On Talaash and the marriage of natural and paranormal

SPOILER ALERT: It is needless to, but I feel myself bound to remind the humble reader not to expect any form of apology from the writer in the circumstance that their suspense regarding the titular film is ruined by the write-up that follows.

I have liked to call myself an agnostic for quite a while now; my religious inclinations have only ebbed as I’ve moved away from the zero point of my conception. Consequently, then, my faith in a ‘paranormal’ realm has also declined in its resolution. I have found reason and belief in the supernatural to be antithetical stances. I do not see how one can prevail with amity alongside the other.

It is always difficult for me to dissociate in all entirety the gist of an artwork from the way the artist executes it, in whatever form of entertainment or art it be. For those who argue that there isn’t much (or any) difference between the two, I would like to draw their attention to the entire body of work of Quentin Tarantino. None of his films (barring Jackie Brown and Inglourious Basterds) have ever had the story as the centrepiece: it is, of course, an important feature but not the most important characteristic. Reservoir Dogs had a sparkling script as its USP; Pulp Fiction had its snappy, gold-wrought dialogues and path-breaking editing and Kill Bill had plain badassery working wonders for it.

Bottomline being that it is never an easy task to dissect a film solely on the basis of one of the two: content or execution. Talaash, a film that was marketed as a dark, neo-noir police procedural, presented a similar problem to me, not as a scrutinizing critic but as an average popcorn moviegoer.

Before trudging the path of criticism, I shall set the definitions of two terms I will be liberal in the use of in the paragraphs that follow, more for the purpose of self-reference than anything else:

1.       par·a·nor·mal/ˌparəˈnôrməl/

Adjective: Denoting events or phenomena such as telekinesis or clairvoyance that are beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding.

2.       su·per·nat·u·ral/ˌso͞opərˈnaCH(ə)rəl/

Adjective: (of a manifestation or event) Attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.

It is evident from these definitions that paranormal or supernatural activity is that which is inexplicable by the scientific resources of the day. What is not very evident, and must hence be brought to the fore, is the fact that supernatural occurrences are said to function even beyond the ‘laws of nature’. Now, the difference between something that is outside the realm of present scientific body of knowledge and the very laws of nature is that the latter bracket is inclusive of everything. By everything I mean everything: known or unknown, discovered or undiscovered, within the reach of science or without. 

Science is ever-changing, or as I like to put it, ever-growing. Every passing day sees science exceed itself, resulting in a knowledge bank of humanity that never shies away from addition, subtraction or correction. The beauty of a scientific hypothesis is that it is only considered true unless proven false. The laws of nature, however, have existed and will exist for each and every one of us, whether we know of them or not. Mankind’s knowledge of nature does not have any effect on its laws. Hence, when someone claims to have experienced a supernatural phenomenon, they are implying that the very laws of nature have been breached. Not only is it unexplainable by the current yardstick of science, it transcends the very nature of our being, our universe. This claim is one which I find very hard to stomach as a logical human being.

Returning to my original point (the difficulty of judging execution and content exclusively), Aamir Khan-starrer Talaash comes across as a perfect example of the dilemma. It deals with the clever machinations of a conspiring departed soul who exacts revenge from her perpetrators by getting them killed one by one. On her path to vengeance, she encounters a mortal anguished by a personal tragedy and, being the golden hearted spirit that she is, helps him come out of its clutches to live a normal, consummate life.

My biggest problem with the film is that it takes itself very seriously; it actually aims to pose pertinent questions regarding the potency of supernatural phenomenon such as communication with dead souls through séances, vagrant departed souls being able to assume humaniform and so on. It assumes the afterworld to be a very palpable and communicable state of being. It talks of it as a place existing within the ambit of the laws of nature, in fact functioning under a very steadfast set of rules of its own. It does to afterlife what Inception did to the world of our dreams. It defines, or tries to define the particulars of afterlife.

If it had been marketed not as an intense police procedural but as a supernatural thriller, I would have enjoyed it much more. I would rather be shorn of a contrived ‘twist’ ending instead of feeling cheated by the promotional tactics employed by the producers of the film.

Having said that, I found the ‘execution’ of the film very mature and deftly handled. All the scenes were technically impeccable; some sequences were masterfully choreographed and enacted. Nawazuddin Siddique’s character (of Kahaani and Gangs of Wasseypur fame) endeared me the most, and his story arc was gripping and deserving of a short film of its own. Till the last moment, I had hopes high for a Scooby Doo-esque climax, where all the supernatural elements in the story turn out to be red herrings, revealed to be mere cheap devices in the villain’s grand plot to subvert the situation to his benefit. Again, it is possible that my own expectations with the film worked against me, but these expectations weren’t ungrounded after all. They were as a result of a clever publicity tactic to make the film appear to be a grim detective thriller while it was something else completely.

Demand attention it will.

To put it in a nutshell, Talaash is a strictly good film. It will keep the viewers on the edge of their seats, demand their rapt attention, grow on them even hours after they’ve left the dimmed cinema hall for good. It will invite passionate discussions, arguments, and verbal squabbles from one and all. It will occupy college canteen chit-chat, industry buzz, kitty party banter and facebook dissection, all because it is audacious enough to merge the natural and supernatural, almost making the two appear seamless.

I will conclude with Arthur C. Clarke’s timeless words:

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

यूं ही कुछ, मन की उथल-पुथल...

लगता था जो गगन असीमित, 

था वो बस कुछ कोस ही गहरा;

कसमें जो थी स्वयं से बढ़कर,

टिकी नहीं वो एक भी पल-भर.

रिश्ते जो थे दिल में संजोए,

बिखर गए सब एक-एक कर,

सपने स्वर्णिम जो देखे थे,

चले गए ना जाने किधर.

वो बचपन की छुपान-छुपाई,

वो बाल-मन की संरचनाएँ;

वो पापा की मूछ पे ताव,

वो माँ की आँचल की छाँव.

वो सर्दी की धूप, मोहिनी,

वो बारिश की तेज़ फुहार;

वो जीवन की चादर झीनी,

करवट लेती समय की धार.

बदल रहा संसार हमारा,

बदल रहीं महत्त्वाकांक्षाएँ;

अगन लगी है जिसको देखो,

भागा-फिरता नज़रें चुराए.

भारी दिल का विह्वल गान,

मरणासन्न का आखिरी ऐलान,

"करे चलो तुम आज से दिल्लगी,

स्वयं बनो अपने  भगवान्."

-Bm.

Mad World: Part 2 of 2

Continued from Part 1.

“It can surely be arranged, detective,” assured Dr. D’Mellow, “it isn’t too much to ask for; I can pull a few strings, silence a few mouths, keep it close to the chest. I’ll move the body and conduct an autopsy at the soonest; you’ll be the first to know of my findings.”

Shiv nodded absent-mindedly in gratitude of the doctor’s services. He and Imtiyaz had completed a superficial examination of the body, yielding quite a few inferences that they had yet to follow up on. They had also taken the photograph of the corpse, if needed for future purposes. Dr. D’Mellow, one of Imtiyaz’s long-time acquaintances had been quick to arrive to the duo’s aid concerning the mystery of the dead man.

“I’ll need one of you to help me with the body,” D’Mellow said.

Imtiyaz volunteered at once, leaving Shiv to his own devices. He had been detached from the proceedings ever since he had inspected the corpse of the stranger, instead alternating between being engaged in his mobile phone and looking out into space with unfocussed eyes.

A business card had been found on the deceased, which named him ‘Mr. Vinay Dipesh’. He was a freelance journalist by profession, and nothing else, excepting his email id (dipesh_Vnay@bmail.com) and phone number (7448726339), had been mentioned therein. Imtiyaz had called the phone number but the pre-recorded voice of the announcer on the other end had declared that it was ‘out of coverage area’.

Presently, Shiv sprang out of his state of contemplation and stood up with a renewed physical vigour, his face etched with lines of an insane ecstasy, indicating that he had hit upon a brainwave.

“Have the good doc transport the body to his facility, Khan, and meet me in front of Sadbhavna Mandir in a quarter of an hour,” he jabbered as he took off for the outdoors with uncharacteristic nimbleness. He disappeared around the corner of the corridor immediately outside his second-floor entrance, sprinting while at it. Dr. D’Mellow and Khan stood transfixed, surprised at the abruptness of the detective’s departure. Shiv’s head re-appeared at the entrance, and he added, “and yes, Khan: keep the revolver handy. Just in case…” he winked and ran out of sight.

“Your friend, the detective, he’ll get to the bottom of this in no time,” remarked D’Mellow a few minutes later.

