The Collective Sigh of a Thousand Vacuum Cleaners

Easy Clean Dust Buster 5000 was the latest and most sophisticated offering by the UDirtyVClean Corporation (headquartered in Salem, Massachusetts). In fact it had been more or less responsible for resurrecting the fortunes of the almost insolvent Corporation.

The 4000 series with its latest Stick design had failed to fire the collective imagination of the usual suspects who bought the products offered by the Corporation. They complained that it resembled the now obsolete broomstick both in design and functionality. It also didn’t offer any comfort to their sore bottoms, a feature they had deeply craved ever since the High Council had decided to replace broomsticks with vacuum cleaners. This had been done during the harsh winter of the Chinese year of the Green Monkey.

Feeling the heat from its clientele, the Corporation went back to the design board and created the 5000 series. It had a bold upright design with luxurious seating and extra storage space for spells and incantations. They also threw in the brain of a benign logo-phobic (the only one available) to make the new series more user-friendly.

The prototype of the 5000 series, Serial Number H/AL1138 was sold to the head of the High Council. Behind her back, she was known as Her Royal Highness of Prolixity for her ability to stun everyone with an endless barrage of words. This more often than not caused the listeners to drown themselves in a small, unassuming puddle of an anorexic bat’s blood.

Her verbosity meant that in a state of rage she could spew any dangerous spell from her extensive repertoire of dark magic. And this worried the good-natured and humane Easy Clean Dust Buster 5000 Serial Number H/AL1138. Not only was 1138 the official carrier of her royal posterior, it was also the mobile storage unit for all her powerful magic. Countless times it had seen innocent but curious bystanders turn into aardvarks, flamingos, guinea pigs, lion tailed macaques, Caribbean rhinoceros iguanas and even puss and fungus just because they had been interested in listening to the words of an old hag riding a shining brand new vacuum cleaner.

“This had to stop”, thought the simple minded but well meaning 1138 to itself, its one horse power motor making a loud roar - the world must be rid of people who use their lithe tongues and dark words to stupefy others - death to the exploiters of the word. And thus began the great Vacuum Cleaning Revolution in the Chinese year of the Rooster. What had began with a roar ended with the collective sigh of a thousand vacuum cleaners. And only I, the short story writer, am left to tell this horrifying tale of annihilating suction. But no listeners left.

© 2004 Anshumani Ruddra

Convocation

One of the happiest days of my life - 41st Convocation of IIT Madras held on the 30th of July 2004 - here receiving the degree from one of my favourite people on campus, Prof MS Ananth.

Random Ramblings

* Last week a friend had come down to Chennai so the two of us went around the city with two other friends from IIT and had a blast. It’s weird but these guys had never had booze in the afternoon. So I introduced them to the pleasures of getting drunk in the afternoon, something which I have been doing very regularly of late.

* Saw Ram Gopal Verma’s Naach the same day. I liked the film because it was bold and different but it was really slow. Another problem with the movie was that it was very monotonous and had no comic relief at all. There was not even a single light moment in the movie. It was intense all the way. Of all the pathetic actors we have in Bollywood, Bachchan Jr and Antra Mali are the only promising ones. Here are my two cents on acting for the two of them – stop clenching your jaw muscles when you want to show anger. Doing it over and over again undermines your overall performance. There are many other ways of showing anger. Maintain eye contact with the camera and for crying out loud don’t blink at the wrong moment, it destroys the whole scene. Look at Samuel L Jackson. The guy doesn’t blink at all during a monologue and his stare is so captivating you can’t take your eyes of the screen. Practice looking in the mirror while reading your lines and don’t blink without reason. Our actors are extremely poor with non-verbal communication. Every action, every movement has to have a reason and should convey something.

* I am dying.

Ok I am being over dramatic.

But I am dying to meet you.

Can’t believe you are so near and yet so far.

* Went to the airport today. I love all these places which have a huge mass of humanity – railway stations, bus depots, libraries, etc. I think these places are really romantic. But Chennai airport (and especially the exit) is the single most unromantic place I have ever seen. A graveyard has more romantic potential. I simply cannot imagine a guy, who has just landed, running all the way to meet his babe and give her a kiss and a hug and just take her in his arms for ever and ever. The architects must have been warned in advance about the possibility of something like this happening and designed the exit in such a way that it would be impossible for the couple to do PDA – public display of affection.

