The Face of Blasphemy

The face of blasphemy is not the devil nor a demon nor any thing creepy crawly that gives you the heebie-jeebies in the night. It is not a firebrand orator nor a sexual deviant nor a rabid insurgent. No. The face of blasphemy is not something so blatantly hideous. It is much more insidious than that. It is shielded behind glinting spectacles and immaculate blue turbans, or crisply starched sober saris, or heavily bearded and mustachioed fair faces. It lurks behind rousing oratory and white cotton saris, dalit beginnings and statue worship, aging fingers and moth-bitten scripts, glittering raths and jingoistic moorings. It shrieks with delight when assemblies are disrupted; it cackles with abandon when bills bite the dust; it gloats and gloats and gloats as the gears grind to a total stop with the populace crushed between them. Welcome to the madhouse. Here’s the end of the world, this blasphemous altar of greed, avarice and faithlessness. Here’s to the system.

A cynic I have become, but not by choice. I dreamed as others dreamed when we returned a unified mandate after so long. I proudly brandished that still wet ink on my finger as a badge of honour, as a testament to the fact that I had fought the good fight and played my own miniscule part in bringing back hope and belief in the country. This was the heralded new dawn when we march out boldly onto the global stage and showcase the sheer power, talent and might that dwell within our shores. We were going to take the bull by the horns, break the shackles of colonial submissiveness and roar out loud like the fierce tigers that we are. The world was supposed to quake in awe as we strode across its length and breadth like colossi. This was our promised land. This was our destiny. And this was what they took from us. The mandate, our mandate, became a mockery as Delhi became a ludicrous parody of democracy. Bills weren't passed, policies weren't implemented; heck even a single day wouldn't pass without some uproar or the other in the legislative houses. The logjam only worsened as the regional satraps ran riot and the technocrat lost whatever little spine he had left. Maybe the 123 Agreement had taken too much out of him. How else can you explain this indecisiveness when the nation stands at the cusp of greatness! The Golden Bird, poised to take flight, still teetering at the edge; a sorry image, a sorry figure, and a very sorry state of affairs.

I just rant and rave though. I don't have a solution. I don't think anyone has a solution right now. All politicians have the same smarmy faces and the same smarmy smiles that make you reach inside your pocket and hold on tight to your wallet. I am generalizing too much. I agree. There will be a few gems here and there in all this gunk. But there is just too much damn gunk! It has gotten to the point that I open the tabloid section first before going to the headlines. It doesn't do my early morning self any good to see yet another face bang in the center of the page with some astronomical amount running across in bold typeface below it. I'd much rather read about vapid starlets and their inconsequential fifteen minutes of fame.

I don't know what triggered this harangue. Nothing specific that I can put a finger on. I guess there was just too much pent-up frustration. To see a bold price hike recanted so blatantly at the whims of coalition dharma is just so demoralizing. A single policy decision can't be carried out without some idiot pulling the chain and bringing the entire machinery down to a grinding halt. GDP growth is screwed, investments are screwed and infrastructure was anyway screwed. Everyone knows we are the growth engine the world is looking towards. We are going to be the biggest economy in another 40 years. Experts don't doubt that at all. But I don't think along such lengthy timelines. I just look back to that ink-blot on my finger and I really hate where I am right now. This is definitely not what I signed up for. I want fire and thunder, heavens rumbling and earths shaking, throbbing pulsations and electrifying palpitations. I want vision, drive, dream, conviction. I want someone, something, anything to believe in. I want my birthright as a proud son of the greatest nation on this planet!

Like I said, I don't have any solutions. I hope someone somewhere has them.  

Eulogy

That which passed away was so enchanting,

Like the dreamy cadence of the nightingale,

Or the majestic swoop of the eagle;

How it fluttered gaily under the azure skies,

On which cottony clouds drifted lazily.

Oh how so much was snatched away?

How could it leave not a single trace?

Such joy, such beauty, such sheer goodness,

Where did it bite the dust?

In which wound does it lie festering now,

Which hellhound snatched it into its maw!

Why this darkness, why this deep despair,

Where there was light, why now these demons?

No prophets come forward, no answers proclaimed,

No predictions nor prophecies nor papal presentiments,

A victim of chance aye! A wrong roll of the dice,

Destiny's plaything this cruel fate of mine;

But what use these tears that flow unabated,

With no helping hand to catch and hold them dear.

The horizon's beguiles though, wreathed in shadows,

Happiness is there it says, so walk through these shrouds, 

Another look at the grave, but the dark has already claimed it,

So I walk on again, to dig more along the way.

Nocturne

Hark! Still thy words!
They taint this beautiful stillness,
This peace, this tranquility, this bliss,
Why shatter it thus?
Why mar this image with human vainglory,
That enslaves, but never completes!