Khan smiled knowingly, giving the doctor a hand with the body.

“Haha, I’m sure,” he averred, “it’s only a matter of time…”

*

“The card had the printing shop’s name on it: Samarth Printers and Laminators,” Shiv explained to Khan, an hour later. The duo was sitting under a makeshift enclosure of a chai stall overlooking the Sadbhavna Temple, sipping at their glassfuls as a strenuous downpour stymied their progress.  

“I looked it up on the internet and found their address,” he continued. “Then, I texted one of my street faithfuls in the area, asking him to inquire about our Vinay Dipesh from the printing shop. He reverted in a short while with his complete address, extracted from the lady behind the counter at Samarth Printers and Laminators. It was at this moment that I took off from home. I got 5 photographs of the deceased printed on the way,” he said, passing on the address and photos.

Imtiyaz received and glanced through them before returning it to Shiv. He looked up to him for a long time, open-mouthed and tongue-tied with awe.

“I bloody underestimated you! Where do I even begin? Who are these ‘street faithfuls’ of yours?” he asked.

“Oh, they’re just a network of people I know from the roads. These are people who nobody notices in their day-today going-ons, but are very resourceful: taxi drivers, rickshaw pullers, roadside beggars, hawkers, urchins, pickpockets, and the like. They are my eyes and ears on the ground; I have taken them under my wing, paying them a nominal bonus whenever I need their assistance in my detective work.”

“Neat!” Imtiyaz exclaimed, “I tell you, the police have lost a huge asset in you. It’s not only about your advanced cognitive ability, but also your nonchalance in working with people that the society deems ‘lowly’.”

“Go easy on the flattery, Khan, it’ll take you nowhere.”

“You never can take a compliment, can you?”

“Oh shut up Imtiyaz! Stop being a nagging wife,” Shiv snapped with finality, sipping the last of his tea.

“You’re incorrigible,” his protégé spoke under his breath, getting up. “Okay, what now?” he asked out loud.

“The address, in case you haven’t noticed, is that of the apartment situated right across the road, adjacent to the temple. Wotsay, should be brave the showers? I don’t think it’s going to subside anytime soon…”

“Yes, it’s alright, we don’t have much time before dark anyway,” he replied, delivering his cup back to the chai waala. The two made a dash across the street, shielding themselves with their hands, doing little to stop the downpour from drenching them from top to bottom by the time they had crossed half the road. As they ran to cover the remaining length of the crossing, a speeding taxicab emerged out of nowhere, cutting across the falling raindrops, making its way directly to the spot where Shiv and Imtiyaz would be in the next instant.

“Watch out!” shrieked Shiv, catching his partner by the cuff and lunging forward. The taxi raced past their stretched legs, missing them by a whisker. They landed face down in a pool of grime. Imtiyaz sat up at once, shrugging off the filth from his clothes and attempting to note the license plate. Before he could do so, however, a scanty crowd began to form around them, hindering the taxi from view.

“Are you okay, sir?” he asked, frantically.

“Yes, I am unhurt,” replied Shiv, expelling mud from him mouth. “Did you catch the number plate?”

“No, I couldn’t, sorry!”

“No problem, it’s alright,” he said, getting up, brushing his overcoat.

Visibly unnerved at the altercation, the two got up and assessed themselves, looking for any bodily harm. Imtiyaz had not a scratch on his body; Shiv had sprained his ankle. He kept looking at his palm, apparently checking a scab he might have incurred.

“Middle age doesn’t allow for these antics,” he joked. “One of these days, I need to get myself ensured.”

The jest wasn’t returned by his partner; he still seemed perturbed by their close shave with the taxi.

“Listen, sir…” he spoke, picking his words one at a time, “I need to tell you something.” His manner was suddenly grave and, for want of a better word, apologetic.

Shiv did not appear surprised at his unease. He continued to prance towards the apartment building, his stride consistent and countenance pleasant.

“I know, I know. This is the second time today that you’ve underestimated me, Khan. Keep walking.” He said, clearly enjoying himself.

“No sir, you don’t understand—“

“Oh, but I do, Khan!” Shiv cut in. “Just follow me, let’s go in and see what awaits us!”

Hesitantly at first, Khan kept walking, all his protests being done to naught by Shiv’s gesticulations. A sly smirk had spread across his face, much to Khan’s bafflement.

“SIR, LISTEN TO ME!” Khan shouted, demanding his partner’s attention. “I did not plan the taxi—“

“I know you didn’t, Khan!” he snapped with a laugh. “I know everything; let’s go in, the doctor and your fiancé must be waiting!”

“WHAT?! The doctor and who-?” His bewilderment knew no bounds.

“Just follow me, and all will be clear.” Shiv ordered, leading the way.

Flabbergasted at his partner’s bizarre behaviour but bound by obeisance to follow his orders, he tailed him faithfully.

“Which one is it, Imtiyaz?” Shiv asked him playfully.

“As if you don’t know already? That one, up on the first floor,” he said, pointing up at the one of the many windows dotting the building they stood in front of.

“Lead on, partner.”

“Sir, don’t play with me now. I know that you know everything about my little game,” he said in a low voice, leading the way nevertheless.

Shiv gave out a hearty laugh. “Well, I admit you had me there for a moment. But yes, only for a moment.”

“I don’t know how you did it, but please tell me…was it the anagram?” he suggested.

“What anagram?” replied a relatively surprised Shiv.

It was his partner’s turn to laugh now. “Oh, so you didn’t get that far! Well, that’s a victory!”

The two men continued to climb the stairs, slowly and with careful steps. Shiv remained silent for a moment, and then it hit him.

“But of course! How could I miss it!”

Both the men acknowledged their respective defeats, laughing at their own selves and sharing a light moment of mutual embarrassment. They climbed the remaining steps and stopped on the first floor landing, right in front of the apartment in question.

“Go on, you first. Savour the look on their faces when they see you unsurprised!” Imtiyaz said.

Shiv was more than ready to oblige.

“I’ll say this before I enter: you have a hell of an actor for a husband, Imtiyaz,” he said and opened the door.

The door swung open, revealing an average sized apartment sans any furniture or fittings. Right across the drawing room, stood Dr. D’Mellow and the ‘dead’ man, ear-to-ear grins etched on both their faces. They had been clearly anticipating the arrival of Shiv and Imtiyaz. Shiv made his way in, hands fully stretched and a beam to complement theirs.

“Hello, you rascals! Thought you could fool me, eh?” he announced boisterously, and held ‘Vinay Dipesh’ in a tight squeeze. The smile flew right off the latter’s face, and so did that of the doctor. They cast a look of utter incredulity at Imtiyaz, who could only shrug back in mock woe.

Shiv took his time and went on to hug the doctor next. He patted his back, saying, “You did a good job back there, doc; had me in a tizzy.” Coming out of the hug and gauging the surprise on their faces, he said to Vinay, “But of course, so impudent of me to not explain my lack of surprise at seeing you here, alive and kicking. But I’m not spilling any beans here, in this obviously for-rent apartment, so unbecoming and gloomy. Let us go someplace more fitting for a union of friends. Drinks on me!”

*

“I knew something was afoot the moment Imtiyaz came in,” Shiv said to his three companions. They were seated in a first class smoking lounge of a swanky bar situated in the heart of the city. “I couldn’t quite put a finger on it, but I had a niggling feeling that he was hiding something; keeping something from me.”

The four men had each a pitcher of beer in front of them, which they took a swig out of, every now on then.

“That was the first clue: his constrained body language. Secondly, the phone-call from ‘boss’. It was a very stupid mistake on your part, Imtiyaz; you said your boss had asked for you to be at the police station in an hour’s time, but you forgot all about it later on! That was when I was convinced that it had not indeed been, as you claimed, your boss on the other end. But then, who else could it be to whom you’d say something like ‘now’s better than ever’? But of course, it was a signal, a hidden message for someone to take the cue and intervene!” He took a sip from his pitcher, and went on.

“So I merely added two and two: Imtiyaz dropping by unannounced all of a sudden, his taking a call which was not from his boss (despite him claiming so), your synchronised arrival and very theatrical ‘death’…all led me to conclude that this was planned in advance by Imtiyaz.”

The three men sat dumbfounded, forgetting their drinks for the time being.

“But, how did you possibly know I was Imtiyaz’s fiancé? How could you possibly decipher that?! And how the hell did you know I was alive?” ‘Vinay’ demanded.