* Why do people hate clichés? I love them, period. One day, I am going to write a book on clichés. It will be the most comprehensive study of clichés ever.

* Been watching this cartoon channel called Animax very regularly. It’s a Japanese channel and mostly has animated stuff based on mangas (Japanese comic strips). I simply love this series called Inu Yasha. More on this later.

* I have already told babe about this so I don’t care now about letting the cat out of the bag. These days I am going against everything the Horrors stood for. I joined a gym and have been working out very hard and very regularly. Gained 20 pounds but it doesn’t show yet, maybe in a couple of months when I cross 200 pounds.

* Attended a Beatles celebration concert at the British Council. It was alright, could have been better. They didn’t play ‘When I’m 64’ so I was disappointed.

* Been missing my IIT buddies a lot these days. A lot of stuff has been happening with them and it hurts that I can’t be a part of their life any longer. I mean of course I am a part of their lives. But it’s not the same. Babe called the other night and it’s the happiest 20 minutes I have spent in the last 4 months. I am turning into a softy. We homies got to keep it real.

* Been listening to Alice in Chains – Jar of Flies (also Rooster from the album Dirt) non stop for the last three days. I love this group. Thanks Shravan for introducing me to them. Reminded me of my fifth semester when I went through a depression for nearly six months. Broke all the cardinal rules of boozing back then – drank when I was alone, drank when I was sad and drank with people I didn’t trust. I never thought that a mature level headed guy like me would stoop so low and make mince meat of my so called self esteem. When you are in love with the idea of a person rather than being in love with the person, expect a kick in your balls. Punters call it a crush. I call it stupidity. Your mind plays games with you and makes an ordinary (down right pathetic) human being seem like an angel. I am not being vindictive (dude remember you said this to me) but it’s the truth. I am glad I got that out of my system, even though it’s been ages and life has become so much better.

* Been trying to sing like Louis Armstrong – What a Wonderful World – almost matched his voice.

* I have nothing left to talk about with my parents. I mean I love them and everything but I can no longer relate to them on any subject – the only draw back of coming to IIT. It has made me too independent. I think I need to get out of Chennai for a few days and take a break from life. Bangalore has great weather these days – cold – exactly the way I feel these days.

* Enrique’s ‘Don’t turn Off the Laaaaeeeeghts’ just started playing. Hate these random jumps in Winamp. Aha – Strangers in the Night – Frank Sinatra is amazing. Been singing Strangers before every performance to clear my throat and get myself high, works each time.

* Met the girl with the ear piercings again today. She is such a sweetheart. Just feel like cuddling her.

* Clairvoyance – the supposed ability to perceive things that are not in sight or that cannot be seen. This word has been on my mind for a long time. So has Nonchalant.

The 8150 Days of Me

I remember this rather dull night, at the peak of north Indian winter, some six years back. I had been trying to solve a particularly tricky problem of mechanics from Irodov for nearly four hours. The solution was quite elusive and required a very subtle trick which my tired mind was unable to comprehend. So I kept the problem aside and decided to approach it with a fresh mind the next morning. I was also distracted because of this particular book I had acquired a couple of days before that – The 120 Day of Sodom (or the School of Freedoms or the School of Libertines) by Marquis de Sade. The book tells the story of a bunch of old men who enslave a group of teenagers and perform various sexual perversions on them and eventually kill them. All this is done while listening to stories told by old prostitutes.

Bored with my physics problems and unable to sleep I decided to read this book. Back then I had this principle of not leaving a novel unfinished and so I read this gruesome book throughout the night. When I finished reading, in the early hours of the morning, my mind had gone numb and an all pervading feeling of disgust settled over me. I didn’t eat anything the whole day because of fear of remembering the details of the coprophilia described in the book.

