Big Sister is watching you

Found this in a restaurant loo in Worli, Mumbai.

Is it funny or gross ? I thought it was funny....

The problem is one of choice

Have you asked yourself this question :
What is my secret ticket to the big league?
You know superstardom, razzle dazzle, razzmatazz, cocktail circuit, ecstasy ensemble, cocaine cabal….
I have. And one fine day, I classified the three options available in front of me:

Alif:
¶ Write a tragic novella set in Wyoming, get it published in the New Yorker, join the New York literati circuit, sell the movie rights to a director who slept with Harvey Weinstein to get a contract and BAM. Superstardom.
This will be called for ease of referencing, the Annie Proulx-Brokeback route to fame.

Ba:
¶ I work in the energy sector, with a consulting firm. I evaluate strategic rationale for global Oil companies to arrange for coups in entities that may be loosely (but only loosely) termed third world Arab nations.
I suddenly meet a benevolent prince, a committed reformer and modernizer and become a mole. I protect him from being overthrown. I expose the greed of Pax-Americana and engage in rhetoric. I write a book, sell the story to George Clooney and establish Liberal Democrat credentials. I strengthen the same by getting fellatioed by my research assistant.
This is the Syriana route.

Djinn:
¶ Do drugs. Lots of drugs. And do it in Las Vegas. Make it well known that you have done 1-3.
Wait for Johnny Depp to call. Write a memoir of your experiences in the mean time. When he calls, go suitably ill dressed and do drugs again.
This will be called the Shantaram-Hunter Thompson route.

Know these routes well, young diletante, for they will serve you mighty well.

Letters from Montmartre

Letters from Montmartre.

By Shankar ‘MT01B025’ Swaminathan and Arun ‘NA01B003’ Srinivas.

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Dear Rufus,

I start this letter like I start most letters to you. Please send money. Cash preferred. Round about thousand quid would do very well, Thank you. Am in desperate straits.

The thing is, Rufus, I have got myself into a bit of trouble. To extricate myself from this “sea of trouble” (Shakespeare), I have urgent need of geld, gold, currency, the old babooshka. Last month, Rufus, I was tootling along the bylanes of Montmartre, when I chanced upon this truly awesome attic studio place. I went up and viddied ol’ Paris from above. It was the real Tabasco, Rufus. Gorgeousness and gorgeosity rolled into one neat painters nest. I raced to the landlord’s house below and knocky-knocked. The tightfisted blighter quoted an obscene something as down-payment. I promptly accepted. You see, Rufus, the atmosphere is all, its the absolute kernel of painterly inspiration. Small price to pay for that Toulouse-Lautrec-esque masterpiece, I told myself. In I went and cosied up to this cubby-hole, and jactaed the alea.

Its not like I have not tried, Rufus. Jove knows I have. I can only conclude that I have been plagued by that daemon of all geniuses—bally luck. I am suffering from a touch of grout and my feet are swollen badly. You know, offshoot of the gentleman’s disease. Damn, not a day has passed that I did not regret indulging me-self in the Folies-Bergere. If you ever come to Paris, Rufus Sixsmith, stay away from the Bergere and the Rouge. They are the breeders of pestilence, the modern day Satyricons. But I shall stick to the point like glue. Owing to being incapacitated by my poor physiology, I regret to say that I have been somewhat lax in my work ethic. I have not been able to scrounge out those usual frankies that I get by portrait painting those waiting in line to get into the Pompidou. Poverty, as Spinoza said has stricken me, Sixsmith. Wolves are the door, snapping their rotten jaws.

I have apprised you of my monthly misadventures. As always, I am hoping you would pitch in and rally round. Send it to my old address. My landlord throws out the mail these days.

Yours,
P.

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Dear Rufus,

My condition has vastly improved. I used up the money you sent shrewdly. I bought a series of paintings by this Finnish artist called Hoebbema. The real Mccoy, this Hoebbema. He is four and a half feet tall and paints in a tradition derived from the De Stijl school. Rene introduced me to him last week. I was captivated by his ideas and his theories about use of light as a substitute to colour to depict pith. By the end of the meal, I convinced him to part with his paintings for the princely sum that you so handily loaned me. Rene kept tattling all night, with some rot about him swindling me. Fine, I say. I have the buyer’s instinct, Rufus. This Hoebbema is going far. He is crazy enough to paint and sane enough to not ruin himself. Maybe I should learn something from him. I have gained much joy staring at those beauties by the candlelight.

