chicken sandwich with cheese

she eats and spills, half on my bed

half on her dress; at least she's fed

after a round of smoking sticks

mistaking whispers for sounds of the Feds.

she sees the world through a macro lens,

dispensing wisdom that makes little sense.

her nostrils flare, her eyes go red

she burns up like a stick of incense. 

and now she snores in a gentle rythm

her lips, both chapped, frozen in a hymn

her bare arm clutches the blanket around

her chest: in darkness, beats, without a sound.

how i wish to place my lips on her

and run them down her every curve

and unravel her secrets, one by one,

but for the risk of waking her up.

her thoughts must go, first up then down,

like the twists and turns of this pathetic poem

first in a smile and then, a frown;

of the wonders of her dream - her face informs.

she heaves a sigh, disturbed by me

she knows, in sleep, of my mischief.

and pulls the blanket overhead,

to give an appearance akin to the dead.

in a thousand nights of passion and lust

have not lovers felt a similar rush

as i feel here, as she sleeps near

i kiss her limp skin, exploiting her trust.

Punchline: Part 3 of 3

[Read part 1 here and part 2 here.]

Mrs. Mehta came about after we sprinkled water on her face. We shook her shoulders and gently slapped her cheeks to push her into consciousness. She still looked slightly disoriented when we helped her on to a chair.

It wasn’t what she had done that was more frightening, but what she kept repeating to herself, under her breath: “Don’t forget to laugh.”

She looked at the faces staring down at her; some with genuine concern, others with sadistic interest. People tend to show their worst when something untoward happens to someone in a crowd. Everyone rabidly huddles around the person of interest and just…stares.

“Are you okay?” I ventured, putting a caring hand to her shoulder. She twitched at my touch and I promptly pulled my arm back. She was straight up shivering now, perhaps from being wet with the water we splashed on her face. Or so I told myself.

“Did you guys all laugh?” She asked me, whispering in my ear. “TELL ME! Did you?”

She clutched my shirt collars and tugged tightly, pushing me almost off balance. My face was now obscenely close to hers, and all I could smell was her strong perfume.

“No-no! It wasn’t that good a joke, really…” I struggled to break free.

“Oh you dumb bastards!” She let go of me and crumpled in a weeping mess. Her hands cradled her head and her shoulders bobbed from sobbing. There were some subdued murmurs from the party crowd. Some had lost the initial interest and were contemplating leaving the party.

Mrs. Shroff decided to speak up.

“What the hell is wrong, Reshma? You’ve been acting completely nuts all evening. Tell us, what’s the matter?”

At first, it didn’t appear like Mrs. Mehta had heard her, but she eventually stopped sobbing and looked up. Her eyes were bloodshot and her kohl had spread to her cheeks. She looked like a total mess.

“You won’t believe me.”

An instant change had come over her: she was suddenly no longer crying or cursing. He face turned expressionless and she spoke with no intonation, drowned of all emotion. It was as if she had resigned herself to whatever had been gnawing at her from inside.

“Give it a shot,” Mrs. Shroff persisted.

Mrs. Mehta did not respond. She kept sitting in the same posture, looking though everyone with a spaced-out gaze. This lasted for about ten seconds.

Finally, she said, “The joke Avi told us is cursed.”

There were collective gasps from the thinning group of guests in the hall.

“What? What do you mean,” inquired Mrs. Shroff.

Mrs. Mehta heaved a long sigh, the one you do before embarking on a long, perilous journey.

“I’ll tell you everything, but none of you will believe me.”

“It’s okay with me,” replied Mrs. Shroff and looked around, “and I’m sure the rest of us don’t mind.”

“Yes,” replied her husband a bit too cheerfully, “always ready for a good long story.”

The mood lightened up ever so slightly, but Mrs. Mehta remained dead serious.

“When I was about 18, I was told the same joke by a eunuch. Not exactly verbatim, but the bare bones were the same. He claimed to be the very eunuch in the joke. He told us – me and three of my friends – how he had been banished from the kingdom by the ungrateful king and had been wandering over the world ever since.”

