were, as a rule, only sent out on escorted gang labour and never allowed to work in services or the office. Sometimes an additional T is added, making this not just terrorist but Trotskyist Terrorist Activities, KRTTD. Such people were held in punitive camps under special supervision and in some places they were simply shot when orders came from Moscow to deal more firmly with Trotskyists. One of the commonest charges, PSh, Suspicion of Espionage, was given to majority of engineers, technicians and other specialists. All those who had ever lived abroad, who had relatives or knew people in other countries, were sentenced for this offense. The women’s category ChSIR, Member of a Traitor’s Family, was clearer and more definite and officially legalised the arrest, conviction and imprisonment of those who were innocent even under Soviet laws. To begin with, all the ChSIR’s were concentrated in the vast Temnikovsk camp, without the right to correspondence or to use their professional training in their work. Only two or three years later would they be moved on to ordinary camps where they could write and receive letters.
The heartrending tale of Boris and Gleb is about two brothers, practically young boys, who are thrown into Camp No.1 at Ustvymlag. They were b o r n I n t h e Moravian provincial town of Ostrava in the newly founded state of Czechoslovakia. Whatever the reason, Czechoslovakia seemed a part of the old Russia to the Russian émigrés. They set up schools and lycees there. There was a cult of everything Russian. Just when Boris was about to enter the university, catastrophe would strike Czechoslovakia in 1938. It would become a mere bargaining chip in the attempts of France and Britain to appease Hitler. The Munich pact handed over a part of the country and he took over the rest when the war began. Their father would join the defensists to defend Russia when Germany invaded Russia on 22 June 1941 but one night he would be killed accidentally by a patrol. The brothers would be left to fend for themselves and they would do so by selling the possessions. Their one childish dream was to make their way into Russia and join the Red Army. Boris would then think of enrolling at a German spy school, learn all their secrets, and be dropped behind the Russian front lines; then they would immediately report to the Soviet military authorities, tell them everything and ask to be enrolled as volunteers in the Russian Army. A typical children’s adventure tale. All went according to plan, they parachuted into Russia and they would reach the Russian counterintelligence. They were cross-examined by Soviet officers, and each time of a higher rank. They were well-fed, given better clothes and promised that they could enrol at the Soviet officers’ training college and would reach Moscow. There they were taken off the train, put into a closed truck and driven straight to prison where they would be sentenced to ten years in the camps for offences committed under articles o f a
Soviet Criminal Code. Just before Razgon was transferred to Camp No. 2, he would witness the most tragic death of Gleb crushed by a falling tree. Boris who was over-protective of his brother would fail to protect Gleb this time. Razgon would never meet Boris again. Gleb would never see the bell tower of Ivan the Great in Moscow. In all these stories, you get a glimpse of the harshest working conditions, for example, when Razgon says that work would halt only when it is -50C and the woods where he would work to chop trees would have flowers with no scent and they would never hear a single songbird.
an accurate prognosis of the Palestine problem. He would say, ‘British and other Europeans will never let go of Palestine (though they eventually did). And surrounding these isolated groves that dream of becoming a real forest, there is an entire tropical jungle of Arabs who rightly consider the land to be theirs. If the Jews do manage to grab a piece of Palestine (which they subsequently do), they’ll be fighting continually. But a fighting Jew ceases to be a Jew – he becomes just as stupid and revolting as all who engage in killing. It’s not the business of the Jews.’ The great men such as Hitler and Stalin resorted to simple, efficient and reliable means to implement the solutions to their problems, be it social, political or racial. Mass murders. Tens and hundreds of thousands of naked bodies bulldozed into unmarked graves o r trenches. How could one not feel hatred? And so Razgon, in a rare loss of temper in his memoirs, would say, “Curse them, these great men. I can do nothing to them and they can do anything they please with me. Apart from one thing, that is. None of these Alexanders and Napoleans, these Stalins and Hitlers, can make me feel the slightest respect for them, let alone love them. No one can alter my contempt for them. Let those who admire such men do their arse-licking in articles, studies and novels. For me they will always be shit.”
