Mahavirus

To Ananya Borgohain:
Muse, friend, model

*

There are some things which are typically you…you know, things which embody your essence as an individual…like, it’s typically Jonathan to be snide…or typically Abhimanyu to crack smart one liners...things which once you do or say them, others can look up and say ‘Ah! That was so typically you!’

Typically you…

I think it was typically me to install malware on my own computer.

Yeah, well, that’s right. I installed a debilitating virus on my own system: gave it sanction with my own hands- and merrily at that!

Now now, I’m not bonkers. It’s not that bad: certainly not that simple…there’s more to it…

Simply put, the fact of the matter is that it wasn’t your everyday virus…it was quite a malignant malware…a devil in disguise…a smooth talking fiend…

A Kaliyugi virus.

Bilkul. A Kaliyugi virus to the core.

Aur kya? Is it not written that in this dark age the forces of evil will multiply to infringe upon the last remaining strongholds of good, and slowly batter them down till all righteousness disappear from the world of men? That that one quarter of piousness too shall vanish and plunge the world into the night of sin?

Ay, so has been decreed! What surprise, then, if viruses too come robed as guardian angels?

Indeed, that’s how it was! A fell design, to trick simple, gullible folk to ruin!

This is how it happened…

One fine afternoon I opened my computer and checked my email. All fine. Nothing out of the ordinary. That done, I logged out of my account and was about to shut the computer as well when a window popped out of the blue…

‘Inflow of viruses detected onto your system. Would you like to scan your computer?’

‘Hmm? Yes, ok.’

‘Preliminary scan has revealed a massive virus attack on your system. Would you like to continue?’

‘Yes, of course, go on!’

‘There are some 400 viruses on your system. Would you like to do something about it? Would you like to install Personal Antivirus?’

Personal Antivirus. How reassuring. How comforting. There’s such a soothing consonance to the term…personal antivirus: a software specially designed for you, to cater exclusively to your own needs, to resolve all your problems…

To lull you into complacency and whisk all your data.

Kaliyug mein paap bhi punyatma ki bhanti vesh dharan kar vicharega, aur sansar mein bhagwan ki satta ko nasht karega…

Nasht ho gayi meri satta mere hi laptop pe! Cha gaya andhkar, jeet gaya paap!

We had a Council then. Had to. Of course we had a council. Papa, Mamma and me, and Bhai as the conscientious objector from abroad.

‘You freaking idiot, I can’t believe it! You actually installed a frigging malware on the system!’

‘Kaam kharab karma aata he bas, aur phir baithe rehte hain yunhi maaze mein!’

‘Aap log poori baat samajhne ki koshish nahi kar rahe! Inhone…’

‘Tum hi ne bigara he! Faltu kaam karte rehte hain…’

‘Why can’t he use his brains for once? Why!’

‘Aise hi hain…’

‘Baat ko samajhne ki koshish karo…’

‘Anyway, shut it out! Can’t do anything about it now! Best to reinstall Windows now…you never know…clear away everything!’

Hmm…clear away everything…clear away everything…

Aur jab paap ka ghara bhar jayega, jab shristi mein punya aur sachai trahi trahi kar manav ka tyag kar dengi, tab mein Kalki roop dharan pralay ka tanday karunga! Tab iss shrishti na nash hoga, aur jeevan ka chakr phir aarambh hoga!

Clear away everything…clear away everything…

I could see myself rise up, go beyond and above…to godhead…

Even as the Destroyer will reduce all to glowering ash, so will I unleash the fury of my wrath on the arrayed virus! Bit by bit will each corrupted file be consumed till none be left alive! Then, just as the primeval waters will drown the dead cosmos in one overpowering deluge, so will I submerge the corrupt mother board with my missionary flood. And once this debris has subsumed into the general scheme of things, into the overwhelming torrent, then, from the dark, empty, chaotic bits shall arise a new, pure Operating System! This virginal land I alone shall people with the chosen few, the elect software and programmes which shall be the denizens of a glittering golden age!

Rudra, Narayan, Brahma and Vishnu, I shall be all! Unfurl the standard, blow the conch…let there be war! Mahaaaaaaaaaaavirus!

Untitled

To Geetika Sinha

*

I wonder. I really do wonder if I don’t overdo it at times. Perhaps I do. But then, do I? And who’s to say if I really do or don’t?

Ah yes, life’s hard. Real hard. So many choices, so many options; this or that, now or then, thinking and thinking and thinking…

About what?

About what would be the correct response to a cultural performance.