My feet are now better, thanks for the concern. Don’t need a bally doctor. Doctors are the only people who swindle you. First you are ill, then they give you a pill, soon you realize you need to make a will . The fiscal position is still a bit shaky. Avoid my landlord Francois like the bubonic plague. Old geezer is cunning as a fox. Three days ago he hired this bunch of hoodlums to break into my studio. I returned and found the place devastated, much like Pompeii after that blighter Pliny took to the open spaces. The palookas took anything of value, including my pet skunk Velasquez. Must have sold him for skunk meat. I moved into Rene’s place yesterday. Its not the ideal place for an artist of delicate sensitivity like me. Her “customers” arrive at unwholesome times and keep me up with their animal grunts. I tried selling one of these shmucks my existential angst collection. He kept muttering something under his breath and promised to come back. Don’t have much hope. Frenchmen of today are lacking in finesse—the only thing they seem to be capable of doing is to reproduce like minxes (or is it minxen?).
I have started haunting the Pompidou queues like a resident scepter. There is a guard there who would rather have me begone, but I made Rene strike a deal with him. That idiot actually seems to like Rene. Sometimes I think, if I have done the sod more harm than he deserveth. But then mine is not to reason why, mine is to do and die (Tennyson). I met this English couple outside the Pompidou. I managed to market myself as an art-critique-historian and portrait artist rolled into one. Struck a package deal with them for the duration of their stay, which unfortunately expires tomorrow. The English are a pompous race, Rufus. They are charmingly oblivious to the Gaelic curse. They would rather trust a Frenchman as an art aficionado than one of their own kith. Realizing the above fact, I have cunningly named myself De-Persand. Another fact about these English women is that they fall hook, line and sinker for alleged Frenchmen. I am rather enjoying this little masquerade as a Frenchman. I rather fancy Mrs. Chesterton has taken a liking for the charming De-Persand. We have agreed to rendezvous tonight near the Rue de Renee. More on that, on the Q.T.

There is not much to look forward to this week, apart from this nocturnal tryst with the Chesterton female. Dining and wining the good Hoebbema tomorrow. I am trying to collaborate with him on a series on Nietzsche and Hesse. Keep you posted.

Yours,
P. Cavendish
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Rufus,

As Marcus Aurelius said, aught has befallen me.

News on the Hoebbema front, first. The son of belial agreed to collaborate with me on a series inspired by Hesse, particularly Steppenwolf. I can visualize these paintings, Rufus. As someone said, if they come out half as good as I think they could turn out to be, the moon will turn to blood. We have chosen the subjects, started scouting out for bleak locations, rattling along fixing models. The only hitch in the whole rigmarole is that that son of a bachelor Hoebbema insists on using Rene as a model. I tried reasoning with him that she is a modern day Jezebel, if ever there was one, wholly unsuitable for human consumption and especially painful as a model. Still, I have to give in to Hoebbema. Once the old geezer gets an idea into his egg-shaped head, it is very hard to displace him from status quo. He keeps looking up at you from his ridiculous height with a froglike expression, and makes muted grunts like a whale emerging for air. I can only hope we complete what we have started.

Ill health has been plaguing me all week. I have a hacking cough and many a night I let out tremendous yelps like a man about to leg it from this cruel world. Rene yelled at me once saying it puts off her customers in the parlour next door. I felt so weak that I even apologized. The next morning, I woke up with a terrible anger, Sixsmith. Have you seen this painting by Goya, called the Colossus? It shows a huge sinewy figure with clenched fists, face screwed up in gruesome tension presiding over a world that seems to have gone up in a billowy smoke. I wish I was that Colossus, Rufus, with the power to stomp out my misery in one fell swoop. Sometimes, when you see beauty in this world, you feel it is highly unfair and want to smite it down with the hammer of wrath. Ha, they shall then know that I am the lord. I also have avoided the light all week. Light burns me. I spent a whole night sneaking into the parlours and bars in Montmartre unscrewing lightbulbs and papering my room with canvases painted black. It is strangely soothing.