The chapter about Strangers is about the large batches of foreigners who joined the camps from Moldovia, Bukovina and the Baltic States. These territories were incorporated into the USSR and the methods for t h e methods for the liquidation of classes were extended to them. The men were transported to the camps and sentenced by arbitrary and rapid decrees of the local troika to five, eight or ten years for the same abbreviated offences: SOE, KRA, KRD and PSh. The women, children and the old men were sent off into exile to Siberia, Kazakhstan and other vast hostile expanses of USSR. Then the Poles flooded the camps in 1939 when Stalin and Hitler partitioned Poland for the fourth time. The new frontier drawn across the territory of the former Poland presented a choice to the many who had fled before the Nazi push to the east. Either they could return to the German Polish General Government or they could continue moving eastwards, into the limitless hinterland of Soviet Russia. Those who returned to their Poland, would not know of Hitler’s intention to implement the Final Solution, would depart two or three years later for Auschwitz and the other vast factories of death. Those who remained in USSR escaped this horrible fate. Not all of them but a majority of them, for the camps they were put into were the extermination camps. No healthiest forest worker would survive the timber-felling jobs. The discrepancy between the energy expended in work and the bread rations provided to them was so great that the healthiest forest worker was doomed to death by starvation within several months.
Razgon quotes from Antonio, the Italian anarchist, that for a prisoner, the jailer is much more important than the jail. No state institutions so reveal the character of their creator than its prisons. They were the perfect embodiment of the thoughts and emotions of the man who heads an authoritarian state, for he himself was the chief jailer. The jailers of Razgon varied greatly in rank and ability, were the clever and stupid, good and evil men, the bureaucrats and the fanatics. The chapters about Military men and Fear talk about how the most heroic and valorous men of Soviet Russia who won the war against Germany, would cringe in fear at the thought that they would be led away anytime to the gulags. It seems incredible for Razgon how these heroes of Soviet Union be shaken by fear, a fear that they would lose when they reached the camps.
In the camp with the Poles, Razgon would become friendly with a Polish Jew, Jacob Pablovich Svienticki, who owned most of the timber lands in Poland and who had a talent for arithmetic. Jacob Pablovich would give
The story 24 Kuznetsky Street is about the demolition of the building that housed the reception office of the NKVD, NKGB, MGB, KGB... the different names of the same terror organization. Before this 3-s t o r e y e d
building was used as the reception office in 1935/36, it was the home of the Political Red Cross set up by the wife of Gorky, Yekaterina Peshkova, to help political prisoners and their relatives. In 1937, this organization would be abolished and all the relatives would find themselves herded to the extermination camps. In 1990, Razgon was allowed to see the records, thin brown files one for each of his family, which convicted him and sent him and his wife Oksana to the prison camps. This file would tell him the name of his interrogator on that fateful interrogation day of 18 April 1938. When he was being taken away, Oksana would feverishly pack the warmest clothes; they would also know that they would never meet again. They would return to take Oksana and Natasha but Oksana would put up a determined fight and Natasha would be handed over to Razgon’s mother. He would read the complete official statement: Razgon, with the Boky sisters, has been actively spreading slanderous rumours about the leadership of the VKP(B) and is systematically carrying on an embittered counter-revolutionary agitation... Razgon would know the person who informed on him and his family. His interrogator would blackmail him to sign the deposition and not put up unnecessary resistance and risk his wife’s life. Oksana arrested and deprived of her much-needed medicines would die in October 1938 in a god-forsaken camp in Vogvozdino. Boky and Moskvin would confess willingly and comparatively quickly, which seems inexplicable to Razgon, to quite implausible crimes. Razgon was astonished as to why men known for their principle, courage and almost legendary bravery would openly admit to the most slanderous falsehoods. Gleb Boky would be shot on 15 November, 1937. Although the files talked of one or two interrogations at the most before the offender admitted his crimes, there were actually many interrogations by different
inquisitors and horrible tortures. The evidence of torture has been completely destroyed. This chapter would contain astonishing figures of the pogrom of Stalin. From 1 January 1935 to 22 June 1941 alone, 7 million people would be shot. The number of Russian casualties of WWII would be significantly larger. Though The Nazis who committed the mass murders would be put for trial despite their stubborn defence arguments that they were under orders, the executioners, jailers, interrogators in Soviet Russia would remain unnamed and proved impossible to locate. How true it is when Roshchakovsky says that one of the traits as Russians, is that they forget quickly! He thinks it is a great and positive quality. Executions are rapidly forgotten as everything else. All the henchmen of Stalin such as Yezhov, Beria, Malenkov, Molotov, Bulganin would be executed but the greatest mass murderer of all, Stalin, died a natural death. Razgon can’t accept and digest this fact. He does not want to be overpowered by a degrading desire for revenge, but he can’t accept the fact that the man who murdered and tormented millions of adults, old people, women and children died a natural death. Somebody up there who looks over us all has astonishingly failed to deliver justice.