Yes, yes, I can see you roll your eyes. ‘There he goes again’, you just said to yourself ‘rambling on about something as obvious as that! Really, what kind of bugger has these kinds of difficulties in figuring out something as simple! Response indeed! Respond any which way, it’s a free country after all!’

Exactly. Agreed. It is a free country. Theoretically, we’re all entitled to react in any which way to just about anything, and not just a cultural performance. I’m not questioning that, at least not here.

No, what I’m talking about here are the semantics of a viewer’s response to a performance, not as much as the response per se but the type of response: whether, to put it simplistically, it is intellectual, focusing more on its semantics and dealing basically with the varied philosophical ramifications, or whether it is superficial, willingly suspending disbelief to predominantly take note of material realities, sensory delights in all their magnificent multitudes.

Heck, what I really want to know is how can someone come out of a two hour long performance to just comment that the lead male was cute!

Yes, I mean, fine, agreed one notices such things-I in my turn thought a certain female character good looking-but to say just that and nothing else?

Is it possible that a performance should evince just such a response? Can a person really have nothing else to say about an excellent dramatic feat? To observe nothing but the looks of the actors on stage?

Even if one was extremely besotted with a particular person one would take in some amount of the dialogues of that particular character…would these not stimulate mental activity? Can the mind really be so completely turned off as to affect a total shutdown of the intellectual faculties?

I don’t think so.

But even as I say that, even as I deny the possibility of a complete shutdown and argue instead for an orientation wherein enjoyment supercedes analysis, what I’m concerned about here is the comparative worth of the two: which is more worthwhile and which should be given greater weightage, enjoyment or analysis?

As literature scholars, we’re conditioned to never accept a text unquestioningly. There’re always issues and motives, hidden or otherwise, and it is of paramount importance to identify and engage with them. To analysis a text-performance in this case-in our context is to actively seek out the politics of the artist, critique it from your own ideological standpoint and then apply the criticism to the larger social milieu, thus establishing its relevance to the present social structure. In doing so, in thinking about those issues, one goes forward onto other things, and other things, and so the chain goes on and on till one reaches a conclusion ostensibly far removed from the original topic but nonetheless linked to it by a series of interconnected ideas- which, interestingly, has also happened in this article right now!

However, even focussing on just the visual, sensory aspects of a performance too is criticism. If you like an actor, if you think s/he acted well, and say just as much, even that is passing judgment. In any case, saying just as much doesn’t really mean that you didn’t think of those issues or ideas: it implies, as I hinted earlier, that you choose to focus more on these visual aspects more than those analytical ones, and that they are, in the immediate context of your comment, more important to you than those latter ones. Perhaps you might go back home and think about them; perhaps you might not- perhaps you’re never really struck by these things.

And what if you aren’t? What if you always think of these so-called visual aspects, the sensory delights, and are never ever perturbed by avalanches of ideas? Don’t you become a lesser mortal? Doesn’t your incapacity, or refusal, to identify and critique make you backward, some sort of a retarded creature with stunted mental growth?

I would say it doesn’t.

After all, what ultimate end does analysis serve? You understand things more, you can see through artifices and constructs, look at them as they are, but then what? Few of us possess the power to actually affect any tangible change just through the dint of our criticism and even if we did, what is it for? To build, as it were a better world, a safer, happier place for us and the generations to come.

And is not the person making the most of the situation and enjoying the here and the now to the fullest abundantly more happy than the analytical critic arguing the nitty-gritty’s?

Observations Upon Romanticism: Or Reasons as to why the Poetry of Mr. Wordsworth Sucks

Commending his verse to the reading public in Great Britain, Mr. Wordsworth emphatically emphasised its novelty: the motif of ‘low and rustic life’ supposedly put it in a league altogether different from that of his predecessors and peers. He made an elaborate case for his poetry, dexterously arguing the advantages poets stood to gain by versifying ‘the manners of rural life’, those ‘elementary feelings’ which, from ‘the necessary character of rural occupations’, ‘coexist in a state of greater simplicity’ with ‘the beautiful and permanent forms of nature’: the closer one moved to Nature, the more one threw over the ‘language used by men’ a ‘certain colouring of imagination’, the better one’s verse became. This was a ‘mark of distinction’ worthy of the serious reader’s scrupulous attention: indeed, ‘twas a veritable revolution in poetry, the strong herald of a new dawn for art and humanity.

