Ahem again...

Greetings true believers! (Yes. I know where that's from. It just felt like a funny way to start okay? So don't yell at me. Mohanty, I'm talking to you!)


It's been a very long time since I updated, which is silly because I've a story all panned out to put out, but I've been tied up in reading people who write a whole lot better than me. Much of that is out here on the internet, in the wonderful world of webcomics, and I really wish you kids would go through the list on the right and peek around. Because some of these, really, are the most amazing things ever!

Speaking of reading things though, I just read the new Potter book, and then tonight, I found the perfect words to tell you how I felt about it. I found them in another corner of the web, but that doesn't mean that this isn't how I feel. He just puts it a lot better than I would.

So courtesy of Tycho from Penny Arcade, one of the first and one of the best webcomics, here are the words:

I finished the last Harry Potter yesterday, but I couldn't actually tell you what happened in it. It's been like that for several books now, starting with The Order of the Phoenix, where I grip the book with hunger and aggression and consume it without ever tasting the meal. I have a sense of being satisfied, but it is murky, and distant, the way an anaconda must feel one week after eating a jaguar. What is most important is that the wait, that long famine, has come to a close.

I love Tycho's writing style, and I really suggest that you peek at the comic, and maybe follow some of the other links as well.

Meanwhile, for the three of you who read this, and like my style, well, I'm working again now, always a good thing, and what I'm doing these days is editing a book. Which is unfortunately taking up more of my time than I'd have thought. Plus I'm absolutely addicted to Full Metal Alchemist, so I can't miss the show, and that's the only free time I really have these days. So I'm going to keep updating and keep writing stories, but it might take a wee bit of time. Bear with me, okay?

Cheers,
-G!

The dragon hunt - 1

The dragon was a fixture in the kingdom, often very literally a tourist trap. A monster - a true monster from the near forgotten past of the world - it brought death and destruction wherever it went, with none of this silly business of ritual sacrifices and pacts with humans. Yet few disliked the great winged beast, except on a wholly general level of course. And when the occasional attempt was made to get rid of the marauding creature, well, there was nothing personal about it.

Thog, one of the last of the barbarian heroes lefts who hadn't been swept aside by civilisation, pondered thoughtfully on all this as he listened to the messenger from the village.

And so when the villager asked him very reasonably to come remove the dragon, in exchange for being paid very reasonably, it was a few moments before the old adventurer replied.

"Killing a dragon. Now that's risky business," he finally ventured. The villager remained silent, and Thog wondered if it was already time to start the theatrics. He grinned widely, letting the villager look politely at his crooked and frankly repulsive teeth. Still grinning he drew his sword. It was long and thin and glittery. And very pointy.

He pointed it now, at the villager, and said, "You're offering me a reasonable amount, it's true. But the truth is son, there's no one but me to do this now, not after the last three guys were cooked. So if you don't mind," grinning wider now, and waving the point of the sword, he continued, "I'm going to be a little unreasonable."

The villager didn't even wait for the last word to finish, and asked, "How much?" Thog was momentarily nonplussed and wondered if he was losing his style, and then he said, "The old price. Nothing less will do. Half of everything you have."

The messenger took nearly a second to think about this. It was the very limit of what the village elders had agreed upon, and he should have haggled. A good bargain would up his reputation in the village. A bad bargain though, he knew, could down his height by one head. And the sword was very pointy, and it was making him very nervous, and so, very quickly, he said yes.

After the usual deal sealing rituals were completed between the barbarian and the villager, the younger man went back to the inn to sleep, because he would be leading Thog to the village with the break of dawn. Thog meanwhile, sat in his tent, muttering over things. For one thing, no one person had been able to kill a dragon in over a hundred years. It had taken small armies, machines the size of houses and also some sorcery to deal with a dragon. There was a reason everyone was scared of the things. And for another, Thog wasn't even sure if he wanted to kill the dragon. In a way he had more in common with the dragon than the village, which was a signpost of civilisation, and a civilised world has as little room for him as it did for the dragon.