“Well,” explained Shiv, “those were the two most difficult inferences to arrive at. I admit it, there was a bit of luck involved. Remember when I was examining you and you were so accurately playing dead,” he pointed to Vinay, “I noticed a similar tan on your ring finger as I had seen on Imtiyaz’s hand. That ensured that you were married. Later on, when I left home and got printouts of your photograph, I made sure all my men on the streets had at least one copy of it. One of them recognised you for real, as the real you: Kailash Pratap Singh. I had him dig out as much information about you as he could in the shortest time, and he did; he told me that you had recently been engaged in secret, and that too to a man…A man, whose description uncannily resembled Imtiyaz! Again, I cannot take credit for this; my faithful network of grassroots level intelligence did it for me.”

He paused for breath, the silence he left behind not broken by any of the other three.

“As for how I knew you were alive, despite my having checked your vitals to be non-existent, well, it was a very, very hard nut to crack. I must say, that was the masterstroke of your plan. It kept me off-track for the longest time. I knew, despite my doubts regarding Imtiyaz’s motives, that he would never, I repeat, never let a man die just for bringing to fruition a plot to play games with me. The only thing I had going for me was noticing that he had a small article hidden in his breast pocket, which I first mistook for his engagement ring. But just before you arrived on scene,” he said to Kailash, “he had taken out the ring from his back pocket. That meant that there was still something in his pocket that he probably didn’t want me to know of. It could very well have been a harmless change or a random pin, but my interest was roused. I saw it as the missing link to the conundrum. Your vomiting and collapsing and lack of pulse pointed to a known rare condition of poisoning, but I had no way to prove my hunch. Except by getting that little something out of his pocket, by hook or by crook!”

He reached into the breast pocket of his own brown overcoat and his hand came out holding a small empty vial labelled ‘Atropine Sulphate’.

The revelation caused uproar all around the table: Imtiyaz spluttered his mouthful into his pitcher, checking his breast pocket and finding it, to his utmost horror, empty. The doctor only laughed bemusedly, patting Imtiyaz on the back. Kailash remained stupefied, looking at Shiv with wide, gaping eyes.

Imtiyaz’s surprise was evident when he spoke. “When the holy fuck did you—“

“Remember our unfortunate brush with the speeding taxi that tried to mow us down?” Shiv asked rhetorically, playing his ace.

“Bloody hell, why didn’t I see it?! He was one of your men, the driver!” Imtiyaz exclaimed, having a moment of epiphany.

“Indeed! I had it all arranged; my man, Prashant, a taxi driver, was waiting for our approach near the sidewalk. I signalled him covertly to brush past us, fast enough to scare the living daylights out you and ensuring that his license plate was not seen in the hullaballoo. When I pulled you and jumped forward, the vial of atropine sulphate dropped out of your pocket, which I conveniently palmed.”

Taking another sip, he continued, “It was a fairly easy deduction from there on: atropine is the prescribed treatment to increase blood pressure and revive the working of a failing heart. It can also be used to reduce the effects of grayanotoxin poisoning; a type of rhododendron poisoning which lowers the pulse to almost non-detectable levels and thus simulates death for a short period of time. Its side effects are, as we saw, vomiting, nausea, loss of motor control and so on. Having introduced a safe amount of the toxin in his system, Kailash had come to my house on your cue, making it appear as if he was dead for real. His ‘last’ words were enough to plant a reasonable doubt in my mind, ruling out the involvement of the authorities into your little game. Moreover, you were fully aware that I knew your closeness to Dr. D’Mellow, and were fairly certain I’d suggest his name to work on this. So you had it all pre-planned with him: he’d come as an outside medical authority and corroborate Kailash’s ‘death’, which would be enough to convince me that something was really afoot.”

He concluded his explanation and guzzled down the remaining bit of spirit in his pitcher, reeling under its bittersweet descent along his food pipe. The other three were too overcome with astonishment to add to his account and too drunk to stay shut up.

“You call yourself a detective, and you couldn’t even figure out that silly anagram?” Imtiyaz muttered, in-between hiccups. “It was lying there, ready for you to pick up.”

“The e-mail address it was,” added the doctor. “It was my creation…pat me in the back, will ya?”

“Yes, I missed that one. ‘dipesh_Vnay’, I should have cracked it; it’s my name afterall!” Shiv said, in mock dismay.

“One more thing, sir, one more thing…” Imtiyaz went on in his drunken tirade, “You can deduce all that you want from a vial of atropine or a tan mark of a ring, but you cannot decode human nature. You cannot shrug off the, the—overpowering diktat of right and fuckin’ wrong, the imposition of bullshit conformities of the powers that be.”

“What do you mean, Imtiyaz?” Shiv asked tenderly, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. The doctor and Kailash looked on the mentor comforted his pupil.

“See, even you cannot work your magic when it comes to this,” said Imtiyaz, sounding out each syllable clearly and painstakingly. “They even chucked you away, tossed you out like an insignificant critter, with all your glories and all your brains left to rot. All your laurels, your achievements, your greatness reduced to a heap of dust...and your fault was? Fucking a dead person? And what of all the things you could have done for the living, had you risen through the ranks?! What of those people dead because you weren’t there to solve the case?”

“It’s alright, Imtiyaz,” said Shiv in a tone of reassurance. “I’ve gotten over the regret a long time back. All that is left is, perhaps a residual loss at not having the chance to serve my people the same way I could have if I hadn’t done what I did. Believe me; it doesn’t pain me a lot.”

Imtiyaz went on as if he didn’t hear him speak. “Do you remember the words I said in rebuttal to your justification of your necrophilia? ‘What do you mean “why should it matter?” Are you out of your mind? You think what you did was right?’ These were the exact words in which my boss reprimanded and suspended me, when I told him of my homosexuality a few weeks back…and then they talk of an open society and an accepting world…that was my real reason to come to you, to know from the only person in the world who has faced similar humiliation from the society how it feels to be at the wrong side of sexuality...I wanted to share both my distress and my happiness with you. I wanted to introduce you to my only pillar of support, Kailash, the only man who stood by me, heard me out, cared for me….and I wanted you to work your brains while at it…”

His final words lay hung in air for a long time. The city lights grew brighter, roads grew scantier and the behemoth of humanity went back to the comfort of home and family. The four forlorn men drank away their misgivings as another night descended on a mad, mad world…

THE END

Mad World: A Shiv Pandey conundrum

Inspired (in part) by The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Might have, on second thoughts, some adult content. Discretion advised.

Part 1 of 2:

It wasn’t exactly ten when the doorbell of Number 9, Brahma Apartments rang in its shrill, jarring note, putting the proceedings in the whole residential block to a standstill. Mr. Shiv Pandey, jolted from his dreamless sleep, scrambled to his feet to tend to the rather untimely guest.

Jogging to the door, he stopped short of opening it, assimilating the sensory inputs scattered around him like hints waiting to be picked up. He knew, in less than an instant, the identity of the man (yes, positively a male) waiting for him on the other end. Boastful of his uncannily enhanced sense of deduction, he dug inside his crumpled all-purpose shorts and punched quick commands on his mobile phone without so much as glancing at it. A message alert sounded on the other side of the door and Mr. Pandey soundlessly unlocked the door, without opening it an inch.

A dapper young man in formal overalls walked in, wearing a look of utter bafflement on his face. Eyes widened and mouth half-open, he managed a smile even as Mr. Pandey hugged him tight, exclaiming, “Khan, good as ever!”

The young visitor returned the hug with similar enthusiasm, his round face still bearing vestiges of astonishment.  Coming out of the squeeze, he asked, “but sir, how did you...”

“Know you were you?” Mr. Pandey offered, beaming at his ex-student.

“Yes! And I thought I’d be the one to surprise you, sir.”

“You commit the fundamental folly of underestimating your teacher, Imtiyaz. I see you haven’t changed a bit in 4 years: impatient, indifferent to authority and brilliant with the five senses, not so much with the sixth. But wait, what have we here? You’re engaged and you wanted to surprise me about it, as is obvious from the absence of the engagement ring, which most probably rests in the breast pocket of your giveaway-of-a-shirt!”

Imtiyaz gave out a long hearty laugh.

“I see you haven’t changed in the least, sir! Still your old Sherlock Holmes self, shooting out insanely accurate deductions like they’re math tables. But how did you have my number after all these years? And engagement, how did you get there? How did you even know it was me at the door?”

