PULP

Recently I watched the cinema of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez after a long time. And I watched it seriously, very seriously this time. I have always been a great fan of Tarantino and Rodriguez and have seen kill bill, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Grindhouse, Sin City, Desperadeo many a times since I got into this rig. But never had I realized why have they always been like this and made such kind of movies. Their style of filmmaking is very unique and different. But it is also very crude and weird at the same time. These two filmmakers work on a genre of cinema which has never been exposed so religiously by any other filmmaker in the world ever. They are working on something which nobody is working on at the moment and that too on such a large scale. To put it simply, their cinema operates on ugly and crude reality of b-grade stuff which in refined language is called ‘pulp’ or ‘sleaze’. They have made billion dollar budgeted movies based on this ‘pulp’ with some of the very famous Hollywood actors and almost all of them have been a great success. But their success is not the point and matter of concern. What really amazes me is the fact that these two persons are so devoted and faithful to this genre that they have created some of the very great and brilliant cinema out of it. Tarantino once said, “I am not making movies for now, I am making them for forty years from now”. His statement seems to be making some sense for me today after so many years since he actually made it.

Pulp is the opium of masses. It has an importance of its own. Pulp is as important for the society as a whole as art is. And sooner we realize this fact, the better for us. No matter how sophisticated and articulated we try to become, more than 90 % of our everyday life is made up of this pulp. To connect to the pulp is like connecting to the reality. And despite being ugly and coarse, the reality is indeed beautiful. Very few Indian filmmakers have now realized the importance of sleaze in our society. It not only makes the cinema realistic but also gives a depth to it. It makes it universally acceptable and likeable without being pretentious. It kind of increases the holistic beauty and widens the scale of cinema. There is no specific reason to it but Indian filmmakers have always remained indifferent towards this facet of reality. They have always tried to wrap it with the sugarcoated layers without making an effort to expose it naked. It much explains the hypocrisy of Indian mind. One may find the cinema of Yash/Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar beautiful but nobody can say it is ‘real’. The reason is these filmmakers have always chosen to stay away from pulp because they are too afraid of it. This pulp is the reality we breathe in and this reality is the real horror. I regard Ram Gopal Verma as the first filmmaker who made a significant contribution to fill this void during 90s by infusing reality into celluloid with movies like Rangeela, Satya, Company, Bhoot and Sarkar. He used pulp to portray the dark and gruesome reality of the underworld mafia and the Indian society. He was then joined by various other filmmakers like Anurag kashyap, Vishal Bhardwaj, Dibaker Banerjee, Rajat Kapoor, Sudhir Mishra, Raj Kumar Hirani, Chandan Arora, Madhur Bhandarkar to name a few in the list. These filmmakers should be credited to have changed the pathetic show of Bollywood. They can be called the harbingers of neo-realism in Indian cinema. They have used the local pulp to blend realism and entertainment on celluloid. They all have a significant contribution for spicing up the box office collections and giving new life to Indian film industry.