Fast forward to the present – I finished seeing Pier Paolo Pasolini’s film Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom based on original text by Sade but set in the Fascist Republic of Salo in 1944. Here is how the film is described on the back cover of the DVD I viewed (released by the British Film Institute):

Banned, censored and reviled the world over since its first release in 1975, Salò has rarely been shown in its complete form in Britain and did not receive BBFVC certification until late 2000, when it was passed uncut. In 1994 its US video release prompted the prosecution of a bookshop, and in Australia the ban on Salò was lifted in 1993, only to be reinstated in 1998 after questions were raised in their national parliament.

The film Salò is based on the Marquis de Sade's novel 120 Days of Sodom, with the setting transposed to an empty Lake Garda mansion in Mussolini's miniature Fascist Republic of Salò, Italy in 1944. Four wealthy and powerful libertines gather in a palazzo to organise a gluttonous, theatrical series of sexual tortures to be inflicted upon a terrified collection of subjugated young men and women.

The film's content and imagery is extreme, and it retains the power to shock, repel and distress a quarter of a century on. Pasolini was murdered shortly before the film's release, when a casual sex encounter on a beach outside Rome went tragically wrong. The reaction to the murder ensured that the public perception of Salò was tainted by the score-settling indulged in by his enemies on both the Left and the Right. Yet it remains a cinematic milestone - culturally significant, politically vital and visually stunning. The DVD release features a poster gallery, an on-screen director's biography and a director's foreword read by actor Nickolas Grace.

The film was even more gruesome and graphic in its presentation of violence then the way I had visualized it after reading the book. Nothing shocks me these days, but this movie was like a thunderbolt, waking me from a reverie like nothing else has ever done. Why did Pasolini make this movie? More importantly how did he accomplish the task of making such a harrowing movie?

As disgusted and revolted as I am after having seen the contents of the movie, there is still only one word which I can use to describe the movie – beautiful. It is sheer genius – the light work gives a very surreal detached feeling, colours are used brilliantly and direction – the best I have ever seen. I highly recommend the movie to every film aficionado, but don’t watch the movie on a full stomach and if you can’t take the violence – stop immediately. The weak of heart should not watch this film.

Bacchanalian Revelry and Masochistic Pleasures

At a meeting the other day I saw this beautiful exotic-looking specimen of the fairer sex. Though I was instantly attracted towards her, something about her appearance revolted me. It took me some time to understand this dichotomy of my reaction towards her appearance. This girl was wearing a diamond nose ring and she had each of her ears pierced in six places. She was wearing beautiful ear rings (12 of them) and was looking very ethnic in her cotton salwar.

Now I have no problem with people using their bodies as a medium of self-expression through various kinds of body art – tattoos, piercing, etc. In fact I think a tattoo or a piercing at the right place looks extremely sexy. And I thought this particular girl looked very hot because of the piercing. However, I cringed at the thought of her or anybody else inflicting such pain on their bodies. Friends inform me that the process is not at all painful and it’s just like getting injected with a big needle. The process is also very swift because these days they use a device which resembles a nail gun (a shudder just ran down my spine while writing those two words). I remember accompanying a four year old cousin to her first ear piercing some ten years back. I also remember her laughing all the way back home and me having an expression of sheer terror on my face. It had taken me a month to get over the barbaric ritual I saw that day. The scene still haunts me sometimes in my dreams (I need a drink to calm my nerves).

I am back.

Now I am certainly no chicken. As a kid, doctors never had a problem injecting me. I never even winced at the sight of a large injection (and oh boy! I got many of those, me being a clumsy dolt as a kid). I have even received two pairs of stitches on the back of my head and I still have the marks to prove it (though now they have been covered by a good growth of hair). And yet I would never have the courage to get a tattoo or a piercing (not that I want one). Something about this whole piercing business smells of masochism. I understand how creating an image for oneself (through the clothes we wear, brands we sport, etc.) is so important these days when the first impression means everything (I would have never called the girl exotic, sexy or hot sans her piercing) and yet how far are we ready to go with this. It has to be a certain pleasure we derive from inflicting pain on ourselves which warrants such extreme (think nail gun) measures.