“No rocket science, I just happen to know too few people in the world. I have been keeping track of all you bunch of rowdies from the Police Academy days, through Awasthi. I prefer not to initiate personal contact but keep your contact details handy, just in case. About it being you, well, it was pretty evident from the full, long and forceful bell-press that it was someone with a regimented personality, someone whose profession demands them to be stern and disciplined, not to mention masculine. And since I have no visitors on Sunday mornings except my newspaper guy who visits monthly, I was pretty sure it was one of my students from the academy.  The absence of a scent or the awkward shifting of footwear when one stands stationary only corroborated my speculations. It also ruled out the plurality of the visitors, since there weren’t any hushed conversations to be heard, nor a general air of occupation of space by human presence. I narrowed down to you because none of the other boys were as much in awe with me as you were; they took me for a nutcase, like the whole world does as of today.  It was a fairly safe assumption in the end…Now don’t just be standing there, come in, make yourself at home!”

Awestruck, Assistant Superintendent of Police Imtiyaz Khan made his way inside in slow strides, his eyes fixed at his mentor.

“You’re a sorcerer! I don’t blame the boys for being intimidated around you. You can pass off as a soothsayer for all I know, sir.”

Shiv only smiled, making Khan sit on the least shabby beanbag in the small-sized drawing room. He fetched him water from the kitchen, and the duo filled each other in about each other’s lives and how they had changed or remained the same over the course of 4 years of their not being in touch.

Imtiaz Khan had been one of the most promising aspirants in Shiv’s batch of pupils at the National Police Training College, back in 2008. His scores in physical and mental tasks had surpassed many a great alumnus who had passed out of the prestigious institution. His dogged pursuit for excellence had sprung from a lifelong desire to change the system from within; an almost childlike enthusiasm coupled with the ardency of youth and the wisdom of the aged.

Shiv Pandey, on the other hand, had been far from the ideal police aspirant back in his youthful heyday. Before his brief stint at the police academy as a mental trainer, he had been a tall, gaunt and selectively lethargic 20-year old police trainee who had grown up too soon for his own sake. His intelligence and observational skills were, more often than not, mistaken for arrogance and complacence. His teachers mocked his reluctance to partake excessive physical labour but were appreciative of his prodigious command over matters of the mind. Never known for moral uprightness, his career in law enforcement had been cut short ignominiously when he was found guilty of sexually assaulting a corpse while working undercover as a morgue assistant. Even after spending 6 months of incarceration and paying a hefty fine, he had chosen to remain silent on his shameful fall from grace. Facing widespread ire from media and the public, he disappeared from his regular social haunts and restrained himself to a life of a recluse.

“I never could stomach the charges levelled against you, sir, and you never talked about them! I followed the case very closely but didn’t have the heart to contact you…” said Khan, in between sips of tea Shiv had prepared for the two of them. He seemed eager to broach the topic.

“I remained silent, yes,” replied Shiv, retrospectively. “There’s a sound reason to that, Imtiyaz. All the allegations were true. I was wrong; the world, right.”

“But then, did you really…?” his words trailed off, more out of his inability to imagine an individual of such high stature to indulge in an act so lowly, than anything else.

“Yes, I did. I did attempt to ‘touch’ the body of a deceased female in what the society thinks was an inappropriate manner. All I can say in my defence is, I got carried away. I should have been more mindful of the moral hypocrisy that prevails over the collective consciousness of people in our day and age.”

Bewildered by his reply, Imtiyaz banged his cup of tea down on the table. His image of Shiv Pandey as an ideal individual was shattering before his eyes. All throughout the much publicised court case, he had hoped, nay, known deep down that it was a setup, that his much-revered mentor had been framed by someone who swore his downfall. Despite all the circumstantial evidence, he was convinced that Shiv Pandey was innocent. But hearing not only a confession, but also a self-righteous defence straight from the horse’s mouth came as an incalculable shock. He spoke, when he did, in a tone which surprised him more than Shiv.

“Excuse me sir, but what you did was perversion of the highest order. I am still not able to believe how you’re so casually passing it off as something you did because you got ‘carried away’. The only thing that stops me from giving you a piece of my mind on how badly I feel about sexual assaulters is the immense respect I have held for you, till now.”

The strong bond of friendly informality that the student and teacher had developed over the years suddenly seemed to strain and wear. Taken aback but still holding a placid expression, Shiv said, “Listen to me, Imtiyaz. I understand that your set of moral values does not even begin to accept my act as normal, let alone one to be pardoned. But believe me; I am not apologetic for what I did for a reason. I know that necrophilia is considered a monstrosity, a heinous sexual aberration in the modern world, and it’s not as if I have no morality left. I value human rights to be the most sacrosanct of all enforceable guidelines attached to our day today life. Please, hear me out for what it’s worth, then you’re free to decide whether you want to continue to stay in touch with me or not.”

Reluctantly and gradually, Imtiyaz’s initial inhibitions about sharing the same space with a sexual pervert seemed to ease and he calmed down, somewhat ashamed at his kneejerk reaction. He did not say anything, waiting for his mentor to say what he had in mind. Shiv, sensing the void of silence, seized the moment to explain himself.

“Imtiyaz, I look at life and death very objectively. I don’t see why there has to be a seamless connection between the two. Life is something we still don’t truly understand, and if I am to be believed, we never will. But one thing that appears evident is that death is nothing in itself, just the absence of that ‘something’ called life. It is similar to the working of, say, a mobile phone. As long as it’s functional, it’s functional 100%. When it withers off with passage of time, or due to a breakage of its parts, it just ceases to be. There are no ‘levels’ to it. I view life similarly: when we die, we die. None of our original self remains in the dead mass we call ‘our’ dead body. It’s akin to a crumpled leaf or an inanimate pebble we go out of our way to trample or kick when walking down the road. I believe that human rights are only applicable to living people, not the dead. I wouldn’t care if my body is stripped or humiliated or amputated or desecrated after I cease to be, for the simple reason that I’m dead! I feel nothing, see nothing, sense nothing, hear nothing! Why should it matter, then, if I derive sexual satisfaction at the expense of something that’s simply not living anymore? Pardon my language, but it’s as absurd as imprisoning someone for pleasuring themselves with a dildo.”

Imtiyaz looked at him with mounting disapproval. “What do you mean ‘why should it matter?’ Are you out of your mind? You think what you did was right?”

“Think about it for a freaking second, Khan! Try to un-learn all the pseudo-moralistic trash they’ve glutted your mind with, and then pass a judgement. What I did on-duty was wrong because I did it on-duty, not because the act was inherently wrongful, at least not from where I see it,” pleaded Shiv, almost shouting.

At one moment, Imtiyaz Khan’s face was contorted with lines of disbelief and misgiving and on the immediate next, they seemed to relieve and his face relaxed. He emitted a long, almost maniacal laugh that took Shiv completely by surprise. He started to speak something, but he was interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone. Excusing himself, he took the call. The conversation was clearly dominated by the person on the other end, the only replies coming from Imtiyaz being “yes sir” and “sure sir, now’s better than ever”. He walked to a corner of the room, his voice trailing off.

Shiv had been rattled; his past suddenly lay bare once again, bringing with it the ignominy, the shame he had spent years burrowing deep in the crevices his mind. He had always kicked himself for being too vulnerable to provocation. No matter how loosely acquainted a person was to him, he had the self-destructive habit of opening up to them even if they seemed the least bit interested in what he had to say.  Presently, he felt insecure after having confided in Imtiyaz all that he had. Shiv knew for a fact that he was a thorough gentleman, and that telling him about his necrophilic episode would not lead to any more disgrace than he had already earned. Nevertheless, he had a niggling feeling that the sanctity of a student-teacher relationship had been irrevocably breached; never would Imtiyaz look up to him and hold him in reverence as he had done 4 years back. The realization of this made Shiv regret his actions more than anything else.

Imtiyaz’s call ended and he returned to Shiv. An uncomfortable silence punctuated the scene, both of them disengaged and distant. It was the younger man who broke the lull.

“It was boss. He wants me back in an hour’s time, some new affair he wants my looking into-”

“Tell me, Khan,” Shiv cut in, “what was the purpose of your visit here? Why suddenly, after 4 years? Is there something you want to say or declare, as your demeanour suggests?”

“Well, yes,” he replied, choosing his words cautiously, “you were right about the engagement. I don’t know how you deduced it the moment you saw me, but yes, I am engaged and I did want to surprise you. But you can’t have everything,” he added with a newfound jollity, “my engagement ring is not in my breast pocket, it’s here!” he reached into the back pocket of his trousers. Before he could complete his action, the doorbell rang for a second time. In contrast to the last time, the ring was short, rushed and impatient.

“I’ll get it,” announced Shiv as he sprang up and started for the door. The bell rang again, this time accompanied by an urgent rap on the door.

“Open up, Mr. Pandey! I…need help!” Spoke a man on the other side, in a distressed heavy voice.