She paused for breath. No one moved an inch or made a sound. She looked at me.

“Where did you hear the joke, Avi?”

All eyes in the room turned in my direction.

“I-I can’t remember,” I spoke in a small voice.

I sprinted through my vague memory of the joke in search of its teller. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Trying to remember jokes is no joke, try it yourself: trace back any joke you’ve heard to the person who told it to you. In most cases, I’m sure you’ll have little success.

“Anyway,” she replied after a pause, “it doesn’t really matter now. At that time, when I heard the joke, there was something in those few silly lines that made me guffaw just once. I didn’t think too much of it; it could easily have been the other way round. My three friends did not. In hindsight, I would rather not have laughed and saved myself a lifetime of paranoia.”

“What do you mean,” Mrs. Shroff asked.

“My three friends who hadn’t laughed, they all died within a span of a few years. And the creepiest part is…they all died funny deaths.”

A few people across the room gasped, while others simply exchanged glances of shock and disbelief.

“What do you mean…funny?” I asked, surprising myself.

“One of them died of a heart attack after her cousins pranked her, another had a coconut fall on her head…you catch my drift.”

Silence prevailed over everyone like an ominous shadow. We suddenly seemed defenseless and threatened; at least I did.

“Since then,” she continued, “I have encountered many suspicious deaths and connected them to similar jokes that might be cursed. You can never be sure, right? For four decades I’ve lived with the burden of forced laughter, literally having to smile through the ordeal. You never know which joke, when insulted with no reaction, can kill you.”

I could feel an invisible weight crushing me from the inside, compelling me to take support of the wall next to where I was standing. What if what she was saying was true? Were all of us doomed? Wait – had I laughed?

“Which is why I ask you, again: did anyone laugh at the joke?”

I thought back hard. Had I?

Mr. Aravind, who had been quietly hearing her all the while, spoke out.

“I don’t believe any of this. It’s a make-believe situation in your head, Reshma.” His words were firm but not impudent.

“I hope so myself, really. I genuinely pray that my friends died as part of a remarkable coincidence. But the evidence of the contrary stacks up pretty evenly for me.” She looked around, surveying the scared faces around her.

“If that’s how it is,” contested Mr. Aravind, “then what is the exact time period within which these deaths are supposed to occur? Of course, you can connect any death to a joke that was not laughed at, since everyone has to die one day.”

The argument was solid, but my sense of reasoning was hardly working right now. Mrs. Mehta appeared to be lost in thought, her face dug into her palms. She emerged a few moments later.

“You are right, I might be wrong. As I said, I can’t convince you to believe me. In that case, I’m sorry for having ruined your evening. Maybe I’m genuinely in need of medical attention…”

Mr. Aravind, who seemed to have taken upon himself to dispel everyone’s fear, continued ruthlessly.

“You better. You have no right to scare people with your crazy-“

“WAIT,” interrupted Mrs. Mehta, “where is Rajen?”

She was referring to Mr. Mohanty. I looked around the hall but could not find him. Then I remembered – he had stormed off midway.

“He left the party,” I replied. “When you were unconscious.”

She looked at me with crazy bulging eyes, the blood veins ready to pop. True or not, she was well and truly scared.

A mobile phone rang out, cutting through the silence in the room like a knife. It was Mr. Aravind’s.

“It’s…Mohanty.” He looked fixedly at the mobile screen, as if double-checking if he had read right. He picked it up and put it against his ear very slowly. 

“Hello, Aravind Aga speaking. Yes…yes sir…OH MY GOD!” 

He exclaimed loudly and let the phone slide down from his hand, which fell on the ground with a metallic crash. His mouth was wide open in absolute fear and shock. Mrs. Shroff rushed to his aid in a bit to support him, but he flopped to the ground.

“It was…it was the –cops. They said that...Mohanty died in a car crash…” 

The hall full of people did not react with any immediate display of fear or panic. Some stood rooted to their places, others sat down and some hung their heads in despair, but everyone asked themselves the million dollar question:

“Did I laugh at the joke?”