Tears, tears tears! Sentiments, sentiments, sentiments! Runaway bride, wedding crashers, drunken revelries! They form the core too and there is plenty of it too.
3 Idiots
A forgettable farce It was a fitting New Year’s Eve prank that my tennis lads played on me. I thought they bought tickets for Avatar. So I go in and sit comfortably and wait for the certificate of Avatar. But 3 idiots shows up. I look at my ticket disappointed. Not because I was dying to see Avatar. They register the shock on my face and would make fun of me in the days to come. I like people taking the Mickey out of me. That was to be the highpoint of the evening though. 3 idiots is definitely the best Bollywood film of the year. That is by Bollywood standards. I don’t know what those standards are. I don’t think they are any. If you are a film connoisseur, then it is a waste of time. If you are out for vegetative mindless fun, then it provides a good value for your ticket. The cinematic merit of this movie is nil. Here is one of the shortest reviews of all time: first half is farce, second half is fulsomely farce. Now 3 idiots is already on Wikipedia and YouTube. The movie is stated to be based on student life in dream institutes of engineering in India and is adapted from the book Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat. He complained that he was expecting an opening credit but there was none. The movie makers and he should be lined up and shot. 3 idiots is about three idiots, Rancho, Farhan and Raju. But it is a flawed title. When you read the title, you would expect something like Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest. But it turns out to be Cool, Cooler and Coolest. Two of the idiots, Farhan and Raju, are conformist. One is very religious and conservative and hails from a very poor family. His father is paralysed and he has a younger sister
There are many suicides in the movie, one explicitly shown. That of a PhD student. True, PhDs are notoriously hard to get at the dream institutes. The suicide of the head professor’s son because he was not allowed to do what he liked; the unsuccessful suicide of one of the idiots when he was asked to betray the coolest idiot. Yes, these suicides are realistic. There were a few during my time. But they did not happen because the life in the dream institutes was a stifling unconquerable grind. Those few who took their lives were already messed up before they got there. The preparation for the entrance was so arduous that it cracked them up. You see the students are not forced to do anything in the dream institutes. Drinking is banned but one can beat the system easily. This is done with impunity. You are not forced to lead a life of a conformist. But the whole system is somehow to be blamed. You have got four years to shape your personality. Few do it wonderfully well while many completely botch it.
who he should marry off. So he is already loaded with problems. The other is an outstanding wildlife photographer who yields to his father’s wishes to study engineering. These are very realistic representations and reflect the harsh realities of majority of the students. The most unbelievable role though is that of the third idiot played by Aamir Khan. He is the coolest idiot, infinitely cooler than Rajnikanth. He is so cool that he can deliver babies on the table tennis table when the whole world around him has stopped functioning and has ground to a halt. And he can speak to babies in the womb. There is a cringing scene when he says All is Well (supposedly the catchphrase of the movie) and the baby kicks in the womb. I think the kick is probably meant for this idiot. In the ragging scene where he is introduced, he ridicules his senior coolly and coolly gets away with it. How realistic is this? Let me tell you what is realistic. One of us was made to masturbate and apply the semen as face lotion. That is how ghoulish it can get. And here we are having a laugh at the semi-naked unfit bodies. This is gross voyeurism and a horrendous reproduction of a dreadful malpractice.