Dibaker Banerjee is the Tarantino of Indian cinema. He has used pulp very extensively in all his movies to such an extent that our world appears pornographic at certain level. Dibaker uses pulp to expose the nasty land mafia and the disconcerting problem of land in the overpopulated north India in his directorial debut ‘Khosla ka Ghosla’. He also exposes the frightened face of middle class man who is scared of approaching police, law and politics to fix his own personal matter. Dibaker takes us further to the crowded, corrupt and obscure streets of Delhi cluttered with naked electrical wires and patched broken houses impoverished with unfulfilled dreams of starving middle class society in his wholesome entertainer ‘Oye, lucky lucky oye!’ He takes us inside to narrate a story of a funny Sikh family and portrays the rampant promiscuity, father son hostility, marital discord, domestic violence, greed, disgruntled adolescence of teenagers and the crippled social structure of our society. In this chaos, a discontented Sikh boy develops an inferiority complex which carries on throughout his life and makes a thief out of him. He also exposes the filth muddled inside the minds of urban middle class people who try hard enough to be sophisticated cultured English speakers but end up just being a laughing stock for others. In this movie, he shows how a young, polite, homely adolescent greeting card girl talks and behaves with her customers. He shows how a sleazy, flamboyant dancer from a backward community of Delhi who performs in extravagant, loud north Indian marriages and functions in front of a crowd of arrogant and snobbish so called rich lads, behaves and expresses herself in real world. Dibaker is the master of this genre. He understands the nuances of cinema. He uses pulp to represent the hollowness festering and breeding in our societies. He used it further in his experimental masterpiece ‘Love Sex aur Dhoka’. He narrated three different stories in the movie based on the themes of its main title named squalidly as ‘Church Gate ki Chudail’, Paap ki Dukaan’ and ‘Badnaam Shohrat’ respectively. He uses a documentary style to portray the unbridled pornography and worthlessness proliferating in our society in the form of false, bloated high society pride leading to honour killings, spurious relationships ending up in deceit and shame, tricky but the only road to success in the world of glamour and the well planned grubby media strategies to shock and scare the audiences. He explains metaphorically how the camera has become the god of this precarious and ill structured world. Vishal bhardwaj uses pulp to bring authenticity in his script and screenplay. ‘Beedi jalai le’ not only brought him his first big box office success with ‘Omkara’ but it also added enormously to the splendor of the movie. This very sleazy item number explains the ethnicity and culture of the region in which the tragedy of omkara takes place. And also the local slangs used confidently and boldly in the movie help it explain further. Similarly ‘Dhan te nan’ and ‘Raat ke dhaai baje’ added raunchiness to ‘Kaminey’ and made it a success. Furthermore, the exquisite detailing in exploring the subtleties and traditions of Gorakhpur made ‘Ishqiya’ a modern classic. Anurag Kashyap uses pulp to create a cult for his cinema. In his unique style of filmmaking, he uses sexuality to portray the complex mindset of modern Indian female in one of the most anticipated movies of my generation ‘Dev-d’. ‘Emotional Atyachaar’ has become synonymous with the modern times' brief relationships based on love and romance. He also uses pulp to represent the rugged and brutal royalty of Rajasthan in his political satire ‘Gulal’. Sudhir Mishra used it in his recent works ‘Yeh Saali Zindagi’ and ‘Tera Kya Hoga Johnny’ to portray the complex materialism creeping in our society. Raj Kumar Hirani has used it as a hit formula in all his movies right from ‘Munna Bhai MBBS’ to ‘3 idiots’ to expose the politics and mafia behind the education system of our country. There is another very devoted team of actors and filmmakers who are running a successful parallel cinema in this world of commercialization. It includes talents like Rajat Kapoor, Saurabh Shukla, Ranvir Shourey, Vinay Pathak, Vijay Raaz, Konkana Sen, Naseerudin Shah, Om Puri etc who have made some very interesting and hard hitting movies in recent times and also made them popular among multiplex audiences seeking for instant entertainment. They have used the element of pulp to explore the life style of urban sophisticated societies. Their movies like Raghu Romeo, Mixed Doubles, Mithya, Bheja fry, Raat Gayi Baat Gayi, Phas gaye re Obama, The president is coming etc have established new standards in the genre of comedy and satire. There are some more people on the list who have recently come up with shocking and amazing stuff using this pulp. Shimit Amin’s ‘Rocket Singh’, Navdeep Singh’s ‘Manorama six feet under’, Sanjay Khanduri’s ‘Ek Chalis ki Last Local’, Habib Faisal’s ‘Do Dooni Chaar’, Manish Jha’s ‘Band Baaja Baraat’, Raja Menon’s ‘Baarah Aana’, and Anusha Rizvi’s ‘Peepli Live’ are some other interesting projects worth watching and admiring. These people have understood the importance of pulp in our society and cinema. International filmmakers like Deepa Mehta and Mira nair have always used pulp in a very subtle way in their movies. Mira Nair’s ‘Monsoon Wedding’ has an interesting sub-plot of a sleazy love story between a beautiful seductive maid of the house and a hilarious, loud mouthed, dim witted laborer. Deepa Mehta in her controversial movie ‘Fire’ shows a sexually starved servant of the house masturbating and fantasizing about the two leading ladies of the house.Pulp is a genre which should be explored more and more to create better possibilities and prospects on celluloid. It has given a creative space to writers, lyricists and filmmakers to expose the reality hidden behind the garb of hypocrisy for such a long time. Some filmmakers like Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Suraj Barjatiya and Karan Johar still choose to stay from it for a reason specific to their own style of filmmaking. In 80s and early 90s, pulp was used in an awful way to make sleazy comedies, thrillers and dramas. It was a period of great depression in Indian cinema. It was a period when Indian film industry suffered huge financial losses and also the popularity of Indian movies in international market shattered critically. Subhash Ghai and Yash Chopra did their best to recover those losses but their style of filmmaking started fading away by the end of 90s. If there had not been any Ram Gopal Verma, Indian cinema would have continued losing its charm and vitality or it would have completely collapsed in the beginning of new century. So pulp proved as a savior for Indian movies. Indian cinema is reaching new heights and establishing better standards every day. Hordes of young and genius filmmakers have appeared in this beautiful world of creativity. They have realized need of the hour and have devoted themselves in creating a sensible and realistic cinema. Few structures have already been destroyed. And some more will be destroyed in times to come. If pulp is the body, art is the soul. So pulp is something required to be delved in for understanding the anatomy of our society and reaching out to its soul. And both of them are required to create something which we call ‘cinema’.