Yes, I did meet the better of the Chestertons. It turned out to be a ghastly ordeal, similar to certain versions of Chinese torture. I have never known one who was more for monopolizing the conversh. Right through the night, I was aware of a buzzing rattle, in sync with the motion of the above mentioned unspeakable’s lips. Once this flow of the soul and the feast of reason ended, I managed to accompany C to a hotel next to the Rue de Renee. I had sedated myself heavily with alcohol to plough through this night and was in no mood for a tête-à-tête with this love starved woman. I realized that unless swift steps were taken through the proper channels, the night was to become a total loss. Having maneuvered her into the corner, I nuzzled onto her neck and removed her pearl earring and necklace. I wisely pocketed the above and excused myself to the bathroom. I have often wondered, Sixsmith, as to why these French houses have huge non-grilled loo windows. Sometimes, I think we do not credit the Frenchmen enough.
I can picture your expression right now. Your lips turn up in a disapproving sneer and your spectacles have probably slid down the nose giving you a uncannily newt like appearance. Lust is one of the seven sins, Rufus. She obtaineth what she earneth.

--Percival.

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Dear Rufus,

Woe betideth and beseteth me. That half wit Hoebbema has eloped with the hideous Rene to Arles. That left me in a singularly unenviable posish, sans a place to live, sans a bloody outlet for artistic emotions, sans a livelihood, sans sanity. These philistines will not buy my Steppenwolf paintings without Hoebbema’s signature. That was why it was important to work with him, humour his whims and keep my nose in his backside.

I have peculiarly, not lapsed into depression. I find myself working with renewed vigour, developing a more turbulently expressionist style. I am listening to Strauss’s Zarathustra and am making my magnum opus based on the above and Hesse’s writing.

You may wonder about the strange postmark on this letter. Due to the copious generosity of my lamentably sane father, I am now in the St. Sebastian mental health home for the pond life of Paris. You may direct all future correspondences to this address. My efficient escritoire Marie sorts through my letters and gives me those she does not toss into the fire to warm her wintry soul.

Although I am something the cat brought in, I am not entirely unhappy in this place. My magnum occupies most of my time now, so you will excuse this short missive.
Yearning for you tragically, (Washington Irving)

Percy.
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Sixsmith,

I must decline your bountifully kind offer to visit me. Owing to my shabby exterior, I no longer receive visitors except for Hugin, the raven. He flies in through the window some mornings and I parley much with him. I sought speech with him few days ago and he, in his infinite wisdom suggested, I send you my completed ‘Howl of the Steppenwolf’, 13 ½ by 11 ½, oil on canvas triptych. I have complied with this astute advice. Kindly acknowledge receipt.

P.C

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Dear R,

I bear new tidings.

St Sebastian’s has revealed itself to be a place of manifold sins and myriad wickednesses. They have seized my stand and brush box. This extreme measure has been taken with the intention of curbing disruptive influences on my mental condition. We are put through a regimen that would bring a blush to a martial leader of Sparta. Everyday, the sharp sunlight wakes me up at sixish. We are herded to the community wash and given an ounce of soap a month to cleanse ourselves. It is by the grace of the lord, our god and the generous patrons, we are reminded everyday. We are then shut up in our wards till lunchtime. Lunch is a banquet that changes everyday of the week. Mondays, for example we are served white goo porridge. Wednesdays are especially anticipated with eager longing for the additional bread crumbs with the broth.
Grace and courtesy, the lord god and protector, of course.

We hang around in the merry premises until sundown. Sundown is when our finely educated doctors pronounce their daily verdict on our wellbeing. A few extra medicines are usually prescribed each month. My cohabitants do not mind these too much. They taste better than the food anyway. Dinner is better than lunch, with real meat of our fellow creatures blessed by the lord and prepared with care by our talented chef. All lights are turned off by nine, in a cunning bid to avoid an energy crisis. Our weekly money arrives by post from the patrons (in my case, charity trust money from my late lamented father). The administration has taken the somewhat draconian step of confiscating this too. The doctors, I suspect indulge in heady lovemaking with the hideously ugly nurses. The unspeakable Marie, I hear is much in demand. Saturdays, the admin indulges in a merry orgy of wine and dine. In short, they have set up a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah here in St Sebastian’s.