So in the whole movie, I was looking for idiots. There are plenty, the fiancé of size-zero-girl, the head professor, and the real Rancho played by Javed Jaffrey. The head professor is portrayed as the most villainous idiot of the movie. At the start, he gives some startling statistics, which we are used to. Four lakhs write the entrance for Imperial College of Engineering but only 200 make it. He says welcome to the cut-throat competitive world. What competitive world? That is typical frog-in-the-well mentality. You are competing amongst yourselves but not the best in the world. One never sees more than 20 to 30 students in the movie except during the horrible speech by Chatur, the bookworm. His address is tampered where chamatkar is changed to balatkar. The cinema hall rocks with laughter. I grovel in my seat. The video of his speech is now the most popular on Internet for Indians. How low have we fallen! C’mon director, Johnny English was only recently made. What about Pink Panther series? Why not study Sacha Baren Cohen’s output of the decade? His is an impeccable study of idiocy. The boundaries of humour are constantly being blurred and pushed abroad. And here we are doing the same terrible thing over and over again. We are laughing at it again and again. It seems we are going round in circles. There is no real progress. Comedy is like Bhangra, something that has not evolved in this part of the world.
The campus looks very congested and one gets no idea of its layout. This is in appalling contrast to the campuses of the dream institutes, which are considered to be the best in the country. All you see is the hostel and a classroom. If you are making a movie about student life, you should build the milieu and atmosphere properly. The room of the head professor is probably the most magnificent. And you have songs. What is the need for songs? No, My Dear Ignoramus, they are the core of Bollywood m o v i e s.
The acting and the picturesque locales of Ladakh and Manali are probably the highlights. This movie is a must for photographers. Aamir Khan is supposed to look cool and he does it well. A piece of cake for a veteran, you would think, but is it tough to act if you want to look cool? In fact, he has become so stereotypical that you go to his movies to watch the performances of others. His sidekicks, R. Madhavan and Sharman Joshi, steal the show. Boman Irani gives a superb performance as the head professor (or is he the director?). The sizezero-girl is very attractive in many scenes, especially when she gets drunk. They all deliver. But do they salvage a sinking ship?
There is nothing original about this movie. In fact, if you dissect it scene and scene, finding the original would make a dream study for a movie detective specializing in detecting and rooting out plagiarism. Many scenes are copied from Cinema Paradiso, Amelie, and Shawshank Redemption (where the jailor listens to Italian opera in his room). In fact, Rancho is Amelie in a way. The episode where Rancho and Farhan steal exam papers for Raju is a copy from the classic episode A Test of Character of British sitcom, Porridge, where Fletch played by Ronnie Barker steals Godber's exam papers to help him pass his history O' level. Porridge is an institution in UK and has been blatantly copied. How long are we going to copy the West? Can't we be creative and innovative for once? However, the CV of the great Khan is replete with plagiarism. This movie taints it further. His Joh Jeeta Wohi Sikander is a shoddy remake of Dennis Quaid’s Breaking Away and his Ghulam is a laughable retelling of Marlon Brando’s On The Waterfront. The English counterparts are classics and such movies are not made anymore. The Khan’s remakes are a mockery and should not be allowed to be made anymore. You see the problem is this. The message that is conveyed is that the teaching methods in our dream institutes are archaic and that the professors are not good enough to produce top-rate talents who go on to achieve great things such as Mr. Wangdu – I am not calling him Dr. Wangdu because being philanthropic with degrees, he would give away the degree anyway – who would produce hundreds of patents at a very young age. Is it not funny that a master scientist such as Wangdu is shy of kissing because he thinks the noses would come in the way? Not that he has the nose of Cyrano De Bergerac or Pinocchio. Should he be forgiven for thinking that people kiss with noses? Nostril to nostril? Hair locking and snot mingling? What farce? The complaint is that professors don’t develop the art of critical thinking and analysis in the students. That the life in dream institutes is a race. That nobody has the time to take a breather, step back and introspect. Who told the students not to take it easy? The problem is that philosophy courses are not taught in engineering. Though some blame can be put on professors, the students that come to the dream institutes are more to blame. Professors will teach what they are asked to teach. Some do it well, some get through it somehow. One of my professors once said, “You think you are the cream of the
Director:Rajkumar Hirani Cast:Aamir Khan, R. Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, Kareena Kapoor, Boman Irani Genre: Comedy Release Year: 2010 Running Time: 170 mins
country. I think you are morons.” It is a very reasonable remark. For decades, he has seen students time and again falling prey to peer pressure and following the herd. He has seen students who would spend four years of valuable time at a considerable expense of the government but would desert their field and go into computers. The reality is this; all my classmates from civil engineering excepting for one have changed to computers. Year 2333 AD, Earth becomes a planet of slaves to aliens on Pandora. The aliens can’t scratch their backs, can’t clean their noses, and can’t wipe their arses. They need earthlings. The dream institutes would breed super slaves who would accomplish these cleansing acts providing the greatest alien satisfaction.