After all ‘pulp’ is what we all are made up of…

A MIGHTY SEA

A mighty sea
It lives by the shore
Quietly I walk
Upon the sands
And spread my soul
Under the naked sky
I look around
As far as I could see
And I see a silent wave
Approaching
From far far away
Emanating somewhere
From the caverns of
The burning sun
Gentle
Calm
Dispersing and merging
Every minute
I sit there for hours
Together
Resting and watching
The silent wave
Growing and
Making way
Towards me
I choose to run
But something keeps
Me grounded
And it comes
Finally
Like a demon
And engulfs me
Inside…

DEATH IN THE CONTEXT OF INDIAN CINEMA

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‘Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai’, Guru Dutt sings it and he sings it loud to expose the poignant materialism of our society in his autobiographical ‘Pyaasa’. He pictures death as the only escape from the mounting depression. A woman dishonored and tormented all her life shoots her son who is an outlaw to save the honour of her village. This was ‘Mother India’ way back in 1960s. A mughal emperor orders the beloved of his son who is a gorgeous courtesan, to be buried in a wall and saves the honour of his dynasty. This was K Asif’s megalomaniac venture of 50s ‘Mughal-e-Azam’. Death was portrayed as a guard of honour for the community as a whole in both these movies. Satyajit Ray portrays the dismal face of Indian poverty in his legendary ‘Apu Trilogy’ where death has been shown just another facet of life which lives and breathes along with its protagonists. An ecstatic young man in the prime of his youth dies of intestinal carcinoma in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s masterpiece ‘Anand’. And he leaves behind a following of people who love him because he challenges death without fear and rekindles their faith in life with his uncanny humor. Mukherjee calls it an inevitable part of life, a life which is nothing more than an agglomeration of various characters where everybody has been assigned a role to play. He carries the notion of death further in his another movie ‘Mili’ where a charming young girl full of life suffering from blood cancer flies abroad with her fiancé for advanced treatment. Her father keeps waiting and standing alone at the roof of his building as he watches the plane gaining heights taking his daughter to a place where death finds some cure. A final shot full of hope and life and the movie ends. We live and die of course but something remains even after death and it remains to stay forever. Raj Kapoor portrays it magnanimously in the biggest disaster of his career ‘Mera Naam Joker’ and his words resound in air when he sings ‘kal khel mein hum hon na hon, gardish mein tare rahenge sada’. Yash Chopra spices it up in ‘Deewar’ where a man who lost his father during childhood in a political warfare and has himself been a victim to the ills of society, achieves big and is killed in self-created circumstances by his younger brother. He portrays death as a necessary evil in the rigmarole of human existence. He also uses death in his experimental love stories ‘Silsila’ and ‘Lamhe’ where he brings it out as an unexpected accident and a lifelong jolt to the people left behind who keep suffering endlessly till they find a healing touch of love. Ramesh Sippy calls it a tragic affair born out of an act of abhorrence and vengeance in the biggest blockbuster of Indian cinema ‘Sholay’. Sometimes it is easier to die than to live a life without any hope and future. Mahesh Bhatt made a statement when he directed ‘Saraansh’ and showed two old parents making an attempt to end up their lives after the death of their only son. He proved that strength is required to live a dead and barren life than to really die. He also showed death as a unifying force in a much underrated work of his career ‘Kaash’ in which a divorced grieved couple decides to reunite after the death of their son to battle the haunting and loneliness of their lives together. He used the similar concept further in his autobiographical ‘Zakhm’ where the death of the mother acts as a unifying force between two brothers caught in a political combat. Govind Nihlani in 1983 represented death as a medium to break the ‘chakravyuha’ of life in his critically acclaimed ‘Ardhsatya’. Then arrived the showman Subhash Ghai, who created typical bollywood products in the dying 80s and 90s and used death as a device to boost up the box office in ‘Khalnayak’ and ‘Raam Lakhan’. He was absolutely clear in his mind when he directed these movies using old tested formulas that he didn’t want to make any statement out of it. Death