THE END

PS: Let me know how you liked it in the comments below :)

Punchline: Part 2 of 3

[NOTE: I had originally intended this to be the concluding part of a two-part story, but I changed my mind. The story has come out slightly longer on paper, so there's another epilogue-ish part left after this.

If you're new here, read part 1 here before this. Thanks!]

Jokes have never been my thing, I’ll tell you that.

The first time I remember being truly frightened of what others my age found funny was during a trip to McDonald’s. I remember how the one-way opening doors at the entrance swung open on my way out and I first noticed the figure of Ronald McDonald sitting alone on the bench. I’d seen all sorts of clowns in my day, but there was something singularly sinister about a full-grown man, with a snow-white face and blood-red splotches around his mouth, sitting all by himself on a lonely bench and smiling maniacally at onlookers. The other kids loved to snuggle into his lap and pose for photographs, but I’d stiffen up at his very sight or mention.

From that day on, the KFC versus McDonald’s debate was a one-sided affair in my head. I would happily sacrifice a happy meal for a good night’s sleep free of murderous and bloodthirsty clowns haunting my dreams; thank you very much.

To my 7-year old self, that fear was as real as the time I encountered The Hijra. 

I must have been 17, unaware of my growing youth and the onset of societal expectations from a ‘grown up woman’. I didn’t feel a lot of pressure to perform or behave a certain way at home. Papa was the absent dad type, and ma let me be on my own as long as my grades were not an issue. I had always held a sense of muted pride in calling myself, or having myself called an ‘army brat’. It was a tag that I wore proudly on my sleeve, which probably made me look a tad uppity outside the army circle. I was also something of a ‘siren’ in high school, with my premature puberty (and what comes with it) the subject of many hushed exchanged among the boys in my class. As a result, I was taller than most boys and bouncier than most girls of my age. Of course, I appeared to be blissfully unaware of all this, and that worked to my benefit.

I had a gang of girls to call my own, all of them army brats just like me. There was the neighbourhood bimbo, Ananya, colonel Gill’s iklauti beti (only daughter), who thought herself to be my ‘bestie’, but knew deep inside that she was, at best, my sidekick. Then there were the inseparable Tanushree and Shonali, the Bengali Seeta aur Geeta of our vixen-pack. Both were distant cousins whose families had served the country through generations. Shonali was the cleverer of the two, but not as endowed in the sharp Bengali features department as her voluptuous cousin. Tanushree was drop dead gorgeous, but also drop dead dumb to strike a conversation with. As a result, all the mindless ‘hunks’ of our batch would make a beeline for her, and we all gossiped, sometimes jealously, about her more-than-active sex life.

Fun times, in short.                                   

That winter afternoon, our quartet was haunting one of the endlessly meandering bylanes of Pune’s Camp area. If you are familiar with the city, you’ll know that the cantonment area houses the Southern Command Headquarters of the Indian Armed Forces, which is sort of a big deal; a lot of army officers’ residences also lie in the vicinity.

As you enter the snug, uncluttered boulevards of this urban retreat, you are bound to be bowled over. The sights and sounds here are quite unlike the rest of the city: the constant honking of angry horns is replaced by the early morning singing of the mynah. The one-way roads, invariably jam-packed with vehicles of all shapes and sizes (and their drivers, of all shapes and sizes too), give way to narrow, pedestrian friendly pathways, sheltered against the sun by a thick canopy of overhead trees. If Jehangir had found paradise in Kashmir, I’d found my own here, in the heart of Pune, the city of ‘punya’ (virtue).

If there’s one more thing this area is famous for, it’s its safety. Women and girls feel absolutely free and safe to venture out during odd hours on these army-occupied roads. I wasn’t wise enough to appreciate it then, but I lived a sheltered life there, liberated by a sense of security and unrestrained mobility.

It was one of those harsh winter afternoons when the sun was absent and the overcast skies seemed to cut off all daylight, drenching everything in a blanket of grey. While others preferred the indoors to the roads, my gang of girls would have none of it: we were out there for an untimely loitering-session in the open. That’s when we met Him/Her/It.