Personally, I am big fan of pain. Pain can do a lot of good. Its power to inspire is unmatched, and till my search for a muse remains fruitless, pain remains the acting-muse. Not that I have to go looking for someone to pain me, but there have been instances when under the effect of Bacchus’ greatest gift to mankind I have asked a few inspiring pugilists to land the real McCoy bang on my face. One chap actually obliged me and I was left with a cut an inch long inside my mouth which made eating anything impossible for the next one week. I will always remember that chap because it turned out to be a very fruitful week in which I wrote feverishly. But never would I condone the act of piercing.

Trudi: You know how they use that gun to pierce your ears? They don't use that when they pierce your nipples, do they?

Jody: Forget that gun. That gun goes against the entire idea behind piercing. All of my piercings, sixteen places on my body, all of them done with a needle. Five in each ear, one through the nipple on my left breast, one through my right nostril, one through my left eyebrow, one in my lip, one in my clit... and I wear a stud in my tongue.

Vincent: Excuse me, but I was just wondering... why do you wear a stud in your tongue?

Jody: It's a sex thing. It helps fellatio.

Lance: Don Vincenzo. Step into my office?

[Later]

Lance: Hey, whattya think about Trudi? She ain't got a boyfriend. You wanna hang out, get high?

Vincent: Which one's Trudi? The one with all the shit in her face?

Lance: No, that's Jody. That's my wife.

… Pulp Fiction

I Lost to my Voices

The voices in my head just told me -
You are never coming back

We spent some good times together
You and me, me and you.

But the voices drove you crazy
And so you went far away.

Far away into the void of nothingness
Where your own imagination

Does not revolt and bite you in the ass.
Where the phantoms of your dead neurons

Don’t trouble you in the middle of night
While you are fighting the minions

Of the ancient gods of Valhalla.
Damn! Damn these voices.

I should have drowned them long back
In a small puddle of creative fungus

Which is now so cheaply available,
In large cans made of tin at the mart.

I should have gone away with you
And left this comfortable numbness behind.

No one would have wept
I assure you, except a few

They would have written an obituary,
Not for me, but for those wretched voices.

You were the only one, who knew me,
Who had peeled all the lairs and found me

Buried deep within myself. My own voice
Muffled by those who wanted to reign supreme.

You were the only one who heard me and my voices.
But you have now gone far away,

I remember everything about you
But will never see you awake.

Only in the land of dreams
Did you appear before me.

I remember your every curve
But I know you are not coming back

The voices drove you away
They wanted me for themselves.

They have won,
And we have lost.

Song to be Sung by the Father of Infant Female Children

I figured out something when I was twelve years old. I was a bright, precocious brat with a simple view of the world. I figured that elders (anyone who was older than me) had nothing to offer me as far as knowledge was concerned. Considering I was so young, this notion might look childish, but today I can add the weight of a decade of experience behind it. In my humble opinion elders have not been responsible for a single bit of knowledge in my head – either it was already there and I just needed to discover it or else I was smart enough to figure things out on my own. Elders may have played the role of a guide in some of the discoveries but given enough time I would have stumbled upon those hidden springs of knowledge on my own. A very egomaniacal thought but I stand by it.

However, it is a completely different ballgame when it comes to learning from younger people. I firmly believe that we grow dim-witted as we grow older. Our thoughts start following a fixed pattern and we lose the gift of being amazed and excited by life around us. No wonder even our imagination takes a big beating at the hands of age. And creativity, don’t get me started about that. As children we have so much potential and we lose it as we grow older.

Any new thought/idea/knowledge that has entered my brain has been through people younger than me. And so I had the other great revelation at the age of thirteen. I needed a younger sibling – a little baby girl who would enlighten me about the truths of life. Never thought about having a younger brother because I expected he’d turn out like me and the world couldn’t handle two of us. The sad part was that if my theory of transfer of knowledge from younger to older brains was true even for others than I would contribute zilch to the mental growth of a younger sister. At least I would be able to play the protective elder brother who beats up any punk that comes close to his little princess. I imagined I would make a very cool elder brother. As fate would have it I remain the only child of my doting parents.

And hence I come to the next more crucial point. My mental growth is now almost stagnant; it has remained so for the last couple of years. I have come across younger men and women who have contributed to my intellectual growth but it has happened in small bursts spread sporadically over time.