Still, he was running very low on funds. The time had come to be heroic, he decided. He muttered, "Has anyone been able to poison the bloody things I wonder?" A trip to the library he kept in a chest in his tent was clearly in order. Reading was a strange skill for a barbarian, but Thog was a survivor, and he'd evolved to meet the needs of civilisation. The dragon hadn't. And that was all there was to it, he thought with a shrug.

Free the Oompa Loompa

Friends we must gather together now to save these noble savages from the exploitative chocolate baron - Willy Wonka! He has plucked these simple people from their native land with the promise of cocoa, uprooted centuries of tradition for his chocolate-y profits and sugarcoated it in unimaginative songs.

Where once the Oompa Loompas sang tribal songs in Loompaland, now they are forced into slavery, and worse, made to improvise awful songs fit to Wonka's chocolate crazed mind.

Why don't they rise up against Wonka, you ask? Look at them man! They barely reach up to your knee! Sure they've got the numbers but the chocolate kind has more snares in place – to keep them in place.

This choco-capitalist has not just bound them by stealing away from them their homes, nor yet by binding them with chains of cocoa. In fact, he's played the oldest trick ever – Divide and Conquer.

He has created a caste identity in the Loompas that never existed before, and made full use of it. So now there are red suited Loompas drilling and mining, while blue suits toil as Wonka's galley slaves. Yellow suits oversee the nut sorting while whites at the top of this chocolate chain are the researchers, the trained scientists.

And as milk chocolate and white chocolate are completely different, so too with the tribe of the Oompa Loompa.

Since the Oompa Loompas are not in a position to free themselves, we owe it to our collective conscience as a society to save them from this crazy chocolatier.

My solution is simple, and non-violent too. Cut off the money, take away his chocolate, and Wonka will have no choice left but to let the Oompa Loompas leave. All we do then, is boycott Wonka candies…

Say it with me brothers! Free the Loompa! No more chocolate! Set them free! Set them free!

Pete

I've been planning on writing for a while, but then I've been planning on a lot of things for a while, including finding people who will pay me good money for doing very little. Since that doesn't seem like it's going to happen, why should this work out either? Still, I suppose I should post something, or the smarter ones amongst you chaps (okay, that WAS funny) might stop visiting. So here's a scrap I jotted a month back, and maybe posting something will kickstart the writing again. Till then... Read you fools, read!

It was a night like any other night, where we all got together on the rooftop and got high and laughed and told secrets, confident because we knew that right now everything was funny, and because nobody would remember any of this in the morning anyway. And it was a night which we'd never forget because it was the night when everything changed, all because one thing happened for the first time. But it was the sort of thing that can only happen once.

It was the night that Pete died.

I think that Pete was the reason that the six of us used to meet again and again, getting drunk together on the rooftop, while Pete held us all together, the master and his disciples, he said fancifully. We all made fun of him for saying such things but we all knew it was true anyway. He was the crazy one, who came up with ridiculously stupid ideas which were irresistible in the night and appalingly stupid in the mornings, who laughed that big laugh of his at everything the world had to offer, and made us laugh as well. We drifted apart quickly after Pete died, held together by him even after he was gone, yet avoiding each other for the same reason, because in all their faces I could only see Pete, and remember that night.

Pete had been walking on the wall encircling the roof, making up dirty songs as he circled us. We all watched him, telling him he was crazy, telling him to get off the wall, but laughing anyway, and listening, the way we always did. And then, without any warning, Pete fell off the wall, onto the roof.

It was a two foot fall, and Pete couldn't have gotten hurt by it, so we all just stood around, expectantly, waiting for him to get up and make a joke about the whole thing, but he didn't. When he didn't move for another two minutes, I started to get worried, and Andy, who I didn't really know but who was one of Pete's old buddies, stepped up to the prone form.