For most of the students who come to the dream institutes, the entry is an end in itself. Their careers are assured. They don’t have to work hard. All the hard work has been done getting in. Now they can relax. They don’t know that now the real work starts. That now the real suffering starts. To put simply, these dream institutes can never produce great men because the boys that go there are not good enough. They never grow into men who achieve big things; they grow to be part of name-less identity-less soul-destroying herds. I always thought writing a review of a well-made movie is the most difficult thing to do. Writing a review of a shambolic movie is equally tougher. You don’t know where to start and what to bitch about because the whole exercise is a brothel of bitches.
India Tea Logo : An Obituary Tempest in a teapot
When I see a human being, I feel like hitting him in the face. It is so pleasant to hit a person in the face! I sit at home in my room doing nothing. Somebody drops in to see me. He knocks on the door. I say, “come in.” He comes in and says, “Hello. How nice that I caught you at home.” I bang him in the face and then kick him in the crotch. My guest falls down in terrible pain. I kick him in the eye with the heel of my shoe. People shouldn’t loiter around when nobody asked them to come in. Or another way. I offer the guest a cup of tea. The guest accepts, sits down at the table, drinks the tea, and talks about something. I act as if I am listening to him with great interest, nod my head, ooh and aah, raise my eyes in surprise, and laugh. The guest, flattered by the attention I am paying to him, lets himself go more and more. I calmly fill his cup with boiling water and splash the water in the guest’s face. The guest jumps up and holds his face. I say to him: “I don’t have any more kind feelings in my heart. Get out!” I throw out my guest. - Kind Feelings by Daniil Kharms
Our 34-year old India Tea logo, containing a lady in B&W shouldering a wicker-basket of three tea leaves, will be laid to rest soon. According to one leading tea merchant exporter from India, it is outdated and does not say much about Indian tea. Above all, a lady carrying a burden on her back has some negative connotations, which need to be removed. The Union minister of state for commerce has set up a task force to improve the brand image of Indian Tea. One of its tasks is to design a brand new logo sporting a contemporary look.
But a bitter brouhaha is brewing over its superannuation. This move to retire the loyal servant of Indian Tea has thrown open an acrimonious debate. While a section of the industry feels that the current logo does not visually exemplify Indian tea, there are others who feel that the logo, which has become synonymous with Indian tea and accepted by world markets for over three decades, should not be completely changed. There are neutral parties who feel that this whole affair is just a storm in a tea cup. They say that the logo is not of much importance in export markets since in international markets, buyers go by garden mark, name of the tea producer and the name of the merchant exporter. Our FM is his Union Budget address has skirted this sensitive issue altogether. The Tea Board of India is however worried about different set of problems plaguing our tea industry, which are modernisation, financing and stagnant exports to key markets. The old age of our tea logo is not the only problem. There is the issue of falling productivity because of old age of tea bushes in India, for which a Special Purpose Tea Fund was setup. There have been many amusing suggestions for the new logo. Since the Sri Lankans use their national animal, a lion, in their logo brandishing a sword, we too should use our national animal, the endangered Tiger, but sipping tea sitting with its legs crossed on a sofa to suggest coolness and sophistication. This would also promote immensely the cause to save our tigers. If we wish to dramatically improve the beauty of the logo, we can have both our national animal and our national bird, the peacock flourishing its extravagant iridescent plumage, sipping tea and discussing world politics. Or show a tea party with equal number of men and women teatotalers, to signify that our country is egalitarian, swigging tea in curvy glasses. If we can want to send a message of social integration and zero tolerance towards racism, show a Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and a Christian exchanging pleasantries over tea. Some say that there should be a futuristic theme highlighting the scientific achievements of our country. In one such theme, a family is sipping tea on a picnic laid on the surface of moon. In another, the aliens of Pandora are so much in love with our brew that they allow us to use their lands for tea plantations and rice irrigation. Instead of coming to our beaches to bathe in the sizzling sun to get the tan that their women find so irresistible, they have tea and become brown like us instantly. We must admit that these are teasing times for the search for the ideal logo and we must not miss it for all the tea in China.
