Wins

I got First among 7 for the spoof, and jointly First among about 50 for the story.
How they?

Your eye is so big
Like of a bleeding pig
So bloodshot, so perfect
My dear.
It bulges, it quivers
It shakes and shivers
So lively, so deathly
Oh dear.

Be mine, Clementine
So fine, so fierce
Our wedding, our bedding
Will be in a hearse.
Our vows, for spouse
Will be so tender, so true
Like flesh of a child
Or infant too.

Say yes, my success
Will be to dress
You in diamonds
And guts.
My heart is yours
And yours will be mine
I’ll hold it in my hand
And squeeze it time to time.

For life, my wife
I’ll be faithful, ne’er fear
Pluck my eyes,
Tear my ears.
‘Cause once I’m taken
I’ll never be tempted
To dissect or torture
Any other.

And our children
Will be loved
More than any skeletons
Or corpse.
I’ll sing for them
Kill for them
Dance for them
Dear.


So agree
To matrimony
And happiness
Ever after.
Our lives
Be bliss
And blessed
With eerie laughter.



Yours,
E.A.Poe

Hysteria

Hysteria

Why me? Why now?

It was so perfect in all the rehearsals. I did it day and night. I put all I could into it. Oh, why? why? Why?!

No, wait. It’s okay. I can do this. I was born to do this. I am good at this; no … I am the best at this. I Am the Best at this. Just calm down and think. I’ve done this just about a zillion times, so it must be there somewhere. Now think.

But how can I think like this? Why have they made it so damn tough? Turn those lights down, please. They are blinding me. They don’t let me see clearly. It’s like the sun, it hurts. And it’s so hot, so very hot. At least a hundred degrees, here, now. At least a hundred. The room is shimmering. It’s moving. Its closing in. It’s squeezing me, it wont let me breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Deep breaths. Calm down its okay. There’s time. But, how much time? It time enough? Is it enough?

And them? They who are waiting for me. What about them? Are they here to cheer me or censure me? One slip and I’ve lost them. In fact, I’ve lost everything. But, that cant be. What off everything else? Will everything come to nothing? Will something like this ruin everything? Everything>? But, that’s not fair. And I wont let that happen. I wont.

Ha. I can’t even see them. They should be nothing to me, and I – everything. But, that’s not so. I’ve sold myself to them. I see nothing but them. I stand before them, judged by them, ridiculed by them, castrated by them, cheered on by them. Loved by them.

Make love to them …

No, what is the line? In fact, what Is the line? Isn’t it nothing? It surely isn’t, it must be something at last. Or why else would it be? But, surely it isn’t everything. Surely. It isn’t. It mustn’t be. Yes, definitely not, not everything. Not everything. Everything. Thing. Thing. Think … think … think …

Think.

Take it step-by-step. Ease into it. Slowly. Remember the rehearsals. All those times I stood alone in front of the mirror, holding the script. Barking out those words. Think of those words. Think. They will come. They have to come. What was it? Something not something. Something not something. Something not something. These are the climactic lines, these lines mean everything. These are the simplest words. The sweetest words. The strictest words. They obeyed me then, why wont they come to me now? Wretched line, what was it? Something not something. Let me try saying it in my mind.

___ not ___
___ not ___
Something not something.

Oh wait. Something not to something. Yes. Yes. To or not to. Oh, yes! To be or not to be. That’s it. Yes. Its come. That’s the answer. Yes. Yes! Gad damn it, why did I forget? How did I forget? Yes. It’s mine now.

And I don’t think they realized. They didn’t realize. It's not been long. They would still be on the last line I just said. They couldn’t see me. I recovered quickly. Not more than half-a-second. They are just waiting for my line, not judging it. But, its come now. Its mine. And now I will speak it, the most important line. The best line. Wait and see them when I speak it. For it they will love me. For it they will. For it.

“To be or not to be,
That is the question.”

Suggestions Solicited

My brother recently was invited to view my blog. He says the titles of my blogs are confusing as they aren’t associated with the rest of it. And here I thought I was ‘thinking out of the box’.

So, in view of such a development I request any other such constructive criticism to be put forward. Mucho gracias.

Who likes Steve Vai?

The Bus Dropped Me Far From My House, Because The Route Was Blocked, Apparently.

I wrote an existential piece today. I am so proud of being able to say something like that. I wrote an existential piece today. Hah!

I participated in the creative writing event of my Dept fest today. I hope I win. There was something different today, I wrote with consciousness of what I was writing. What I mean is that I knew the power and effect of my words and sentences, and constructed sentences and used words for specific powers and effects. Quite an existential experience itself …

Am I saying existential too often?

John Players is the principal sponsor of the fest, and unenlightened people thought he was some dapper teacher or writer who was to grace our fest. I tells ya…!!! These old ‘uns today.