is the ultimate level of eroticism as shown by Ketan Mehta in ‘Maya Memsaab’, an adaptation of Gustave Flaubert’s controversial novel ‘Madame Bovary’. A free-spirited promiscuous and seductive ‘Maya’ dispels into thin air in the final moments of the movie after she fails to find the true erotica of her life. On the other hand, Gulzar demonstrates death as the ultimate form of true love and devotion in his mythological ‘Meera’. Death is also the final conclusion of extreme radicalism in this conventional and clichéd world as shown by Gulzar through one of his characters in ‘Ijaazat’. Sometimes situations arise and both the victim and the accused get trapped in a web to die their own deaths. And this is when large number of people are massacred and sacrificed. There are no apologies in this universal crisis of terrorism and underworld mafia. Gulzar knew it so he made ‘Maachis’ and ‘Hu Tu Tu’ in which he shows death as a global phenomenon born out of a politically mastered state of affairs. So was also said by Ram Gopal Verma through his distinctive approach of filmmaking in ‘Satya’ and ‘Company’. Both these directors show the horrifying face of death and the obvious fear associated with it in their own manner. Gulzar uses poetry and emotions while RGV uses brilliantly crafted dark and gruesome camera visuals to paint death on a common canvass. Sometimes death remains the only mode of salvation. A trigger-happy gangster groans in pain and begs her mother for renunciation. Nobody knew that this thing would come unexpectedly from somebody called Mahesh Manjrekar in his directorial debut ‘Vaastav’. It’s really a moment to watch a mother shooting her son in a movie of 90s almost fifty years after ‘Mother India’ although the scenarios have matured from honour killing to a plea for salvation. Karan Johar has gone beyond imagination and used death in almost every script of his life from ‘Kuchh Kuchh Hota Hai’ to ‘We Are a Family’. He brings it forcibly to create situations for love and romance and even tries to make a sad remake of ‘Anand’ by the name of ‘Kal Ho Na Ho’. Death can bring a change and it can give rise to a revolution too. Mehra uses this idea to change the corrupt face of Indian politics in his contemporary freedom struggle ‘Rang De Basanti’. An afraid, middle-class old man dreams about his own death and foresees his family members making a mockery at his funeral. Dibaker Banerjee sets the tone in the very first scene of his humorous directorial debut ‘Khosla Ka Ghosla’. He blends satire and realism to portray the fear of death in Indian middle class society. Vishal bhardwaj has been instrumental in using the tool of death every time through his own adaptations of Bard and Ruskin bond. He interprets death in a contemporary style to portray a harsh reality. He has used death to culminate emotions. If it’s jealousy in ‘Omkara’ then it’s greed for power in ‘Maqbool’ to conclude in death. But he goes beyond all possible realms when Suzanna uses death to search for her love in ‘Saat Khoon Maaf’. Sometimes death is required to find resonance with life, a thought beautifully depicted by Aniruddha Roy Chaudhary in his Bengali work ‘Anuranan’. Anurag kashyap calls it a ‘darshan’ in ‘Dev-D’ when the protagonist stumbles on seeing a car crashing in the wall leading to a violent end. He decides to put an end to a life of destitution and sympathy and goes onto accepting a concubine as his partner. Death has also been shown as the dark reality of metropolitan life and culture in Mira Nair’s official Oscar entry ‘Salaam Bombay’ and Kiran Rao’s ‘Dhobi Ghat’. In ‘Dhobi Ghat’ one of the female characters of the movie embraces death after she fails to blend into the congestion and tradition of the big city. A lot has been said about death and portrayed several times on celluloid. But nobody has done it like Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Death had never been painted so beautifully ever before as in ‘Devdas’. Paaro running all the way through the long, magnificent corridors of her big haveli to the entrance, with her white red bordered sari unfurling and waving behind in the air, to embrace terminally ill, drunk devdas taking his last breath and he finally collapses as the gate closes in front of their eyes. And for the first time on Indian cinema somebody celebrates death and accepts it with open arms as in ‘Guzaarish’. For the first time people are not mourning the occasion rather they are celebrating it with drinks and smiles. It has never been done before. And it will never be done so beautifully ever after like bhansali has done it in ‘Guzaarish’.