The ebony night, those sparkling stars,
Why bother them with such trivialities!
Why tread the velveteen grass 'neath fretful feet,
When the nightingale sings its melodies?
This moment, this perfect joyous moment,
Why not just let it be?


'Tis gone though, long gone, a fleeting memory,
Like a single downy feather floating in the breeze,
I beg, I cry, I implore it to come back,
But the jealous shades surround it, shield it from my grasp!
I fight, I thrash, I beat bite and scream,
But gone is that instant, forgotten is my dream.

All that is left now is this haunting melody,
That sings of quiescence, but'd never let it be...

Story of a Psychopath

(I wrote this one a long long time back. Funny how things have changed since then. Anyway, moving on...)

You know that little voice in your head? Yeah, that sanctimonious self-righteous s.o.b in the back of your head that’s always cribs and cries and never lets you have fun. Whether you’re pushing around that dork in school with those nerdy spectacles and plastic retainer or trying to get it on with the drunk bitch at the party, that irritating whine is always there in your head, bitching and nagging all the time till you give up and go along with it just to make it shut up. Drives you up the wall, doesn’t it? And don’t give me all that shit about ‘doing the right thing’. If I don’t get anything out of it, then it’s definitely not the right thing. That’s why I killed off that whiny little bastard in my head a long time back, and that’s why I’m called a psychopath.

It started with an expulsion from school when I put a bozo in the hospital with a shattered kneecap. Not my fault really. If he had just handed over his money I wouldn’t have taken that two-by-four to his knee. Authorities, of course, chose to look at it differently. I had been on probation for other misdemeanours anyway. Everything after that was just a natural progression I guess. Schools bounced me around. Therapists tried and failed. More and more people ended up in casualty wards and angry parents started baying for blood. I already had one foot in jail before my parents decided to have me committed and packed me off to a mental hospital.

The one year I spent in that place was hell. My entire world was restricted to a 6-by-8 padded cell and I spent agonizing hours screaming my head off at those plain white walls. When the drugs they put in my food failed to calm me down, they resorted to electroshock therapy. Three times a week they strapped me to the chair, placed those electrodes all over my body and let the high-voltage current fry my nerves. Three times a week I twitched and jerked in terrible agony and tried to get the screams past my gagged mouth. They tried their best to break me, but of course they had to fail. A lax moment on their part and I was able to get my hands on a screwdriver on the way out of the therapy room. A thrust here, a stab there and I got rid of the two orderlies and the doctor. It was a simple matter after that – to exchange clothes with an orderly, stash the bodies in the closet and stroll nonchalantly out of the place. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

I started living on the streets after that; there was no sense in going home after all this. Sure, the streets are full of predators ready to pounce on you, but after I carved up a few punks who tried to gang up on me, everybody else gave me a wide berth. I got by pretty well out there, mugging passers-by, having the occasional bit of fun if they were female. I got into drugs after a while, and life became an interminable haze of ecstatic highs, followed by tortuous lows that lasted till my next fix. Drugs are an expensive habit, so I started peddling to pay for my fixes. I kept to dealing in the cheap low-grade stuff so the established syndicates largely left me alone. Those who didn’t, I took care of.

It didn’t take long for things to spiral out of control. The drugs began messing with my head, making me more paranoid with every second. I began to see enemies everywhere around me. I felt hemmed in, suffocated. I needed air. I had to escape. And I did that the only way I knew.

My first kill was in a stinking garbage-strewn alley. The idiot was hopelessly drunk and tried to fight me. I took care of him with my knife. My blood-lust was satisfied for a bit, but I needed much more.

I had much more fun with the next one. I paid a prostitute for a full ten minutes, after which I strangled her with my bare hands and left her nude body in a garbage bin. I wonder if anybody ever discovered her.

I began to vary my fun with each kill. Bat, chain, knife, poison, acid – I used them all. One thing I never used though was a gun. It’s too neat you see, not to mention noisy. I used to chop off the nose and ears too, you know, like a trademark. It got pretty popular with the press. Not a good thing in hindsight, I guess, seeing that I began to attract police attention. I don’t how, but they managed to track me down. I was lying in a drugged stupor in my rented room when they came barging in. Next thing you know, I was behind bars.

I’ve been sentenced to life imprisonment. There are no padded cells. No electric shocks await me. But it’s still A GODDAMN FRIGGIN’ CELL I WANT OUT I can’t live like this!

You know the funny thing about jails? You can find all the things that you normally find only in the outside world. You just have to know the right people. A few greased palms here and there and within no time at all you can get a SIM card, or maybe even a box of reefers. Not for me though. No sirree! I got myself a magic pill. A pill that’s going to solve all my problems, a pill that’s going to free me from these man-made confines, from the shackles of this sick, twisted world, forever. Just like that song you know –

“Swallow it done, it’s just a jagged little pill.”

One gulp. That's it. I'll be on an everlasting high after this one...