Penguin is also sponsoring and so they had set up a small stall as well. I purchased Satyajit Ray’s ‘Speaking on Films’ for 200, which is 75 less that cost price. What percentage is that? 75/275*100 is 15/55*100 or 3/11*100 or 27% approx. Not bad at all!!! Better than the darn book fair at least. I want to get the complete works of Samuel Beckett also, don’t know if I will, or even if I should (I have great propensity to splurge senselessly on books). That was about 6 pounds…is 480 rupees…73% of which would come to 4.8*73…365 approx…whatsay? A savings of 115. worth it?

I will post the piece when I can, and I would greatly appreciate constructive criticism on it. Much obliged.

Why do Outlook and India Today both have cover stories on Sex Surveys?

So what does one think of my first ever film review?

Watched a movie before and since Belle du Jour – Ju Dao and Chungking Express. Both nice, not extraordinary. Ju Dao was about complex/incestuous family relationships, and Chungking Express seemed to me (I didn’t watch it completely or with much concentration) to be about jaded lives, and glimpses of life in life.

The dvd of Chungking Express had some talking by Quentin Tarantino, which was quite unexpected. He was not at all the new-age cool that I thought he would be. He spoke sense, no doubt, but a bit goofy in his expressions et al.

I was supposed to watch Charme Discret de la Bourgeoisie (Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie) today, but the screening was cancelled. It is another Luis Bunuel film, and later one, which won the best foreign film oscar in 1972. It is surrealistic, with dream-within-dream sequences, biting satire and much (black) humour. This is from reviews I read off the net yesterday.

Its been raining quite a lot these past couple of days here. It would be equal to what we’ve had through the rest of this year. And I took my car to college today, and man, I don’t know if its cause of the rains, but what a lot of potholes and bumpy stretches. And so many trees have fallen, its sad. Right in front of my classroom is a tree which hasn’t fallen but is bent down to the ground almost and it looks so sad. Do not be surprised, I am strange in my affection for inanimate objects. Excuse me.

Belle du Jour (1967) Dir. Luis Bunuel

Power and sex – heady and central in this film. Rather, I should say, sex is central; power operates through different people, in different ways, but always in conjunction with sex.

Nothing short of surprising, when one realizes that the sweet, gentile Severine is a masochist. She has been abused as a child, the perpetrator dies, and the dual guilt of her fallen nature and that she might have caused the man’s death makes her consume a kind of desire to be used. She feels she is filthy and wants filth, FILTH. Wants to be called filthy names, wants filthy sex and wants to be covered with filth. I know I am getting carried away, but there’s nothing like the sequence when two people are throwing muck at her; makes you want to squeeze muck in your fist. Powerful.

She cannot perform with her husband; firstly because he is too clean to satisfy this urge in her, moreover she has a sense of guilt, guilt that he is too good for her. So power structures are incoherent and mighty confusing – she is masochist and desires the usual BDSM and he does not dominate her enough, assert his power enough for her to be attracted. But he makes her guilty, guilty that he is so good, while she is so bad, guilty that he goes into a wheelchair, while she goes to a whorehouse. So her sense of guilt is his source of power then.

She finds fulfillment in the whorehouse where she is slapped and pushed and whipped. And finally her ultimate fulfillment comes from the man Marcel, who is an assassin and a hired criminal, who is the ultimate figure of a sadist in the movie. But his obsession with her breaks her joined world when he breaks into her home and then also shoots down her husband. Yet this is not so significant an event by itself, except that her husband is hereafter paralysed and she is his only support.

This film is definitely one of the most understandable of Luis Bunuel’s films, although I got it all wrong to begin with. It deals with many levels of sexual relations and as Bunuel said in his autobiography it is about “exposing bourgeois sexual perversions”. Every man in this film has in the past or present been a client at brothels. How blasé they are about it too.

Well touché to the film. Its definitely very provocative, although rather fun/funny, and incisive. One would suggest Jean Genet’s play ‘The Balcony’ to further delve into the sexual fantasies and reality-illusion, sex-power, power-life binaries that one sees in this film.

Some Endorsement With Roles Reversed and the Smaller Player Vouching For the Bigger Playah

He's good. Check out his blog on earning money.
journeytowealth.blogspot.com

My Brother Sold Some Shares

I’m happy. I’m vengeful (refer bitchy section of my profile). So I am pleased that someone I vehemently dislike has messed up. No details about what, when, when etc. Suffice it to say, such moments when people get their just desserts don’t come along very often. Dunno about Mogambo, but I khush hua.

Hey guys, make me study. I have 2 months till CAT and I’m not studying at all…why am I so self-destructive? Moreover, stupid speed post hasn’t given me any record of my application having reached IIM-L. I sent it out on Monday and it has to reach by tomorrow, Friday. Hope it does, or else it’s a major, major, MAJOR problem. It must have right? Oh please have reached.

Now I’m not happy.