Exchanging a mutual look of incredulity with Khan, he pulled opened the door in a swift, stiff action.

A tall burly man with long black hair stumbled inside, smelling of vomit and looking up at Shiv with bloodshot eyes. Quick to grab the stranger’s shoulder, Shiv struggled to walk him inside. Aided at once by his protégé, he managed to make him seated on the nearest couch. The stranger seemed to be babbling with paranoia.

“They…they’re out to kill me…the cops, they too! Rigged my food... Detective, help! Please, Mr. Pandey…don’t tell cops…” muttered the stranger in slurred speech before collapsing on the ground, before either Pandey or Khan could get a hold of him. A small puddle of yellow vomit gradually formed on the floor where he had toppled over headfirst. He wore a wheatish tweed jacket and a faded pair of blue jeans soiled with untidy brown splotches.

Shiv bent down and checked his vital signs. Double-checking the pulse, he laid the stranger’s chubby wrist to ground and shook his head gravely at Imtiyaz.

“Dead.”

Imtiyaz sprang up with surprise. His manner became alert and vigilant, but the look of shock on his face remained. Shiv stood up from his squatting position, his eyes darting around, absorbing the scene. He scurried to the door and peeped outside to look out for any fleeing assailants. 

“Check the body for ID, Imtiyaz. Get your forensic guy, whatshisname, Dr. D’Mellow to arrange for an inquest.”

“Shall I call the…erm, cops?” said Imtiyaz.

The two looked at each other, weighing what the man’s last words had been and what conventional wisdom would suggest.

“No,” he replied after a thought, “I wouldn’t like to. But I have only half a say on this, since you also are a witness of the crime. I am willing to believe, for the moment, that the police could have an involvement in it. I’m not ruling it out. Plus, this man, whoever he was, decided to come to me over visiting the nearest police station. Why? There must be a sound reason, and I find myself duty bound to know it.”

“But surely he was in a state of delusion when he said what he did!” retorted Khan. “I’m certain he wasn’t in control of his words, they were hardly intelligible. I think we ought to follow protocol, sir.”

“You do that, Khan. I’m doing what I think is right: get to the bottom of this tragedy before notifying the alleged perpetrators of the crime. Are you with me, or do we have a conflict of interests here?”

The men stood locked in gaze, intense and unwavering. A moment passed, and the air was silent except their deep breathing. Again, it was Imtiyaz who gave in with a sigh.

“Alright, I won’t. I won’t call the police, despite me being one of them,” he said, bending to check the body, “but only as long as we’re working on it. The moment we hang the boots on our little investigation here, I’ll hand it over to my colleagues, sir. You have my allegiance till then, sir.”

“Well appreciated, Imtiyaz,” replied Shiv. “But, ‘we’? I thought I was the only private detective here!” He spoke with jocularity.

“In that case, I’ll be your Watson, Mr. Holmes,” Imtiyaz said with a slight smile. The two men shared an unlikely laugh, and the strained bond between them seemed to have found renewed reinforcement, even if in the hour of tragedy. 

(To read the conclusive part 2, click here)

An Equal Summer

 An equal summer for me and you,

Divided by a glass paned window;

On one side trickle the drops of grief,

On the other do that of labour.

Entrapped, am I, in a gilded cage,

Cordoned off from myself and mine;

And there you are, you modern sage,

Quagmired in thoughts not of this world.

You toil hard in the ruthless sheen

Of that bright star which shines forth;

And all I do is languish, reek,

Perched on a throne, unrightfully owned.

You have three stomachs to feed and guard,

And someone to call your own;

While all I have is a silhouetted ghost,

Of ties severed, forever to be sore.

So much have I lost, so less, achieved,

The wreckage of the bygones being my legacy,

Where once was a tree, well-flourishing, lush,

Is jetzt a grave of unsprouted seeds.

Oh, great one, somewhere up above,

In your elevated, exalted abode;

Rid me of my malaise, once and for all,

And give to me what this homeless belongs.

On the other side of this wretched glass sheet,

He toils and digs and proves his worth,

Undeterred by the world, sporting a rag,

a perspiring temple and a content visage.

Epilogue

He woke up with a big fat drool linking his lips to the black-tiled floor of his home. Drowsily, with the slits of his eyes clamped intermittently at the ends by solidified eye matter, he got off his bed, stretching his arms, in effect creating a number of overlapping cracking sounds of limbs shifting gears and springing from disuse into activity.

He had had a big bad dream, only a faint shadow of which lingered in his mind’s eye. It was the stuff of fantastical flights of fantasy: the world breaking down, strange alien figues engulfing him, screwing with his mind and such. Bullshit.

The EPUU-ian teaching of dreams and their irrelevance came rushing back to him. He reminisced his initial lessons from Arbitron as a child, when he was lectured at length about the irrelevance and randomness of reveries, of the arbitrary mind process that ‘spat out’ or ‘spilled over’ some seemingly perceptible but eventually inconsequential chunks of information into his sensory-perception system. The bottom-line was that dreams, nightmares, visions and such were to be overlooked at the onset, and to discern or scrutinize or hold them in observance would invite nothing but misery. And that was that.

“Coffee, black,” Aseem fed his aural response to Arbitron by the vibration of his vocal cords and the simultaneous compliance of his jaw muscles, tongue and mouth; all of it happening, to the delight and amazement of the detached observer, at the very same time as his calf muscles, femurs and countless other localized bodily systems allowed him to walk across the floor, cover about four yards, and disappear behind the enclosure that was the excretion bay.

The day went on.

FIN.

Chapter 7: All Nightmare Long

Black was as black as it previously had been. The walls were their usual cocooning self. The sickening temporary glisten had all but worn out, leaving the world draped in its usual dimness. Aseem was mortified with utter perplexity. Questions popped up in his mind in billions, and he only barely managed to un-think them before the Arbitron could catch a whiff of something being amiss. His fingers trembled and his red eyes welled up with tears of alienation and severe misgiving. Here he was, right from infancy and childhood to adulthood, passing through each phase of the EPUU-ian life cycle entirely without incidence - until today. Everything seemed grotesque, nightmarish, off-centre, plain damn creepy. It was as if he was stuck in an endless bad dream, going over a single excruciating day over and over again.

The memories of earlier that day had turned dim and distant, and he had to strain hard to think back to how he had been brutishly fooled by the Arbitron to commit sin, and had been suitably flogged as punishment. All was justified in the natural order of the world as prescribed by the Unnamed, he repeated to himself in consolation. Maybe this sudden shock of brightness had also been an endurance test of some sort, a means to check his durability in times of hardship. His chain of thoughts was interrupted by a timely Arbitronic announcement:

“Thou have successfully passed thy First Surprise Franticness Examination, maintaining commendable control over thine thoughts and exhibiting a sound sense of alarm in the hour of (simulated) crisis. Similar toeing of the EPUU-ian line in future shall lead thee to the fruits of Eternal Bliss, after thou are freed of the mortal coil and the distractions of worldly indulgences. Peace be upon thee and the Holy Unnamed.”

Fade to silence.

He stood rooted for a minute, assimilating the symphony of absolute silence that evoked a flood of imaginary acoustic inputs in his mind; screechy, cacophonic, jarring, overwhelming sounds. The embalming effect of Arbitron’s announcement had lent a perceptible stillness to his surroundings, a stillness that carried the sweet aroma of normalcy. The effects were therapeutic.

His internal anxiety wafted away, blending with the calm outside. His muscles eased, his eyes opened to their full extent (for the first time in hours), and he felt relatively at ease. There was still, however, a part of him that dreaded any more unpleasant experiences to befall him. His rejoice was, hence, duly restrained and his eyeballs scurried up and down the entire length of the world, looking out for any aberrant visual stimuli. Life was better now, but he wasn’t keen on counting his eggs before they hatched.

Maybe he was right in doing so, because any amount of preparation could not have muffled his explosion of emotions at what transpired next.

Many things happened, all at once: a sizeable chunk of the wall to his left exploded, accompanied by a blast so awfully earsplitting that Aseem toppled over to the ground right ear-first. In a fit of absolute incredulity, he closed his eyes and huddled on the ground in an infantile self-hug. A pungent smell hit his nose, the very smell of hostility and alienation.  If he’d have the heart to open his eyes and look around, he’d see rubble lying around in a heap, and smoke billowing from where-was-once-the-left-wall-of-the-world.  