This, of course, is what Mr.-Monsieur-Wordsworth would have us believe. The disjunction betwixt truth and reality is such, however, that one cannot but wonder at the credulity of his peers in believing doctrines as naïve as Mr. Wordsworth’s: simultaneously, one cannot but marvel at the contriving cunning of Mr. Wordsworth himself in convincing entire generations of the supposedly worthless worth of his worthless poesy.

Consider, for example, the poem ‘Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood’. In the misguided pursuit of an imagined ‘overbalance of pleasure’ Mr. Wordsworth stresses excessively upon ethereal intangibilities-imperial palaces ablaze with celestial lights-with the unfortunate consequence of degrading the material, tangible realities of human existence into fond folly. A parent’s doting encouragement of his/her child’s playful mimicry of the adult world is to him foolhardy indulgence, succeeding in naught but accelerating the process of the child’s departure from his/her native innocence.

Not fully satisfied with thus demonising parental affection, Mr. Wordsworth further rambles upon his airy arguments. Beneath his/her ‘exterior semblance’ the child is actually a ‘Mighty Prophet’, a ‘Philosopher’ who has all the knowledge in the world. Of course, the reason why we-or the blessed child for that matter-never get a taste of his/her ‘Immortality’ is because the poor child is himself not aware of his ‘heritage’- and since in growing up he/she gradually looses sight of that heavenly light, any parental intervention to affect the same merits unequivocal condemnation.

Mr. Wordsworth’s worldview is patently exclusive. Been from an early age besotted with the supposed virtues of ‘low and rustic life’, Mr. Wordsworth, himself a well-travelled Cambridge man, zealously thrusts his blinkered vision upon his readers. Going by the gloriously befuddling evidence of his poetry, it seems there were no children in the world besides shepherd boys, farm lads, amateur woodcutters and lonely peasant girls - this, or that the others are not worth mentioning at all. His narrow classist mindset is clearly laid bare through the constant elevation and glorification of these children.

Be that as it may, the idea of a troubled childhood seems totally alien to Mr. Wordsworth’s skewered conception of society. It seems he was so busy running for inspiration-and Nature knows what else-after children in lonely woods and mountain valleys that he lost sight of all reality: all children did was innocently play in ‘endless imitation’ of the adult world. Victims of war, hunger, manual labour and sexual exploitation just did not exist- or if they did, they were best dealt by being pushed out of consciousness into, as it were, the ‘eternal mind’, the great memory…

Interestingly, inspite of remembering so much about his life before he was born, Mr. Wordsworth seems to have had no real memory of flesh and blood children- even humans for that matter. One might excuse him for forgetting the earthly needs and nature of children-who, like Celia of yore, puke, pee and poop-but considering he’d already had a daughter through Mademoiselle Vallon his mystification of children is not in the least justifiable. Even if one were to argue that he never met his bastard Caroline till she was ten, one still has the evidence of his boy John who was born in 1803, a year after Mr. Wordsworth started composing this Ode.

In light of Mr. Wordsworth’s personal life, his poetry is hard to explain, leave alone justify. If children came ‘trailing clouds of glory’, then how were his bastard and John born? Did Mr. Wordsworth, like those famed Spanish stallions, direct his clouds of glory into the respective French and English receptacles from afar, and was later, in a state of ‘tranquility’, inspired to imaginatively recreate the scene and thus arrive at the metaphor? One can really not think of any other reason than this for an experienced, married man to thus romanticise such a crucial, life-giving activity, though, of course, it’s possible that searching for the child within he forgot those around him, forgetting not just parenting his children but also the fact that, after all, he alone had fathered them- or perhaps even that might’ve been done under inspiration, a trance induced with Coleridge’s expert guidance: Mr. Wordsworth humping away to glory, totally unaware of either the act or its shackling consequences, thinking only rapturously of ‘clouds of glory’…

Any sane reader of Romanticism will, therefore, recognise the same as the greatest artifice thrust upon Literature- and that too by a bunch of insignificant, frustrated zealots who fondly imagined themselves heralds of a new dawn while being in actuality messengers of a dark, dull night. Indeed, it is a bane upon the Academia, throttling novelty and encouraging instead single-minded devotion to dubious dogmas. It is the sacred duty of all Literature scholars to consciously overthrow these dogmas and so liberate Literature from the clutches of Romanticism: to this we must devote our combined energies, to this dedicate our collective acumen!

Yes Mr. Wordsworth, as for Dorothy, you live on with us as well-and in unison do we sing you this solemn ode-Wordsworth sucks!