I would not mind these conditions and excesses, if I were a masochist or I were given permission to paint. Since I am expressly not the former, and am being denied the latter, you can appreciate the gravity of my situation. I have however found a kindred spirit in Jacques-Louis. He was a gardener in Cheverny before he contracted gangrene in his arms. He now lives in this hell hole on a plentiful dole from his daughter in law. Jacques-Louis is quite well read, but is a taciturn bloke. One has to induce him to speak, even on his favourite topic, which is the variation of the length of a Frenchman’s feet with geography. I have divined over the past month that people near Calais have feet which are twice as long as those near Arles. It has, I must admit resolved a great mystery and is a great weight off my mind.

Jacques-Louis, however has helped me retain my sanity. This is because of his thorough knowledge of the topography of St. Sebastian’s. He will figure as a very vital cog in my plan to escape from here. More on the plan and how it unfolded, same time, next month.

With warm regards from an icy place,
Your friend and well wisher,
Percival Cavendish.
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Dear Rufus,

Immanuel Kant once said, “The circular logic in insanity befuddled him”. I find myself in similar circs. I have been incarcerated in St. Sebastian owing to my insanity. But, it is my single greatest belief that I shall not be able to regain my sanity unless I step out of this joint. Like people caught in maelstroms of vicious and virtuous cycles, I am in the soup, being caught in the midst of a sanity cycle. “His is a strange form of insanity”, I have heard these shrinks whisper. “He seems to build imaginary worlds, only to tear them down frequently”, observed Marie the terrible once.

Come Rufus, it is time to talk of pleasanter things. Like my escape from St. Sebastian. It has been cunningly engineered by the incomparable Jacques-Louis. The salient feature of the plan is its devilish simplicity. In fact, it can be summed up in one word- Laudanum. Everyday, there comes a wagon to transport the daily rations and waste from Sebastian’s. Jacques-Louis has managed a coup by establishing contact with the character who drives this wagon. As a concession to his old age, Jacques-Louis is now made to work everyday in laundry and making up ration lists. It is but a simple matter for him to slip in a few additional personal items he wants procured. Since we work for a living, we are able to just eke out this existence.
Have you read the works of this blighter called Samuel Taylor Coleridge? It is said that the above mentioned wrote many of famous poems including this rum thing called Kubla Khan under the influence of opium. This is the essence of opium, Rufus. It helps you visualize and construct regimes and universes, where reason and order are cosily asleep. The result is charmingly, wittily beautiful. I have never known such beautiful thoughts nor have I ever realized the true majesty of the human brain before. I have started to make stone cuts and charcoal drawings on the gates and walls of St Sebastian’s. Yesterday, I made a charcoal drawing based on my interpretation of Alice in wonderland. I made a diptych on The Wind in the Willows the day before. St Sebastian’s looks like the Museum of Modern art now. Since it is so difficult to be imprisoned by life, I have decided to affect the great escape. My weapon is my imagination, which I brandish like a saber.

The world forgot by the world’s forgotten.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. *
Many letters to follow,
Your friend and twin soul,
P.

*- P’s pastiche on Alexander Pope.

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Dear Rufus,

This letter is to apprise you of my failing physical health. The quacks here are quite clueless. I feel weak and tired, that even thought is an unbearable burden.

The circumstances being as they are, I have no option left but to kill myself. I have consulted with Jacques-Louis, and he wholesomely concurs. I have only one qualm about doing myself in. I worry about you, Rufus. If I kick the bucket, you go along with me. I have contracted this disease called the creator’s complex. I have torn down the edifices and ramparts I have so diligently created these last few years. But I am not able destroy you. You are my Hobbes, Rufus. You are a stuffed tiger, a punching bag for my thoughts. Like Hobbes, you also respond- sanely and wisely. I am like Calvin, Rufus. For all my subtleties, I have not wisdom. You have turned against me, you Frankenstein, denying me the sweet release I crave.

But wait. Rest not smugly.

Calvin.