From Guru Dutt to Anurag Kashyap death has always remained a fantasy for Indian filmmakers. They have used death as a cinematic tool to represent emotions and generate circumstances. They have used it again and again to prove that life is beautiful so it should be treasured in all possible scenarios. They have also shown it singing, dancing and smiling on celluloid. Sometimes it’s a necessary evil and sometimes it’s the only escape. But we have also maintained that death should be considered a pause, not a full stop. The concept still continues to be used variously by our filmmakers. The search which began almost a hundred years ago in the form of cinema still persists and manages to engage the audiences with the time tested formula called ‘DEATH’.

Bhansalism...

It’s been three nights, three consecutive nights that I have been listening to the music of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s movies. He is one of those rare filmmakers of India who work so meticulously on every aspect of movie making. Very few Indian filmmakers have been so committed to the holistic beauty of cinema. Raj Kapoor, Gulzar, Subhash Ghai, Vishal Bhardwaj are other filmmakers who can be named other than Bhansali who believe in working on each and every aspect of their movies to make them a true piece of art. Their movies not only dance, sing and celebrate on celluloid but also breathe and speak through their audience, live and die with those who cherish them. But this post is not about these people. This post is about a painter who knows how to fuse life on canvass. This post is about a poet who doesn’t only rhymes words with words but also rhymes them with air we breathe. This post is about a musician who not only creates music but also allows it to flow and vibrate in our systems. This post is about a man called Bhansali who is a painter, a poet, a musician, an artist and a director. This post is about Bhansali and his ability as a filmmaker to blend poetry, art and music in every frame of his movie.

Every time I listen to the music of Bhansali’s movies I am transported to a world which is beyond the world I live in. This world is a momentarily created, illusionary realm replete with thousands of beautiful colors splashed randomly on a huge canvass of life. This world is like a small island in the middle of blue sea on a starry night with music reverberating in atmosphere from all the possible directions. This world is an intoxicating dreamland where I see myself dancing and rejoicing all through centuries and ages. Jhonka hawa ka, Devdas theme, woh chand jaisi ladki, daras bina, sawar gayi, yun shabnami, dhundhli dhundhli are those compositions which are conceived once in a lifetime. His art is like a fascinating irony on this insensitive and ruthless world we exist. Whenever I listen to the music of khamoshi it makes me believe that silence not only speaks better than words but it also resonates and pulsates in the ambience. The music of hum dil de chuke sanam tears me apart and of devdas takes me back to an era where devdas would be living getting intoxicated in the memories of his beloved. Black too leaves an everlasting impression through the rousing background score given by Monty Sharma. The music of much criticized saawariya has a special place in my heart because I consider it Bhansali’s most well conceptualized and accomplished work ever as a musician. The music of this movie seems to flow in layers, falling one over another, integrating and breaking further into many more layers creating magic and spark in the air which surrounds me. I listen to the music of saawariya and sense the current passing through my body. I get hypnotized and lost in a moment full of music and light. I listen to guzaarish and feel that life is sad but too beautiful for all this sadness. The musicians don’t compose music for his movies. He makes them compose it for him. Bhansali creates a symphony with thousands of violins, guitars, synthesizers and drums echoing in harmony with life. Bhansali is a master magician who creates life and makes it breathe through celluloid. His movies are like beautiful exaggeration given to a poem by a poet. He may not always be original. And he may not have much to say every time. Or he may be saying it again and again. But he believes in saying and he believes in saying it beautifully. And this is what Bhansali is all about.

ALTERNATIVE SPACES...