A gazillion thoughts scampered in his mind in the timeframe of a split second. It all made perfect sense. The rapture had been clarioned by the EPUU as the last straw for the correction of an over-sinning mortal. It had lingered over Aseem like the sword of Damocles, and today the final frontier of Unnamed’s tolerance had been breached for good. The 666^th Verse talked of it with justified pomposity:

“Whenever doth an errant mortal like thee commiteth himself to excessive sin, not to be corrected by any Arbitronic hook or crook, I must, in person, strike upon the creation with severe vengeance, level it down to ruins and start afresh with humanity. Those that tarnish my name and anoint it with the muck of their hearts deserve no less than my most furious ire, and shall forever be captivated in the deepest, brightest of Hell’s rungs…”

It was all over, the world was breaking down; the walls were being razed to the ground, collapsing on themselves. His lips trembled to make hurried, stuttered invocations:

“O GREAT UNNAMED, FORGIVE YOUR FAITHFUL ONE! O EXALTED THEE, MY HEARTIEST IMPLORATIONS TO YOU, SALVAGE ME FROM THE BRIGHT UNKNOWNS OF HELL AND THE OUTSIDE! I, WHO HAS REMAINED YOURS FOR THE LIFE, YOURS TO BEGIN WITH AND RETURN TO…”

His mad, deplorable chants were interjected by a much louder, stronger voice; the only voice that had ever fallen on Aseem’s ears except his own and Arbitron’s.

“OPEN YOUR EYES, COMRADE!” It boomed over everything else. “Open up now, be the human you were born to be.”

“I think he’s in shock, sir,” said another alien voice, shriller and higher than the previous. “May I?”

Aseem lay heaped where he was, mortified by things beyond his imagination. He was surely hallucinating now. A pair of feet shuffled across the besieged world, making their way towards him. He whimpered and scowled at the fear of whatever walked to him, clamping shut his eyes to the maximum degree. The boot-steps grew louder in their approach, and instincts made him cover his torso with his hands. “Get away fro me!” he feebly managed.

The high-pitched voice spoke from very close by, “Fear not, comrade. We’re on the same side. You’re free of your captivity. We have salvaged you from the fucking I-don’t-know-whats, but only just. You need to come with us, and pronto, we do not have much time!”

“Wh-who…what are you? Y-you all?”

He heard the footfall very near him, and shirked back violently when he felt a cold touch on his eyelid. He jerked it off madly and went into a spasm of violent acrobatics.

“WE ARE HELPING YOU, COMRADE! Comply for God’s sake!” growled the voice from afar.

He knew very less of what happened immediately after that. He could feel two pairs of hands struggling to keep him pinned to the ground and make him open his eyes. Their touch felt oddly human, as did their voices and gaits. When finding it helpless to struggle anymore, he resigned himself from all motion, repeating the incantations to the Unnamed in his mind over and over. The alien duo lifted him off the floor and made him sit up, propped against the common corner of two walls. His hands and ankles were bound by a thick, coarse wire or string.

What he saw when his eyes were forced open was a first: fellow humans. The room was unnaturally lighted, probably from the bright outside of the world, peeping in from the hole in the left wall. The two faces that looked upon him were ashen and worn out. They were wearing identical ragged, soiled black jackets and a tight black lower garment to match. They also wielded a sleek black metal contraption each, what looked to him to be some sort of weapon. Their hands clasped the posterior end and index fingers curled around a trigger. Their eyes were twinkling with an odd glow and lips curled upward in a faint smile. Aseem felt threatened but did not close his eyes again, more out of fear than anything else. One of them had a slightly odd look to him, so much so that it scarcely could be called a ‘him’. Its hair was longer than usual and tied in a thick bun at the back of the head. It had two uncanny bulges where its chest should have been, a different body posture than its partner and a strangely erotic look about it.

“Sorry for the bad treatment, but we had to do it. We’re here to take you away, out of this confinement. You gotta come with us” it spoke in its high-pitched voice, while the man at the back looked on with impatience.

“Who-who are you? What the fuck is go-going on?”

“We’re humans, just like you. I’m Sanskriti, he’s Shimit.” It extended its hand forward. Aseem ignored it. It retracted it.

“Look here: you have been in captivity here for more than two decades, since you were born,” it went on, “We are one of the last remnants of the only human resistance on the planet. Our race was taken over by The Evolved Ones about 30 years ago. We’re a fringe military outfit, fighting back against their superior weaponry and mind control. They took away our children to experiment on us, know us better, study our behavior, make fluffy pets out of us, hold us on a fuckin leash for all I know.” It gasped for breath, its face full of emotion and redness.

Aseem remained silent, deadpan. All of this was gibberish to him.

The other man spoke up. “Long story short, you’re one of those they’re experimenting on. They’ve manipulated your mind to test their hypotheses on how the human body reacts to shit. Our hackers been intercepting with their mainframe for a few hours, trying to get to all of the prisoners down here. We even managed to flash our Human Resistance Manifesto in these cells for a few minutes, you might have read it.”

Memories of the walls turning blinding bright came back to Aseem, making him shudder.

“The marking on the outside of your door reads ‘Religion Specimen #12: Aseem’. They’ve been fucking with you all this while, man, taking you away from the one true God, inventing their bullshit around your life. I know coz I’m a survivor of this fuckery, I was once in one of these shells, running around in circle like mice, reacting to base, carnal desires. I came out of it, the hard way…”

He stopped and sighed a long sigh, putting his palm on his forehead, as if stifling a bad memory. He was shaken back into sudden alarm by a sudden blast outside the room.

“WE’RE WASTING TIME WITH YOU, COME WITH US OR DIE HERE!” barked the man, gesturing his partner to get up and get going. Suddenly their actions seemed tense, alert, vigil. They shuffled around impatiently waiting for a word from Aseem.

Aseem had nothing to say. He felt comfortably numb and distant, eyes unfocussed and ear latent to the sudden sounds erupting near him. He felt nothing, registered nothing.

“Die, you fool! We’re outta here!” said the man, and started making his way out of the box with its fellow human in long, measured strides. They seemed to stop short in their tracks all of a sudden, and a thick screen of faint-green smoke ascended from the ground with a hiss. Aseem felt dizzy and his head felt heavy. Unable to keep his eyes open, he relaxed them and lolled his head to the side

The last thing he remembered before collapsing to the ground were two dull thuds around him, and one of the humans’ eyes fixated upon him, ajar with terror of the highest order.

Then, nothing. 

---

EPILOGUE: http://kahaanikisse.blogspot.in/2012/07/epilogue.html

Chapter 6: Torture

[NOTE: I owe it to my handful, but faithfully anticipating readers: I am sorry for the delay. I was alternating between being too lazy, too uninspired and too overworked to write the next chapter the whole of last two months. But now that I am in the 'flow' of things, I hope I can wrap this up before long. Hang on, people, the finale will be worth the wait.]

The first of his two scheduled mental exercises was finally and – although he wouldn’t accept it – to his immense relief, over. It had been a draining, hard-on-the-ass field day till now. Hardly could he bring to mind any whacking that had been half as unexpected as this one had been. But it was all justified in the higher order of things; after all, the holy Unnamed worked in mysterious ways (not to mention painful and ruthlessly unforgiving, he un-thought). Love and compassion was for those sons of Ardhamanas who adhered to the erudite word of the EPUU with absolute, unflinching belief. For all actions that dared to stand out at non-conformist were dealt with the iron hand. Like sheep herded onward the rich pasturelands by men of god in the guise of peasants, such was the task entrusted to the Arbitron. It promulgated  'उत्तम मार्ग': 'the perfect way', the only way to lead a righteous life.

In all truthfulness, Aseem felt ashamed of his failings as a human being, his inability to follow in the hallowed footsteps of his forefathers: the immediate next-in-line of the venerable half-Unnamed.

The original man had passed down his form and shape to his progeny by means of miraculous reproduction, or  'चमत्कारिक प्रजनन'. The ability to bear an offspring was not said to be a pleasant experience, nor was it expected to happen to anybody who hadn’t attained the officially prescribed age of leaving human shape and journeying to the heavenly abode. Naturally, Aseem wasn’t exactly looking forward to it.

Prompted by Arbitron, he trod towards the Mental Work 2 bay, which was to occupy the better part of his remaining schedule for the day. Placing himself in a well-fitting corner that had emerged out of the wall, he covered his ears with a device that lay on the base of the opening. This piece of equipment had two rubbed-cushioned circular ends, one for each ear. A U-shaped ‘bridge’ connected the two earpieces, curving over the curvature of the head of the wearer. (The most apt substitute for it to be found in modern parlance would be a ‘headphone’.) This was worn, as per EPUU-ian parables, as a means to focus on the inner sounds the human body radiates when the individual is deep in thought or meditation.