The Hijra was walking towards us from the far end of an alleyway which, curiously enough, tapered in a dead-end. I knew this not because I could see its end, which in fact sort of devolved into darkness, but because I knew the geography of this place by heart. I was, naturally, the first to suspect.

“Hey, that guy-“

The others didn’t need to be told; they had stopped in their tracks already. The Hijra stumbled towards us in a zig-zag pattern, probably under the influence of questionable substances. It had draped its bulky frame with a flashy pink coloured sari, a shade that hurt the eye and stuck out like a light bulb in darkness. The densely growing trees sheathed the lane from any overhead sunlight, instantaneously giving it an even eerier appearance.

“We better get going,” suggested Ananya, already backing off.

Tanushree agreed. Shonali stood her ground and turned to me. I didn’t know why, but I stood rooted to my spot, despite my heart filling up with a strange anxiety. Something about the Hijra was off – maybe it was the way it walked, or the way it wound the pallu of the sari around its shoulder or his very presence at the dark end of a narrow alley at midday. I looked back and Shonali and found myself smiling at her with a look of anticipation.

She nodded back at me, coiling her lip up ever so slightly.

“Don’t be fucking pansies,” I said to Ananya and Tanushree. “It’s harmless.”

The Hijra was now only about 50 metres away from us. From this distance, we could begin to make out a strange singing sound.

“Abhin na jaao chhod ke, ke dil abhi bharaa nahin…”

The situation was undoubtedly absurd, but it’s hard to reproduce the sense of dread it came with. The singing was off-key, off-tune and screechy, but there was a mystical attraction in the quality of its voice. The baritone reverberated across the empty street, seeming to amplify it without any electronic equipment. It left all four of us entranced, like the Mughal court during Tansen’s alaaps. It was when the Hijra was close enough to spot us that it stopped singing and the spell was broken.

“Hey, girls!” It scampered towards us emphatically.

Ananya and Tanushree edged further back but we held them by the wrists. My fingernails dug into Ananya’s hand and she didn’t try too hard to prise away.

The hijra broughts its palms together, producing a crisp, dry clap that the Indian trans-community is famous for.

“Hello, ladies,” it spoke as it sauntered towards us, still clapping. We could only look on.

“What do you want,” asked Shonali.

The Hijra encircled us and stared us up and down, clicking its tongue a few times.

“Haaye wallah, what curvy city belles! I’d die for one of these.”

It stared at its own waistline, which was wider and rounder than all ours put together. Maybe not really, but you catch my drift.

“What’s stopping you,” I ventured.

The Hijra stopped in front of me and drew closer, probably taken aback at my impudence. Its mouth stank of ruminated paan masala and tobacco.

“Your tongue stings, like your eyes,” it taunted as one of its spindly hands held up my chin to have a better look. I recoiled in reflex.

“Ah, Ms. Touch-me-not!”

“Enough,” I said, “Let’s go.” Being adventurous with a stranger was one thing but being physically accosted by them, quite another. I had had enough.

“Not so fast, ladies!” It held back my arm. I jerked it free.

“Won’t you like to hear a joke before you leave?” It smiled evilly at us. I cannot be sure now, but I’m positive I had sensed a weird desperation in its eyes. It was the face of a person who had bottled a story in their heart for too long and couldn’t wait to spill it to someone. In that moment, some of my anger vanished and I almost pitied it.

“No, thank you,” I spoke, betraying my instincts. “Let’s go girls.”

We began to walk away from the Hijra and the dead-end and the impasse.

“Are you sure,” it shouted back at us, “you’ll be inviting the wrath of a Hijra, afterall, and the ill-will of a chhakka is very potent.”

I did not want to, but Ananya held me to a stop. I saw that Tanushree had forced Shonali similarly to a halt.

“What do we do,” Ananya asked under her breath.

“I-I think we should like him finish his fucking joke and get going,” said Tanushree, shuddering from fear.