Looking up, he rather unnecessarily said, "He's not moving." My training took over then and I stepped up, quickly feeling for Pete's pulse. There was none. Pete was dead, a heart attack perhaps, though only tests would show for sure.

Whatever the reason though, Pete was definitely dead. For now, there was the question of what we would do next. I was a police cadet, and the other men were all making a start in respectable careers too. And yet, here we were, all six, well now five of us, who met twice or thrice a week and then drank and smoked weed until we couldn't keep our eyes open or our mouths shut. If we went to a hospital, or called in the police now, Pete would still be dead, and we'd be in lot of trouble.

I looked around, taking in the four faces. Andy, the young soccer player. Howard, my oldest friend and Pete's most recent, and most fervent follower, an assistant chef in of the most famous restaurants in town. And Steve and Greg, the lawyers, who had met Pete and me in the gym. Pete and me, the rookie cops. All good men, who weren't going anything particularly bad, but would be in a lot of trouble soon. We were all thinking that, I could tell, by looking at their faces.

Howard was the first to speak. He idolised Pete, and tried to act like Pete all the time. Taking care of the situation, knowing what to do now, that was what Pete was best at. And so Howard was trying to solve our problem. And he said what we were all thinking.

"The body. We've got to get rid of it. Lets dump it in the incinerator."

And we listened, because it was like Pete was talking to us. And when Pete talked, we always listened to him.

Ecce April

Well, it's another exceedingly sucky month, and while I had said I might post something in April, I see very little reason to. My time is pretty much going to be taken up with a new job (yay me!) and I've also managed to convince a friend of mine to download the first two seasons of Avatar, so I don't see when I can possibly write.

So say goodbye old friends of mine, and new ones too. Not that that many of you ever came here anyway.














Okay fine so this is my idea of an April's Fools joke! Look, it's one in the night, I'm minutely drunk, and I'm exceedingly tired. I know it isn't a very good joke. Deal with it, okay?

There's a story I've honestly been working on which could end up being supremely cool but somehow March is a month which really sapped all creativity from me. Despite trying to write the story for two weeks now, only around a thousand words have been penned so far. Disgusting, I know. April though is a new month with new hopes, so who knows, eh? And once I get this story out, I'm sure I'll be able to come up with new ideas. It's just that this one is sitting in the front of my brain and refusing to let anything else through.

Gimme time and wish me luck and new things shall come too! Until then children, eat your ice cream, it's good for you!

March Sucks! And I'm Not Old!

Dear random readers, and also you freaks who come here regularly! March 2007 sucks. In protest against this highly sucky month, there shall be no updates to the blog. Now, I know that a few of you at least are hooked to the madness that is me, and for you, I have a simple suggestion: Buy me a drink.

Regular programming shall return in April. Unless April sucks too. We'll decide that on April 1.

Cheers,
-G!

Life lessons

Life can be lived according to five simple rules. And one complicated one.

1. Be more tolerant
The people around you are infinitely stupid. They will constantly amaze and impress you with new and creative displays of stupidity on a scale unsurpassed till now. And it will keep getting worse. Don't be nice to everyone without discrimination. But do not be cruel or harsh to fools either. They can not be blamed for what they are. Ignoring their stupidity and staying peaceful is far better for your blood pressure anyway.

2. Don't let yourself be pushed around
You will make friends with the people around you. And no matter how hard you try, you will end up making friends with some of the stupid ones too. Face it. Most of the people in the world are the stupid ones. And once you make friends with these people, they will be unreasonable, and they will try to be wilful. You do not deserve this. Because obviously, since you are reading this, you are one of the intelligent people in this world. A simple solution is to smile and nod, while humming your favourite song in your head. The world remains a better place with music, and without the words of the infinitely stupid.