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Dear Hobbes,

I have long wondered about how to frame this final letter. All that wondering and thought have only rendered me weaker and paler. Winter is upon us. The time of Yuletide, merriment and rollicking has seen a Santa Claus visit St. Sebastian’s. Of course, it was just a man dressed as Santa. Predictably, he said, “Ho! Ho! Ho!” and shook his fake belly a few times. I feel that there is no imagination left in this planet.

Should I walk down the Champietre brook with stones in my pockets like Virginnia Woolf? Should I shoot myself in the mouth in the most mundane manner? Or should I slit my wrist and lie down like a horror movie star? Maybe I should follow Hunter Thompson’s example and go on an overdose of opium.

Na, I think I will do something imaginative.

I sincerely hope you can live in somebody else’s imagination like a poltergeist that wanders from body to body.

Goodbye fictional friend.

Jean Calvin.

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What other people people say about me .....

I was thinking.... What should be my first post ?...You know by way of introducing myself to my eager readership group ... Just then I came across my "toast" -- for the uninitiated, a "toast" is the only thing you get after slumming it for four years with (mostly) guys at the Institute of Infinite Torture, Madras.

I am indebted to Chinmay Hegde, good friend, co-philosopher and mis-guide for the bilge that follows...

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Sparams is easily the most despo creature in the insti. He puts despo foreverything - mug desp, app desp,quiz desp, females desp…the list is neverending. We’ll start at the very beginning.

In first year Saarang, Sparams, Ass andDufu decide to pack everything and do full time lech. They have loads offreshie enthu and go around a group of three females. Females notice them and start flirting. Our guys are floored. Then one of the girls says that they want vegetables for some vegetable carving. So the three of them take them – nowhere else – but to Taramani Vegetable Store.After some time they decide to swoop in and ask the girls to come to the dance workshop. That time the girls say, “Sorry boys, no time” and pack!

In second year, Sparams realizes that girls are pointless and decides toput acad desp. He cashes in all his naval arch courses. His level is that even if he loses ½ mark, he goes around telling everyone he has cupped.Everytime Sparams misses a 10 by getting an A in his lab, goes and sucksupto prof and returns back unsuccessful.

In third year, Sparams decides that he will conquer the insti’s quizzingscene. So he starts putting quiz desp and gets 1 GB of quiz questions onhis comp. Then he comes back and puts n nightouts mugging up all theanswers. Since then everytime there is a quiz, Sparams always turns up and butts in putting extra fundaes wherever possible.He was Jam coord in Saarang and was attracted to this girl. He goes and asks her whether she can dance with him in the salsa workshop. Female agrees. Then S gets a call from Pollock asking him to come and solve DailyQuiz. S promptly bumps the girl and goes happily in search of Pollock.

Final year has been Sparams’ finest. He put enough cock to get himself a thug job at McKinsey, cracked GRE (mugged his balls off for this. He knows every word in the wordlist, its page number and the preceding and nextwords) In Fourth year, he got pseud apps in Stan and MIT(RGed n junta by bumping both of them)…and put a 10. And – the big thing – he made out. OK, story of Sparams and females. Sparams bulbs majorly with females.Sometime ago S was putsing with a girl named #$%^%^^& who decided to pack abroad. So on the last day she calls him to her house, takes him upstairs,closes the door and says “Will you not give me a goodbye kiss?”Our man…bulbs. Then he basically grips her by the shoulder, bangs into hercheek and runs back home.

---------- Bowdlerised ! (for I shall not brandy (or bandy) about a woman's name in my blagh-------------------------- -

Then “O shit. I hope the guards don’t see and complain to the Dean”. Very recently he managed to piss his girlfriend off even more. They werewalking on this beach in Pondicherry and S commented “Sexy legs”.Girlfriend said “Thanks”. S replies “No no, I mean my legs are sexy”.Among other things. For all his desp, S is the most careless chap,arguably, in the insti. He has lost every single key that he has taken from people. He has lost his cell-phone twice during one quiz. The latch has long been ripped out from S’s door. S takes junta’s cycle,goes to class and comes back walking.


There, an erudite introduction .

The big picture.

Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourself.
Choose your future.


I chose to ishart a blahg .....