Chalte chalte…

Chalte chalte, chalte chalte,
Yunhi koi mil gaya tha, yunhi koi mil gaya tha,
Sare rah chalte chalte, sare rah chalte chalte...

I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream!
I know you, the gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam!

*

“Goddamnit! There has to be a place!”

“I hate humans!”

“Hmmm…”

The road goes forever on and on,
Down from the door where it began,
And I must follow it if I can!

Like hell I was! Past the Blackened Gates, ‘cross the road, up the hill, down and down…

“Heck! Let’s at least sit here for a while!”

Wise men say only fools rush in

But I can't help falling in love with you

Shall I stay would it be a sin

If I can't help falling in love with you

“You know, we could turn our backs to the road…”

Khullam khullaa pyaar karenge ham dono!

Is duniyaa se nahin darenge ham dono!

Haan, pyaar ham karte hain chori nahin,

Mil gaye dil joraa-jori nahin,

Ham vo karenge dil jo kahe, hamko zamaane se kyaa!

Good idea. Closer, closer…

“Damn that bloody cycle-wallah! Damn these richshaw-wallahs! Damn that guard!”

“Humans! Friggin’ place’s full of them!”

“Agreed…”

“Chalo.”

“Kahan?”

“Chal na. Come…”

Come away with me and we'll kiss

On a mountaintop

Come away with me

And I'll never stop loving you…

Indeed! Up and up, into the deep, out and yonder, farther beyond, past a bend, onto the gate…

“This looks interesting…”

“You wouldn’t want to go there. Shady…very shady…no.”

“Ah well…”

Jaye to jaye kahan? Jaye to jaye kahan? Jaye to jaye kahan?
Samjhega kon yahan, dard bhare dil ki zubaan?
Jaye to jaye kahan?...

“Waapis chal...”

“Waapis! Bilkul nahi! Haad hai! Itni door isliye nahi aaya tha ki...”

“Accha baba, chal, aage chal…”

Kahan? Ye hansata hua kaaravaan, zindagi ka na poochho chala hai kidhar

Tamanna hai ye, saath chalate rahen, ham na beete kabhi ye safar

Ye hansata hua kaaravaan, zindagi ka na poochho chala hai kidhar…

Poocho mat kahan kahan gaya! Idhaar, udhaar; aage-peeche, upaar-neeche, har jagah…

“Is it just me or do you also think the bloody place’s full of people today?”

“Argh! Don’t remind me! Damn them all!”

“What now?”

“I’m tired! I want to rest!”

“I want you…”

“Uhm, here?”

“Let’s go up…this tower block.”

“Pagal mat ban…”

Baawra man dekhne chala ek sapna,
Baawra man dekhne chal ek sapna.
Baawre se man ki dekho baawri hain bate,
Baawre se man ki dekho baawri hain bate…

Dreams don’t come true. Not up, but on: on and on and over across.

“Gothic fiction’s interesting y’know…”

“Hain?”

“Haan-haan! You know, crumbling castles, dungy dungeons, haunted houses…”

“Darling, ye side wala khaali nahi hai! Kaam chal raha he!”

Mera sundar sapna beet gaya
Main prem mein sab kuchh har gayi
Bedard zamaana jeet gaya
Mera sundar sapna beet gaya…

“Waise, hum bachon ka bachpan to nahi bigarna chahte, right?”

“Sharm karo!”

“Mazak, mazak! Aise hi kaha tha, bhatate bhatate aise hi!”

Yahoo! Yahoo! Chaahe koyi mujhe junglee kahe, kehne do jee kehta rahe!
Hum pyaar ke toofaanon mein gire hai, hum kya karain!

“Aakhir yeh ghatiya sarak jaati kahan hai?”

“Police station, phir ek school, thori jhuggiyan, phir ek aur police station…”

“Brilliant! Police station ke siwa kuch aur he yahan?”

“Kahan jana he?”

Wahin, jahan koi aata jaata nahin…

“So, we’ve conclusively established that there is no place!”

“So it seems. You’ve something to write now at least…”

“Hmmm…”

“By the way, what’s that?”

Every bursted bubble has a glory!

Each abysmal failure makes a point!

Every glowing path that goes astray,

Shows you how to find a better way.

So every time you stumble never grumble.

Next time you'll bumble even less!

For up from the ashes, up from the ashes, grow the roses of success!

Grow the roses!

Grow the roses!

Grow the roses of success!

Roses don’t grow in August. Not here in over-populated Delhi at least.

“Hmmm…”

“Kya?”