3. Don't get angry
This might seem like a repeat of rule number one, but it isn't. That one tells you to be more tolerant, so long as you don't have to suffer fools. Rule number two is a direct spiritual successor to rule number one. That tells you not to let yourself be pushed around by the fools you end up suffering. And rule number three in turn derives from rule number two. Don't get angry when the fools try and push you around. Humming your favourite song isn't enough and can incite them further in some situations. In those situations, you will feel tempted to tell the fools to fuck off, but don't. That only escalates tensions, and probably won't do your blood pressure any good either. Hugs are a good solution in this situation. There is an added advantage in this, which is that if the hug doesn't work, you are already in position to knee the fool in the groin. In an entirely peaceful and tolerant manner.

4. Say thank you
Even though they are fools for the most part, most of the people in your life will do things that make your life easier or happier or a combination of both, which is a rare and wonderful thing. When they do these things without any expectations of a reward of any sort, it is a truly beautiful thing. It's easy to take them for granted, but saying thank you does not cost you anything. And it can bring a lot of joy to the world. This rule is particularly important when you're talking to your parents. You're probably going to outlast them. You might regret not saying thank you after they're gone. Most of them are fools who don't understand you. But they do love you.

5. Don't be so bloody insecure
You're surrounded by fools who make foolish demands on you, as the first three rules have made clear. At times, if you possess any self-reflexivity at all, you will wonder how any of your intelligent friends can stand you. Of course, it's unlikely that you have any intelligent friends at all, aside from me, but I suppose you could be wondering how I am able to stand you. But there's a reason that your friends like spending time with you. Considering that you read my blog, you're clearly an intelligent person. With a good sense of humor too. And hell, if you're €a repeat reader, we'll even toss in good human being. So clearly, the reason your friends spend time with you is because of you. So stop being so bloody insecure.

6. Smile
I said that one of the rules would be complicated didn't I? This is the hardest to explain, and the hardest to carry out. But smile as much and as often as you can. For one thing, it confuses the stupid majority. It can actually make some of them very uncomfortable. Which is a wonderful thing. And it can also make you a little happier. Which is more important than anything else.

This is probably the most self-indulgent (and sanctimonious) thing I've written in a very long time. I'm definitely not trying to entertain anyone. Three of you, at least, know why I have written this. I'm not telling the others right now, because I don't think I should. But all of you should know one thing. No matter how ridiculous these life lessons sound, I believe that they really work. This afternoon, I was feeling tense and worried about a number of things. Tonight, I'm feeling at peace after a long time. I have not felt this self-assured in ages. Who knows? Maybe if you relaxed and smiled a little you'd also like the world a bit more? And remember. After a while everything seems funny.

Ahem

Hey there. I just wanted to apologise for the highly self indulgent entry I posted last night. I've not even re-read it this morning, but I remember vaguely what I'd written and I know that I should be apologising. I was half asleep when I wrote that piece, and I wrote it to move towards further sleepfulness, so don't hold it against me.

What I do remember of it though tells me that there is some hope for it yet. I think there were whole paras missing in the middle, and the conclusion wasn't very conclusive either, and I should do a rewrite.

On the other hand, I probably won't, because I'm lazy. For now though, until there's a suitably entertaining new entry, you could scroll down and read the story about that goat, The Sacrament, which I liked, or you could even read last night's entry, and leave comments letting me know just what all went wrong.

Feel free.

Forces Kid (Rough Draft)

I'm very unsure of this story. But I sort of like the flowthrough. So I'm putting this up as a first draft, and want advice on where it's headed. Because so far I don't see a point to it. Please comment. Be ruthless!


When I was a lot younger, I thought that moving around a lot was the only way to live. The idea that you could live in a single city, in a single house, for your whole life, was shocking. Of course, when I grew older I realised that we were in the minority.

This story isn't about moving around a lot though.

Somehow, everyone I know now is going through a period of turmoil in their life. It's a strange feeling to see lives that seemed to have finally sorted themselves out get fucked up again. A friend of mine says it's our cold-weather front of discontent. It's kind of like being a forces kid again I suppose.