“Yes, let’s,” suggested the fucking fountainhead of wisdom Ananya.

“What happened,” the Hijra prompted, “in a fix? A joke’s just a joke, I promise.”

I swore to myself and turned about. We walked towards it for the joke it was dying to tell. How bad could it be, I asked myself?

Oh hell yes, it was bad. It was overlong and stretched on for a solid five minutes, but we listened intently to a voice that commanded to be heard. It had its fair share of twists and turns, but the one in the end stole the cake: it was an autobiographical joke, and a scary one at that. In fact, it was so unfunny that it was funny to me; out of all four, only I braved a sarcastic laugh.

“Why don’t you laugh, you ungrateful bitches,” it demanded of my friends in a sudden fit of anger.

“Because it wasn’t funny,” spoke Shonali with characteristic bluntness. I was proud to call her a friend.

“Oh, it wasn’t? We’ll see who’s laughing the last.” It said, spitefully. Its eyes were back to their furious, glistening glory. It glared at the three of them with wide eyes and then turned to me.

“You’re lucky you laughed.”

Its voice changed and dropped into a coarse, ethereal whisper as it turned to my friends and said, “You have been warned, ladies.”

It laughed the most beastly laugh I have ever heard and walked backed into the dark dead-end while singing the wretched golden oldie.

"Abhi abhi toh aaye ho, bahaar banke chhaaye ho..."

Tanushree and Ananya were cowering and huddling together, as if to shield their bodies from cold.

“What did it mean?” asked Tanushree, her face taking a pale hue.

“Gah, probably nothing,” I said, dismissing her fears. “Just a lot of bullshit. That’s what they survive on: fear and manipulation.”

Years later, I tried to shake the memory of the creepy experience off my back, but my mind kept returning to the strange Hijra and its autobiographical joke and the manic laughter. I guess we all tried to, and superficially brushed away the unpleasant incident to some success.

But I’m sure it would still have haunted Ananya, Shonali and Tanushree to this day – had they been alive.

You see, barely a week later, Shonali was comically struck on the head by a falling coconut while ona family vacation to Kerala, and died instantly. Her death was featured in the ‘That’s Bizarre’ column of the local tabloid, probably becoming the laughing stock of many readers.

Seven months after Shonali met her maker, Ananya followed suit after suffering from an untimely cardiac arrest, triggered by a prank played on her by her kid cousins. Her family thought she was only playing dead as part of a double-prank, thereby literally laughing while she breathed her last.

Oh, and Tanushree had her head sliced clean from her torso in a freak accident involving a kite-thread. A FUCKING KITE THREAD!

As poetic justice would have it, the three people who had found the Hijra’s joke too unfunny to be graced with laughter had died funny deaths.

The joke was about a childless queen who’s cursed with a transsexual kid by an angry sage. And now, forty-two years later, the joke was on me again.

[To be concluded]

Punchline: A short story in 3 parts

PART 1 OF 3

Everyone knew her as that aunty. She was one of those boisterous menopausal socialites who laughed at every joke they heard, however lame. It would take her only a fraction of a second after the punchline to break out into bouts of uncontrollable laughter. Dhruv had told me about her in the last party we both attended.

“What’s the worst joke you know?”

 I looked at him with a slightly puzzled expression.

“Why?”

“Just tell me if you know one that won’t make anyone laugh.”

I rummaged internally to catch hold of the elusive memory of that one unfunny joke I might have heard in the past.

“Okay,” I said, being a sport, “but don’t blame me if it makes your dick shrink.” We chuckled. “So, there’s this one king-“

“Wait, wait; don’t tell me! Recite it to Mehra aunty and see if she still laughs.”

I looked into his eyes and sensed mischief. A look of mutual understanding passed between us and we moved towards her group. She was standing with friends from her kitty, with a glass of wine held daintily in her hand. We stopped next to her and she wheeled around, smiling pleasantly.

“Hi, boys! What are you two up to?” she spoke animatedly.