Save The Wine Indian wine is in crisis. Of Maharashtra’s 58 wineries, 32 are feeling the heat; they have either folded or stopped producing due to the glut in the market. Nearly 20 lakh litres of wines, which amounts to 25% of India’s total production, are lying unsold. Many factors have been cited to explain the downturn. To start with, part of the blame for this crisis is placed squarely on the state, which poured out incentives a little too lavishly. The slew of concessions included zero excise, no stamp duty and registration and land at subsidized rates. Last October, just ahead of the state Assembly elections, the Congress-NCP government topped up its largesse by reducing VAT to 4% from 25%. These subsidies triggered unrealistic growth; the low demand was unaddressed. Vintners are blaming the poor tourist traffic after the 26/11 attacks and the global slowdown as dominating causes for the crisis. But they must also accept part of the blame. Wine producing is as much a craft as it is a business, and this is where many of the winemakers lost their way. Most vintners cultivated wine grapes like table grapes maximizing output. However, wine requires the opposite approach, with meticulous culling of grapes to pick the best for the wine making. The grape pickers must not just be ordinary farmers but experts. Thus, most of the vineyards ended up producing poor wine, which had no chance in the export market, and even fell short in the developing domestic market.
So how can we save the wine? There is a simple mantra, which is to increase the per-capita consumption. France and Italy have an average wine consumption of around 60-70 litres per person a year while it’s 25 litres in the USA, 20 litres in Australia and 4 litres in China, whereas in India it’s just an appalling 4-5 ml per person per year. To increase the consumption, education is important. The health benefits must be belaboured. Drinking moderate quantities of wine is proven to be good for health as it has naturally occurring antioxidants and helps in alleviating afflictions of pancreatic, cardiac and are no souvenirs or certificates given to the wine tasters at the end. We suggest the vintners take a tour to the St. James’s Gate Brewery, Guinness Storehouse in Dublin. It is, not surprisingly, Ireland’s No.1 international tourist attraction and one of Europe’s top tourist destinations. Guinness, unquestionably, is the unquestion= gastric nature apart from enhancing blood circulation, decreasing cholesterol levels and improving renal function. Although better and aggressive marketing is one option, reducing the costs can keep the loyal wine drinkers happy and trigger conversion of drinkers of traditional beverages. This business philosophy has been adopted by Heritage grape winery, the makers of Bangalore Blue local and owners of Karnataka’s biggest vineyard in Channapatna, with outstanding results. Their wines are at least 3 to 4 times cheaper than other wines. Vintners must also sex-up their wine tours to attract converts and connoisseurs. Take, for example, the wine tour of the vintner, Sula wines, who engineered the wine boom in Nashik. Their tour involves a minute’s walk to the
rim of one of their sweeping vineyards where a short lecture is given about the differences between white and red grapes and the temperatures required to grow wine grapes. The participants are not allowed to walk into the vineyards. Then follows a minute’s walk into the factory containing massive machines and white cylinders. There they huddle in one corner to listen to another short lecture. This is followed by questions and answers. Finally, comes the part which to certain extent redeems the wine tour, much like a scrumptious dessert that salvages a spoilt dinner; the participants return to the wine bar to taste the different wines. As one can understand, there is not much done to make the participants feel that they have taken a valuable tour. There are no feedback forms. Or have they stopped giving feedback forms owing to overwhelming criticism? There
-ably most popular stout in Europe, which you may say contributes primarily to huge inflows of visitors. But they have a complete floor dedicated to their television advertisements of the past and the present. Many of them have consistently reaped top advertisements awards. Is there a future for wine in our country? We think so. We are even bold enough to envisage wine spas and wine taps in households. Please don’t write to us the logistics of operating the wine taps. They are not a figment of our imagination. They exist in body and spirit in Europe. You may be curious about those 20 lakhs of litres of wine that are lying unsold and that may turn into vinegar (soon enough since Indian wines are not mature wines). For a start, the vintners can sacrifice some of that wine by placing barrels at choice locations in their vineyards with taps offering free wine. The visitor count and the conversions will dramatically improve.