You get up and pick up all your stuff, and pack it into neat little boxes, labelled and sealed, and you move. Once you get to a new base, and pick out your rooms in the new house, you slowly start to unpack your boxes again, and put everything out in the open again. And by the time you've got most of the boxes open, you have to pack them up and move again. You lose a lot of old things that matter, and you acquire a lot of new things too.

Most people I know are still losing a lot of old things that matter. And the ones who've gotten new things to worry about are worried too. They know they're going to have to move again soon.

Forces kids are also usually very social. When I was a lot younger though, I was very anti-social. The combination was rarely pleasant. I was an introverted forces kid, surrounded with chatty and confident forces kids. And while I always thought that they were vacuous and pointless, I'm pretty sure that they thought the same about me. Of course, I was justified and they weren't.

But this story isn't about fitting in either.

Everyone eventually works out how to do that. The ones who don't are instantly recognisable. They are the ones who have dreams, and rarely know how to make them work. And so they believe that the people who can fit in will never be able to stand out.

Now when I was studying in Delhi, I studied in a forces school which had a lot of civilian kids too. While there was no clear division between us, it was very easy to tell which ones were the forces kids. They tended to stand out. Maybe because they had seen the forces life, and were determined that they be able to escape it.

But each of them was also very proud of being a forces kid, and talked down to the civilian kids. Not always intentionally and certainly not always, but they did. But if they weren't going to be a part of the forces, their kids would be complete civilians. I don't know if they thought about that.

The Sacrament

The goat was munching on grass contentedly. It was still very young - if it were a month younger kid would still be the proper technical term. The goat was not on a farm, or any other such livestocky location, but was in fact chewing grass inside a house, or rather on top of one, as it was tethered to a post on the roof of a rather large house. And so the goat stood on the roof and fed its fat round face on big bundles of green, juicy grass.

"This," he thought happily, "Is heaven. It should stay like this till the day I die!" Of course, he wasn't nearly in goat heaven yet, but compared to his life so far, this was pretty close. He'd never been this comfortable before, and he doubted that he would ever be this comfortable again. Little did he know.

For the goat, life had never been harsh, and there had always been food aplenty, but this lavishly indulgent life, which he had taken for granted since he got here a month back was a whole new experience. He could still remember that night last month in great detail, mostly because almost all other nights he'd seen had been indistinguishable from each other.

It was the night of the last full moon, a month ago now. His owner had taken him far from the farm, where life hadn't been all that bad really, and put him onto a truck. The journey seemed to take all night and none of the other goats on the truck had any idea of where they were headed or what was going on. Instead they just kept complaining, and bouncing into each other.

They had all been taken into a huge open maidan, only it wasn't open, but overflowing with people and goats. The were big goats and small goats and old goats and young goats, goats with thick coats and with big horns and with strange accents to their baas. Goats everywhere and people everywhere walking here and there and pulling the goats and pushing the goats and prodding the goats and staring at the goats.

Now as it turned out, not a single goat there knew what was going on. The were all as bewildered as he was, as none present could speak human. Expect the humans of course, but since none of them could speak goat it didn't help matters either. One human word though was used again and again throughout the day, which impressed itself on him - bakr-eid. He had no idea what it meant of course, but remembered it nonetheless, even as he chewed his grass in the warm sun which kept off the winter chill, and mused about how much his world had changed in that one day.

He had been poked and prodded endlessly and after some time one of the people who had poked, prodded and peered, had talked to the master, and then suddenly the goat realised that he was being dragged away by the new human.

How he had protested then, he remembered, grinning to himself in the way goats do. He had fought against the pull and tried to run back to the herd, as soon as they'd stepped out of the maidan. He was lucky that the new master hadn't let go, but dragged him into this opulent world, and a life of fresh, juicy and tender grass. He fervently wished that the rest of his life would be like this.

And what happened after that? Well. I never did get to find out, but I've always liked happy endings. So in my head at least, I try and think of the goat, sitting on that roof, sunning himself, and eating obscene amounts of grass.

And I never, never let myself think of the biryani that was sent over to our house from the house with the goat on top.