His solitary agenda for the next 30 minutes was to generate a constant humming sound, close his eyes and concentrate on whatever thoughts flitted through his mind while he was at it. Every 20 seconds or so, he would steal long but hurried mouthfuls of air, punctuating the hum that filled his ears, brain, thoughts, everything.

With the passage of a few minutes, the only perceptible sensory input he received was his self created hum, overriding every other external sensation. This uninterrupted tranquil enabled him to do what EPUU called ‘singularizing’ his thoughts to nothingness. The first thought that came to him when he attained equilibrium with the humming medium he had created was darkness; pure, unadulterated, undiluted, blackest of black, serene darkness. Darkness that pervaded all fear, all misgiving of the relatively pallid outsides. The Unnamed was salvation, the Unnamed was darkness. And then there was Mary Jane, and Arbitron, and the hot cuppa he gobbled down every morning: all mere distractions from the path of true austerity and realization of the self. Trifling, sinful digressions in the path of moral rightness, planted in the path of man by the forever-scrutinizing Unnamed. The world was enough, the black ends of the world were too far displaced from each other, too far for any comfort. Something had to—

SCREEEECH!

His stream of consciousness was broken suddenly by…he didn’t know what exactly it was. Suddenly there was light all around. From the safety of his closed eyelids, he could see his vision suddenly turn blood red. He dared to open his eyes and closed them almost instantly. It was sheer horror. The walls of the world were no more black; instead, they displayed multitudes of images of…he couldn’t fucking make out! The split second window of blinding vision he had braved had registered nothing in his mind, save for a sudden blast of dreaded whiteness. He shielded his eyes from direct brightness with his arms, and maintained the posture for about 5 minutes, waiting for shit to happen. Nothing did. Bewildered, terrified and helpless, he shouted and shouted, and then some more.

“HELP ME, ARBITRON!!! HELP ME, UNNAMED! WHAT SORT OF SHIT TEST IS THIS, GET ME OUT OF THIS DAMN INFERNO!”

Nothing budged. Reduced to a cowering bundle on all fours, Aseem began to weep. He wept profusely at first, tears rolling down from his hard-shut eyes. Then he cried with uninhibited shrieks and wails and whimpers and sobs, his body convulsing with the pain and burden of sudden light, of newness and of change.

And then, with characteristic suddenness, the brightness issue was resolved: the walls went back to their homely blackness. Aseem knew this because his vision was no more marred with the bright redness of the inside of his eyelids, it was back to black. However, try as much as he might, he could not get his eyes to open up for more than a quarter of an hour after normalcy had been retained. And when he finally did, much to his surprise, absolutely nothing had changed.


-
Chapter 7

Chapter 5: Miracle Drug

[The shortest chapter and probably the weakest. You'll say I've lost my touch considering that I took the most amount of time writing this, and I will not disagree. I intended it as a bridge between two highly pivotal chapters. I intend to wrap this up in about 8 chapters.]

Aseem loved chocolate.

A few questions and 35 minutes later, he was scheduled for a 20-minute break that he could utilize for light food and/or rest and/or a pneumatic shower, depending on his temperament that day. His usual choice would have been a quick, rejuvenating shower followed by a power nap, but when the time came, he surprised himself by going in for a bar of chocolate.

The Arbitron obliged and a bare, dark-brown cake of chocolate exited from a slit in the wall nearest to him, one that was chiseled to a perfect rectangular shape and had a smooth, silky texture to it. This, of course and like all other eatables, was the handiwork of the Arbitron which adhered to the General Cooking Manual. The chocolate had been cheekily nicknamed ‘Mary Jane’ by the Arbitron itself, which seemed to have put all its creative energies into naming things of daily use with an idiosyncratic, almost anachronistic, self-referencing twist (Runaround, Mary Jane, itself to name a few).

Aseem snapped a chunk off the top-right edge of the bar and popped it into his mouth, involuntarily oozing a mouthful of drool while at it. Eyes closed and taste buds excited in orgasmic anticipation, he finally got his teeth to gnaw the chocolate between his canines and molars, letting it melt and spread all over his teeth, tongue and gums. And it happened; a feeling of utter rapture, of isolation but of infinite fulfillment, of consummate ecstasy, vivacity and climactic glee engulfed him. It was as if all physical, mental, sexual and environmental desires he harbored in his body had made a vanishing act, all of his senses charged-up to the extreme. He could visualize a parade of flashy colors and zany shapes conjure up in front of him, and a tingling sensation all over his skin, something he resisted as well as relished, much like what a tickle is to an unsuspecting tot.*

Aseem did not know how long the moment lasted, for he was busy losing himself in the endless nooks and crannies and lanes and by-lanes of the world of Mary Jane. Unbeknownst to him, the chocolate bar came to an abrupt expiration after the designated 20 minutes of rest; all its affects worn themselves out, and he came out of his prolonged daze with a heavy, cavernous gasp. Eyes wide with having felt a myriad of alien visual cues and sensations, and skin still perspiring with activity, he tried to acclimatize himself to the newfound normalcy of his universe, and failed. The blackness of the box, the comfortable innards of an outside-less world, the subservient yet overseeing gaze of the Arbitron, forever fixated on him; everything seemed new all over again. His experiences had been immensely satisfying, but not without a slight tinge of yearning: yearning to experience all that he had, all over again, and then some more. He looked around for the remaining bit of chocolate he had held in his hand absently, but it was nowhere to be found. Like always, he thought, Arbitron had obediently picked it up from where his hand had left it in his ecstatic state of stupor, cleared and put it away inside the intricate machinery of the four walls the universe.

Chocolate, he said to himself and not out loud (for that would be a positive symptom of dementia, something not expected before he turned 68) was the best thing he had had.

*A word or few about the nature of Mary Jane before proceeding further, in the interest of the obviously flabbergasted reader: chocolate, in Aseem’s day and age and universe, is akin to a strong, cathartic drug that brings tension levels to practically nil, takes sexual realization to an off-the-chart high, and most importantly, curiosity levels to a sharp, crashing dive. In short, it has similar effects to the human body as to what the reader might be familiar as cannabis, or hashish, or what-have-ye.


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Chapter 6: http://kahaanikisse.blogspot.in/2012/07/chapter-6-torture.html

Why Agent Vinod is an important film

[NOTE: One of my non-Stunted posts, this. Do not worry guys, Chapter 5 is well on its way, just that this came across spontaneously, and I HAD to post this. I am not abandoning 'Stunted', it is very much on. The following write up is the closest  I can come to reviewing a film as of now. Do read it all, if your patience doesn't give way before that...]

It was only last week or roundabout that I found myself sitting in a fairly peopled movie hall (the occupancy was slightly measlier in the front rows, which is my natural turf as a frugal moviegoer, living under the illusion that I’m saving my parents’ hard-earned money by doing so, conveniently not factoring in the amount that I’m guzzling by watching the film in the first place), somewhat eagerly awaiting the screening of Sujoy Ghosh-directed ‘Kahaani’, what one of my most enthusiastic friends had labeled as an exemplary work of ‘evolving Indian cinema’. I was taken aback by the claim, I daresay, for I had made up rather modest preconceptions of the film owing to its hackneyed marketing image, which had made the film seem to me to be a run-off-the-mill, holier-than-thou yarn on female empowerment, with the poster girl for topical, ‘serious’ and society-challenging roles, Vidya Balan falling into the mould of stereotypically unidimensional roles that filmmakers love to cash in on. At best, I conjectured, this could be a politically-correct version of Anurag Kashyap’s fiercely indie ‘That Girl in Yellow Boots’, one that had impressed me both as a lover of films as well as a Kashyap fanboy (more latter than the former, I’ll acquiesce).