That little baby girl is very elusive. Someday she will wake me from my intellectual dormancy. Till then ...

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
Contrariwise, my blood runs cold
When little boys go by.
For little boys as little boys,
No special hate I carry,
But now and then they grow to men,
And when they do, they marry.
No matter how they tarry,
Eventually they marry.
And, swine among the pearls,
They marry little girls.

Ogden Nash

Hoping for a Sinusoidal Life

Wonder of wonders! I have been making money doing things I absolutely love and through which I never intended to make any dough. Yeah, so it’s not a lot of money. But it’s enough to treat friends to a good dinner and a movie and maybe some booze this weekend. I can see the gleaming eyes on the other side of the world, eyes which didn’t get to see the ‘chickhhheen’. But let me assure the owners of these eyes – I missed you all. Go ahead treat yourself to the ‘Horror $120 Lola and Nicky’ package. It is highly recommended by one of our kind in Texas.

Yesterday I was part of this reading which was organized to give the audience a flavour of the six books which were nominated for the Booker Prize this year. The reading went well. I read excerpts from Bitter Fruit and Cloud Atlas. I was thinking Cloud Atlas would win. But these judging panels never cease to amaze me. The award went to The Line of Beauty, a book which is so pedestrian it makes Sidney Sheldon novels look like literature. Let’s hope that David Mitchell (who wrote Cloud Atlas and was nominated for the second time) is third time lucky.

Life is going on at a steady pace, which can be a good thing, but I prefer a sinusoidal curve. I some how feel that inertia has set in and I am waiting for something big and drastic to happen (ok I have a vague notion of the kind of thing I’ll call drastic, so it wouldn’t be a bolt from the blues). For now my fingers are crossed and double crossed. It is ironic but even a steady and assured upward-looking future is sending me into a depression. Carpe diem, that’s what a friend said. How?

Right now I feel what Rembrandt would feel if he ever saw this (lucky him, he’s dead).

How-To: Literary Poetry

“Love inevitably leads to sadness”
Now had the great poet known this

He would have become a poet,
A messiah of lost causes and hearts

At a tender age of eleven and three-quarts.
But it took another eleven years

And a bunch of pathetic failures
To drive-in and make him realize

That love is a deadly wiper that bites,
And no amount of wisdom and sagacity

Can be a fitting substitute for audacity.
And all this while the wicked raven,

With his usual propensity for planning
And propinquity with the fairer sex

And with his prolix verbosity, set out
On the preposterous task to bring an end

To the sad and miserable existence
Of the great un-rhyming poet:

Who had judiciously won the bet,
Of having used propensity, propinquity,

Prolix and preposterous in the same breath.
Little did he know that his own end was near

All he had to do was ask the poet to find
A small unassuming puddle of muddy water

And drown himself in it. Oh! The shame
Had the raven known the poet’s shame

Brought about by those to whom the raven
Had been very close (see propinquity),

His task would have been so much easier.
Now they rot together in hell till the end of eternity.

Only, the poet’s pain is more.

Going Cuckoo

I am extremely mad at myself. I am so mad, that I feel crazier than usual. At times like these I wish there was someone who could whack me and straighten that convoluted head of mine.

I solemnly pledge that in the future I’ll do everything according to the Rule of the Horrors. It is a simple theory, this Rule of the Horrors – before doing something which any self respecting Horror wouldn’t do (but which has to be done because of the inherent weakness of the heart and mind) think about what you would have said had someone else done that thing. If the reply is – ‘Dude! That is so gay.’ or ‘Man! That is so corny.’- don’t do it.

But everything is doomed and it is too late now. And to make matters worse I went ahead and got the worst haircut in the history of haircuts. My poor long hair is all gone now. Anguish, extreme anguish!

Other than that life is pretty good: lots of work, lots of sleep and good friends to give company. If only …

Vintery, mintery, cutery, corn,
Apple seed and apple thorn;
Wire, briar, limber lock,
Three geese in a flock.
One flew east,
And one flew west,
And one flew over the cuckoo's nest.