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I woke up in the morning and touched myself to believe I was alive. I washed my face and wiped it with a towel. I felt slightly itchy, itchy behind, in the groove of my left ear. I touched the part. Found it to be somewhat rough. I tried to look into the mirror. A fungus had grown in the groove and was causing me trouble. I applied the antifungal ointment. And smiled. I smiled because a fungus had found a place in my body which is unknown and alien even to me. My senses do not remind me very often that such a place exists in my body which can be a dormant ground for some kind of ailment. This place is almost like a barren piece of land where the possibility of any kind of growth is remote and impractical. But the truth is it exists. It exists and harbors a potential possibility too. Anyways I had my breakfast and went out in the garden. Stumbled in the pots and fell on the ground. It had been years since I had fallen anywhere. I laughed and looked at the ground. I saw grass, roots, weeds and ants, flourishing and breathing in the wet soil. I saw a squirrel swarming and grabbing the roots of the tree, climbing it and mounting on the edge of the boundary wall. I looked around and saw birds chirping and perching on the branches of the tree. Scientists say that there are a millions of galaxies other than us where life exists in some form or the other. There exists a possibility of another universe with similar sun and planets revolving around it. They also say that there are millions of lives other than us, breathing and harboring in the spaces we live and die. Some years ago I read that millions of bacteria exist on the tip of our finger. So the tip needs to be thoroughly cleaned with sterillium before making a pin-prick. Seven years ago when I dissected the first dead body I found lots of spaces which exist inside us and are very own. Last year when I was posted to an altitude of 18000 ft, I found thousands of pieces of demineralised bones scattered everywhere in the cold desert. There were human as well as animal skulls, mandibles, femurs, tibias, fibulas, vertebral columns and all sorts of bones lying in their natural fate. Because of the demineralization, the bones seemed to be hundreds of years old indicating the presence of life in a place considered to be inhabitable and unfamiliar to a majority of our population. I looked around and discovered thousands of spaces existing in my immediate vicinity. Spaces which haven the possibility of life and existence. If creatures below us on the evolution ladder can find those spaces and encourage life to exist and thrive, then we as human beings with better capabilities must find some spaces having better prospects of life and its survival. Spaces which might be foreign but where a man could breathe without fear. Spaces which might be barren but where hopes could be cultivated without apprehension. Spaces which might be novel but where dreams could be seen and accomplished all over. Spaces where a new world could be erected and structured. Spaces where life could deliver again and flourish into a new civilization. We need to look for them. We need to hope for their existence.

Spaces…Alternative Spaces…

Alternative Spaces…With Alternatives…

PORN - V

The Flock Of Sheep And My Power

Note: This is one of my very old posts. I have published it again in this series.

“Power is when you have the power to kill someone and you don’t. That is what the emperors do” says Oscar Schindler

“Now I think you are a little drunk…!”
(Schindler’s list)

I am educated. I am sitting on a chair. I have the power to consume whatever I want to. Some body knocks on my door. They want water. They are starving. I will die if I share what I have. I can’t run. I will be caught. I will sit inside and not open the door. This is the only way. They know what's happening inside. But they are helpless. I have the power to exploit. I have the power to hide. They are meek. They can’t organize or revolt. They are handicapped. They need someone to initiate. A spark. Seems impossible to light up from anywhere. Someone needs to be insulted badly. Someone needs to be ripped. Darkness is their weakness, their darkness my power. Phone is ringing. A warning call. A call for help. They know that I'll not pick up the phone. But still want to try their luck. Luck is their last resort, their luck my escape, my power. They chose me. They have to suffer now. They could have stood up that moment. They would have blocked my way if they wanted to. But they didn't want to. They were having nice dreams. Feared they would depart if eyes see the morning sun. Dreams were their leisure, their dreams my realism, my power. I didn't want to drop what was coming my way, in my ‘luck’. They are dwarfs. Lonely dwarfs. Now they are entangled in a web. A web of dreams, a web of lucks, a web of misfortunes. I have the power to cut the web and break the wall. But I don't want to starve. I have to eat. Someone has died outside. They are crying. They are howling for help. Believe somebody would come and help. Their belief is their destiny, their belief my treasure, my power. I am helpless to help them. We both have the key to the door. I have not changed the locks. I didn’t have time. I had to eat. They have lost it somewhere. They can search it if they want, open the door and kill me. But I doubt they would find the key. One needs to fight for it. They can never. They want to cry and dream and try their luck. They are adamant. Ignorance is their light, their ignorance my steer, my power. Oh! I can’t listen to the music. They are screaming like beasts. But who cares for the music. I am starving. I have the power to eat. I will eat...