With this frame of mind did I go in for the film, seated there in the third row from front, the big screen looming right in front of me, big enough to fill my vision completely and at an angle enough for me to rest my neck to its full pivotal extent on the head-rest and make the proverbial sit-back-and-enjoy adage assume literal truth. The national anthem blared on for more than the endorsed 52-seconds (or did I get my obviously insignificant general knowledge wrong on that account?) the lights dimmed, the trailers came to a respectful fade-out, and with much fanfare, the real deal began. If anywhere there is heaven on earth, it is this…

The movie started from the word ‘go’, scampering nimbly from scene to scene at lighting fast pace, never for once stopping for so much as a breath. I did not have time to brace myself for the awesomeness, and from the generally discerning and scrutinizing viewer that I fancy myself to be, I transformed into the same awestruck, starry-eyed ninth-standard child who had fed on films like Gulaal, Memento and The Usual Suspects, never for once letting down the look of sheer glee from his eyes throughout the length of these cinematic Mona Lisas. The climax edged closer, and after many an edge-of-the-seat twist and turn and revelation abound, as the cinema gods would have it, the ominous, pre-assuming clouds in my heart gave way to the bright sunshine of filmmaking at its glorious, luminous best. I could not deny the fact that I had been utterly wrong about Kahaani to begin with; it was a top-notch thriller that came very close in class and content to motion pictures that had helped chisel the genre to the exalted state it is in today, such as The Departed, The Usual Suspects, Se7en and many more to enumerate. It is a winner in almost all departments of conventional movie-making: tight editing, almost-impeccable a script (almost, for I had minor reservations regarding one or two plot points, albeit forgiven in the long run), indulgent yet no-nonsense direction and a power-packed performance from an all round ensemble cast, with Balan adorning the central spot. I couldn’t help but second the eager friend of mine who had gone all out in her praise for the film. I myself had no qualms hailing it as one the few rare films made in India to have done gotten almost everything ‘right’, in terms of parameters I’ve listed above.

It was a week later (today, that is), that I decided to go in for the long-overdue Agent Vinod. Now, to all those readers who know me personally or are even remotely aware of my cinematic inclinations, would know that Sriram Raghavan is another man (along with Dibakar Banerjee, Kashyap and Vishal Bhardwaj) who I hold in deep reverence as a storyteller of the finest class. His two previous outings as writer-director had yielded great results, both as crowd-pleasers and intelligently unconventional cinematic treats (Ek Hasina Thi, starring Saif in a career-altering role, and Johnny Gaddaar, a gem of a neo-noir with a nod to the genre’s masters). With such lofty precedents, the weight of performance is bound to register on the shoulders of a director who is working, incidentally, with actor-producer Saif Ali Khan in his most ambitious project till date. Taking an unusually long time to be produced, the film opened to much hype and din on an unsuspecting Friday, only to be panned almost unanimously by the multitudes thronging to the movie theaters, and amassing middling to devastatingly poor responses from the film-criticism fraternity. I was very surprised with the critical verdict more than the audience’s verdict, partly because of my vainglorious assumption that I’m more intelligent and highly sensitized to non-conventional filmmaking than the general junta; their rejection to the film was not fractionally as unnerving as the snide write-off that the experts had dealt the film with. I was, to say the least, shocked. I wanted to see Agent Vinod for myself, rebuff the wisdom of others and be my own judge. This selective faith in critics to suit my own liking had started with films like Don 2, which I had thoroughly enjoyed, and so had been relished by film critics abroad, but the critics back home had been, let’s just say, a little less appreciative (read dourly contemptuous).

So there I was again, surrounded by the muffled, curtained, sound-cocooning walls of the movie theater, finding my seat close to the giant screen (as always), comfortably resting my neck and sitting back and enjoying myself in the most literal fashion. The same old rigmarole followed itself over: the national anthem came to a gradual close, the trailers came and went by, and a rather in-your-face statutory warning against cigarette smoking made way for the beginning of the film.

I will be very cautious not to give out any spoilers as I go about discussing the film, and merely skim over the unimportant tid-bids that shall only appetize and tease, not spoil. First things first: the opening quotation to the film is quick to come and go, without idling much to have its full impact registered on the audience. It is a quote from The Good, The Bad, The Ugly that said something about real identities and names not mattering much (I will not do injustice to this write-up by quoting the exact dialogue with the help of Google, because I want to understand how much of it would an unsuspecting viewer be able to retain hours after the movie, and this is exactly how much). This is followed by a gritty introduction to the character of Agent Vinod, a swashbuckling start to a film that maintains the tempo it sets in these initial action scenes and loquacious dialogue exchanges. So far, so yum.

Going all guns blazing: Agent Vinod in action.

I expected the film to taper into boredom as the first half wanes because as much had been suggested by the critics; that doesn’t happen. As scene after delightful scene unfolds, I mark an evident experimental style: the quirky, idiosyncratic use of music to lubricate proceedings. The BGM is literally non-existent at places where conventional filmy wisdom would have it going into dramatic undertones and muffled beats to further the build-up to an explosive fight scene, whereas it is arbitrarily loud and retro, even multi-lingual at places where convention will deem it sacrilegious to be so. I found a similar oddity in David Fincher’s understated masterpiece, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, an adaptation of Late Steig Larsson’s ingenious crime novel. The most chilling scenes (such as the one where the killer takes the protagonist-detective by surprise and tries to choke them to death with a polyethene) have the most innocuous-sounding background numbers, while intense conversations and other dramatic scenarios having no music cover at all! The point is, it is masterful only as long as it doesn’t seem shoddy; to elevate it from the level of a gimmick to an effective plot device is something which both Fincher and Raghavan succeed in doing, in their respective films.

As the first half drew to a close, I was already admiring the painstaking detail that the filmmaker had put into everything, right from the witty dialogues laced in James Bond-esque cheesiness to the well choreographed fight and chase sequences (one of the most memorable of which had a rapidly switching non-linear fistfight between Vinod and a villain he has earlier had a fight with, both of the fights intercutting each other to produce a visual chutney), that promised thrills scarcely seen before in Indian cinema. The film opened up not as a whodunit or whydunit or who-dies-in-the-end conundrum, but as a Herge-esque adventure of sorts, with protagonists often at loggerheads, trotting the globe to bring down a common enemy, revealing a conspiracy that threatens a common, larger goal. The duo of Tintin and Captain Haddock comes to mind when we see Saifeena sizzle the screen with their good-looking selves and smooth-talking, fast-thinking, double-crossing ways. Add to this unrelenting duo of protagonist an ensemble cast of veteran baddies (and minor characters) including Gulshan Grover, Prem Chopra, Shahbaz Khan Zakir Hussain, Rajat Kapoor, Ravi Kishen and Ram Kapoor, and there’s enough great acting to chew on for the length of the film.

The highlight of the second half is surely the Raabta song sequence, which is in accordance with the idiosyncratic music sensibilities of the film, with a single shot fight sequence that stretches on for more than what seems like 5 minutes! That single sequence is worth everything you pay for the movie, and then more. Added to the blend is some more globe-trotting (closer home this time with saadi Dilli and its cramped, overcrowded bylanes captured beautifully in the frame) and a climax that could have been better, and less long-drawn. It is only towards the end that one realizes what is wrong with Agent Vinod: it ends up being too self-indulgent to see itself end soon enough, and it goes on and on for more than half an hour in excess. I believe this to be the burden of the lavishness and hugeness of the scope the film sets out to capture: one gets flown away into many scenes and scenarios of digressions, which, when seen individually, are flawless, but do not add much to the whole of the film. It is for this reason why ambitious films take years to be completed; their makers get everything right and time the film to be just as epic as their efforts that have gone into making it. And here, they falter.

This brings me to the central point of what I’m saying. In India, while small-scale or independent films on the lines of Kahaani, Paan Singh Tomar, That Girl in Yellow Boots, Soch Lo, etc. are coming-of-age in terms of handing and execution of their content, experimentation is also being ushered in by these movies made on shoestring budgets. It has, however, been very less to see large-budget films delving in any form of experimentation on a grander, more global level. Agent Vinod breaks this barrier; Raghavan remains ever-consistent with his desperate will to break conventions and aim for bigger, better avenues. Whether one succeeds or fails in doing so is another story, but the fact that such audacity is nurtured and supported is of utmost importance. A case in point would be the recent, post-fame works of auteurs like Tarantino or Nolan: Inglourious Basterds and The Prestige. We have seen both of their iconoclastic abilities in their completely self sufficient and independent projects such as Reservoir Dogs and The Following, and with their later films, not only have they not degenerated into mainstream bullshit but have also charted new courses for filmmakers to come, by challenging norms on a higher, bigger scale. In their case, money has not corrupted, but invigorated. Such is the case, as I see it, with Agent Vinod. It aims at something higher than any Hindi movie till date, something that movies like Kahaani and Johnny Gaddaar can hardly even envisage. The fact that it almost succeeds (if it were only for slightly better editing) in this experimentation is what underlines the vitality of such films. We must make it a point to support, encourage and appreciate works that are not afraid to experiment even when big money is at stake. For this, I think, we have all but Sriram Raghavan and Saif Ali Khan to thank.

It is in this regard that I salute and bow to Raghavan and his genius as a teller of stories and as an able craftsman bold enough to be undeterred in his urge to non-conform in all that he does.

As for Indian cinema per se: so far, so yum!