Jeepers Creepers - Potatoes in the Air
Two media entertainers that were recently made have caused huge uproar here and overseas and mayhem at the box offices and in the households. The first one is a movie titled Indiana Jonas: The Quest for the Creeper Potato and is made by a foreign director. It is a science fiction fantasy where humanity on the verge of extinction due to fertility problems enlists the help of super adventurer Indiana Jonas to infiltrate the cannibals of the Bhangs in the forests of Gujarat and steal the magical creeper potatoes, and in the process also annihilating a marauding troop of born-again super-evil Nazis. The second is a reality show on an erotic channel where a couple has pav bhaji made from these voluptuous potatoes and then make passionate love for days. These entertainers are inspired by a real-life wonder potato popularly called the Jain potato. It has a high content of Diosgenin, a natural steroid that, when extracted and used, can work as an aphrodisiac. Since Jains don’t eat root vegetables such as potatoes, onions, roots and tubers, because tiny life forms are injured when the plant is pulled up and because the bulb is seen as a living being since it is able to sprout, they have come up with an alternative. A potato that grows aboveground on a creeper. A wonder hybrid that is a product of an ingenious technique of grafting of a potato onto a grape vine. The tribals of Bhangs are known to produce and consume this potato without any knowledge of advanced botanical methods. The Jain potato has significantly more protein than those grown underground. It also contains less starch and calories but the same amount of fibre. Its bulbs can’t be eaten raw. They must be boiled and eaten. A small quantity can give you sufficient energy to make you last a day of extreme toil. Therefore, these potatoes are recommended during fasting. They have also been incorporated into the special diet for our contingent to the approaching Olympics. Our sportspersons would be given equal helpings of these potatoes and condoms.
Is this our competitor to the Viagra of the West? The experts think so but they warn against some side effects. Having too many can cause obesity and population explosion. Now this Jain Dum Aloo is offered to couples in sex clinics and may soon become an integral part of sex therapy programs. There were cases of women giving births to twins, triplets and even quadruplets due to excessive intake of these wonder veggies. It is popularly called the Dum Aloo Effect. Also couples who have had too much (of these potatoes and then love) have complained of bulging eyeballs just like those exhibited by frogs that have been mating for days. They would absent themselves from work reporting a strange medical condition, called Frog’s Eyes.
What’s more the tourist influx to the Bhangs has increased tremendously. The tribals have complained of harassment from certain foreigners, who were calling themselves distillers from the United States of Northern America. These whites are wheedling the tribals into trading their potato skins in exchange for their women to make aphrodisiacal moonshine that would rival Viagra. The tribals were also tempted with baseball bats and burgers. Some gullible tribals fell for Jack Daniels. The forest conservation officials fear the worse, which is, these foreigners settling in the Bhangs, interbreeding with the tribals and corrupting their culture and spreading venereal diseases. So, few precautionary measures have been taken. First, special licenses are issued to select farmers and tribals to produce the potatoes that are supplied to the open market. Second, these potato farms are only open for foreign tourists who have procured special tourist passes from the state tourism department. These potatoes will be differentiated in the future by the name of the producer, the name of the farm and the libido by volume rating. The higher the libido rating, the more intense the lovemaking. A packet of these potatoes also comes with a statutory warning especially for old people with heart problem
Get a job
Issued in Public Interest
Exodus: Movement of Jah people!!
SRK vs Bob Marley
Wait!! People?? You mean fans and admirers??
MY
Nah!! Me mean the movement of Afrika, of Black people.
Yeah. Sure I have black Fans too.
Exactly. I should show my six packs more often.
Me not mean that. Open your eyes and look within.
I am the
wait a minute man. Why me talking to ya? Who are ya??
best!! Don't you know who am??
I
Wait!! Wait!! My name is Khan!! Wait....hey!! Come back...Everyone thinks therefore I AM!! If you know your history,Then you would know where you coming from, Then you wouldn't have to ask me,Who the 'eck do I think I am.