“Bleeding and babbling
We fell on his neck with a scream
Wave upon wave of demented avengers
March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream”
(‘sheep’ by Pink Floyd)

PORN - PART IV

The arena

People go there. They go there often. It’s a large well in the middle of town. They make prayers. They take circles around the well. They look into it. And smile. Also wave into it sometimes. Then they close their eyes. And pray. I tried hard. Many a times. To solve the mystery. Also looked into it. I didn’t see anything. I could only see some coins thrown by the people. And some food packets scattered all over. There was a rotten smell. Putrid. Repelling. It was hard to stand there. But people spend hours standing there and looking into it. They go there in large numbers. But only one person is allowed at a time to go near the well. Others wait in the viewing gallery. I also made a visit to the well. Other people were standing in the gallery. There is another place in the town. There also people visit in large numbers. It’s called the arena. Basically it is a large circular platform made up of red bricks with an amphitheater all around. It has a capacity of about 50,000 people. Herds of people go there every Sunday evening. For a show.

I was new to the town. I had heard a lot about these places. They were famous tourist destinations of the town. But I didn’t know the significance of these places. So I asked a gentleman passing by. He got frightened and ran away. I asked a number of people. Everybody acted strange but nobody gave me a reply. A six year old girl was standing in the corner watching me struggling in the new town. She pulled my shirt, gave a smile and said, “Do not worry. You will come to know…soon…very soon…” She laughed and ran away. I got scared and returned home. And struggled for two more days asking about the significance of the well and the arena. Until I met an old man having a cigarette in the corner of the street. I stopped there to have a cigarette. He seemed old but intelligent. Hesitatingly I asked him, “Why do people go to the well and arena?” He smiled and told me to accompany him. He was going to the well so he took me along. We reached the well. There was a ticket counter. Nobody could enter without a ticket. So we got the tickets. We entered the viewing gallery. Thousands of people were curiously waiting for something remarkable. It was hot. So people were getting restless. But nothing could smash their enthusiasm for the show. I asked the old man, “What the hell are we waiting for?” He told me to have patience and wait for the gong… Gong? I got irritated standing there in the hot sun on a marble floor. I was looking all over when I heard a loud sound. It was the sound of the gong. People got into attention and there was absolute silence as soon as the gong was heard. After few minutes, I saw a young girl. About 18 years old. With long black hair. Naked. Absolutely naked. She came from behind clearing the crowd in the viewing gallery, going towards the well. She reached the well. Folded her hands. Closed her eyes. And jumped into it. I was taken aback. For a moment I thought it was a dream. I looked around. And the crowd went into applause. People clapped and shouted victoriously. I looked at the old man pleading him to explain the situation. He told me not to ask anything and follow him to the arena.

It was six in the evening when we reached the arena. An equal number of people had gathered there too. We got the tickets and went inside. The tickets were costlier as compared to the well. We got the back seats. Since front row seats were reserved for the aristocracy. I was in a deep shit after watching that young girl dying in the well. I was not able to forget her face. I requested the old man again to explain what was going on. He told me to wait for some more time and let the show begin. I did as he instructed me. There was a loud cheer in the air. People were going mad waiting there for the show to begin. I heard a gong again similar to the one I heard at the well. I got frightened and decided to run away. But all the doors had locked and there was no escape. And I saw a smart man in his thirties coming into the arena. Naked. Absolutely naked. He reached the center and sat down on a chair. Folded his hands. And closed his eyes. Then I saw a six feet tall dark muscular man approaching the man from behind with a sword in his hand. He came closer and within a fraction slashed the neck of that man. I went into shock. Felt dizzy. The old man shook me and told me to relax. I looked around. And the crowd went into applause once again. I felt disgusted and came out of the arena. The old man followed me. I requested him to explain.

He told me that it’s a regular ritual of their town. Every Sunday two shows are organized. One in the afternoon. Other in the evening. And people wait for the whole week to watch them. He told me that the people are fed up of their lives. So they give it up in the manner they like. The hard ones who can do it themselves go to the well and commit suicide. And others choose the arena to get murdered. It’s the only option they have in their lives. It’s the only escape. But it’s not a moment of remorse. It’s a moment of renunciation and celebration. It’s a new beginning…a new life.

I requested the old man to take me back. I was really disturbed. I couldn’t sleep at night. The faces of the young girl and the smart man were dancing before my eyes, mocking at me. I spent the whole week thinking about the situation. And at last decided to visit the old man. I went to his home. Knocked. He opened the door and looked at me. I said, “I want to talk to you about the whole situation. I am very disturbed and confused. Please help me.” He told me to go back since he was very busy.

I asked him, “Sir, Can I come tomorrow?”

He said, “No, I won’t be there.”

I poked him further to know where he was going.

He told me that he was going. Going to the arena.

To die.