“Your smell…”

“Damn these people!”

Ai mere dil kahin aur chal

Gam kii duniyaa se dil bhar gayaa

Dhundh le ab koi ghar nayaa
Ai mere dil kahin aur chal...

“Chal, ghar aane wala he...”

“Ji. Aur kya? Ghar jao, mai apne yahan jata hun. Ghar. Aur kahan? There is no place...”

“True. Buh-bye.”

“Hmm…bye…”

Doorie, doorie, doorie!

Sahi jaye naa, sahi jaye naa, sahi jaye naa, sahi jaye naa!

Khomshiyaa yeh

Seh na saku

Aawaaz deke mujhse tu

De ja sukun

Doorie, doorie, doorie!

Sahi jaye naa, sahi jaye naa, sahi jaye naa, sahi jaye naa!

“Sach me pagal he! Pagla kahin ka! Utar kyun gaya?”

“Tere liye. Aise hi chali gayi...”

“Aww!”

“And, I thought this place looks promising…”

“Hmmm…so it does…”

“Chal phir…”

Kahan jaate par? Jahan jaane ki sochi, who to band nikla. Waapas aane lage…

Jiivan ke safar me raahi,
Milate hain bichhar jaane ko

Aur de jaate Hain yaadain,
Tanahaai me tarpaane ko…

“I can’t believe it! There’s no place in this goddamn city!”

“I wonder what’s behind this 6-foot high bush wall…”

“Um, do you want to find out...”

“I wouldn’t mind an adventure…would you?”

“Of course not…chalo”

Yunhi chala, chal raahi…
Dil ko hai kyun ye betaabi

Kis se mulaaqaat honi hai

Jis ka kabse armaan tha

Shaayad wahi baat honi hai

“This looks really promising!”

“Indeed! Very if I may say so!”

Hum tum ek kamre mein band ho,
Aur chaabi kho jaaye…

“So, finally!”

“Finally!”

“Finally…”

Shalalalala!

Don't be scared,

You better be prepared,

Go on and kiss the girl!

Shalalalala!

Don't stop now,

Don't try to hide it how,

You wanna kiss the girl!

Go on and kiss the girl!

And there it ended.

Beyond Boundaries, Borders, Lines and Cultures

(written long, long ago)

*

Thanking Tridib and D.M.

*

A book-worm’s confessions…

I have to do it; it’s been on my mind for quite some time and I just feel like saying it. I must say it.

I’ve been addicting myself. I think I’m quite a hopeless addict by now. I seriously need to de-addict myself…

Yes, I’m addicted to books. To Literature. I’ve indulged myself horrendously over the past one and a half years, so much so that I don’t even remember the basic mathematics of senior school. I discovered this while preparing for my economics exam- I couldn’t even recollect the names of elementary Greek symbols, like delta and beta and so on!

Oh well!

Oh well indeed! Reading is such a pleasure. It transports you to places where you could never go in reality, to ages back in time, to places in the future, to cultures far and beyond, beyond all boundaries and barriers…

Oh well! How stereotypically conventional! Books are magical, they transport you…oh yes, you’ve read it before, haven’t you?

I bet you have. I won’t claim originality for myself here. I’m like anyother bookworm; hopelessly infatuated, caught in the trap and not quite willing to leave it.

My mind, and I think I shamelessly gratify my vanity in this, is an extraordinary mixture of a plethora of cultures, of whole new worlds which I constantly discover and re-discover. Once I’m in Troy, outside the famed Gates, witnessing Achilles’ wrath play the dance of death. Then, quite suddenly, I’m with Dr. Watson, riding up to Baskerville Hall through that dreary, foggy, excessively spooky and mysterious Moor. Very soon I’m with Everyman, journeying through the pilgrimage that is life and then with Monsieur Poirot and Captain Hastings in a quiet country manor trying to exercise those little grey cells to their level best…

I have to admit I’m suffering from severe dislocation. Most of the time I simply don’t know where I am: I might be walking in college, but I could pretty well be far away in ancient Egypt, walking in solemn state with the Pharaoh. The boundaries between fact and fiction constantly keep dissolving till reality becomes strange, unfamiliar, ‘unreal’ and the world of fiction, the world I share with sundry other folk, real and a lot more material.

Perhaps that’s insanity, a mark of my slip into lunacy, a signal that I’m beginning to loose, or perhaps have already lost, my marbles…

Or perhaps it means I am, to quote Monsieur Poirot, at the verge of true wisdom…