“We’re fine, aunty,” responded Dhruv, putting on a slick voice. “Actually, we were just talking about a joke Avi heard. Would you like to hear it?”

For a split second, I sensed her smile vanish and her face lose color, as if we had asked her to donate her kidneys to the one of the inmates at the charity home she ran. She regained her composure sooner than she had appeared to lose it.

“Why, I am in the middle of a conversation with Mr. Shroff! Come back some other time?” she spoke with an artificially chirpy voice.

I said okay and began to turn around but Dhruv held me back.

“I insist you hear it now, since Avi here can be quite forgetful!” he spoke, grinning with malice and ill-intent. She sensed his eagerness but didn’t drop her guard.

“Erm, okay, go ahead.”

By this time, Mr. Shroff and Mr. Aravind, both of whom were in the same talking group as Shreya aunty, looked at us with curiosity.

“You have a joke to tell? Tell it to us too!”

Mrs. Mohanty and Mrs. Shroff also bundled together to hear us. It is amazing how jokes, or even their mere anticipation, knit together people from all walks of life. Suddenly, I could sense the crescendo rising as our audience of five demanded they be told the joke without any ado.

The fact that the joke was about as likely to tickle them as a heart attack did not ease my rising tension. Dhruv elbowed me, side-glancing at me with his half impish smile.

“Go ahead, tell it,” he said.

“Okay, so here it goes: there was once a very wise king who ruled over a huge, peaceful kingdom. He had served his public diligently for more than 50 years, and was now very old and on the threshold of his demise. There was only one thing that worried him: he had two beautiful daughters, but no sons to carry forward his legacy.”

At this point, I think it wise to inform the venerable reader that Mrs. Mehra’s face began to lose color and her eyes grew few sizes few large for their sockets. She looked like she had seen a spectre than was invisible to everyone else. No one else noticed them, but I, keen to gauge the reaction of my audience, caught her expressions in their autumnal retreat. In that instant, I knew she was a woman possessed.

“So, one day, he called over a most revered saint from the Himalayas to suggest a way out of his quandary. The wily Brahmin had amassed a great following not only for his meditative abilities but also, erm, his…most potent seed of Adam.” I smiled to myself, knowing I was getting to the meatiest part.

At this juncture, most of our audience scowled and some even put their palms to their mouths, probably to stifle their disapproving tongue-clicks. Some might have expected an adult joke, but I’m sure a sex-crazed ascetic did not feature highly in a group of middle-aged, middle class Indians’ idea of a joke. The men, sporting as they are, dared single chuckles.

Mrs. Mehra’s face was inscrutable; she seemed she could use a warm bear-hug. Something about the joke made her stiffen with fright; I could not place what exactly it was, but it made her body grow rigid with every line I spoke. Seeing her display such real horror made the hair on my arms rise and my spine tingle with unease. Her eyes exuded a feeling so indescribably terrible that I almost skipped a beat and stopped the joke midway, but I chose to look away and continue.

“Anyway, the great sage instructed the king’s wife to remain celibate for 108 days and not even encourage the mere thought of carnal desire. Only after agreeing to this strict guideline would he ‘bless’ the queen with his holy seed.”

Mrs. Mehra was worryingly pale by now. I nudged Dhruv and signalled towards her with concern. He followed my gaze but did not react immediately. Unfazed, I continued. I could sense the others getting uncomfortable with the joke, too, but none as much as her. It was like she had seen the devil.

“The king agreed to his demands and convinced the queen to take the severe vow of sexual abstinence. The queen, accustomed to the king’s lack of sexual vitality, readied herself for the near-impossible task of avoiding her own means of…self-pleasure. For 107 days, she kept her oath and veered her thoughts away from any sexual feelings. On the eve of the 108^th and final day of the vow, she tossed and turned in her bed, unable to withdraw her sexual cravings any longer. She turned to her side on the bed when the king was fast asleep and pleasured herself in the dead of the night-“

“Enough!” Exclaimed Mr. Mohanty angrily. While I was so focussed on Mrs. Mehra’s expressions, I had completely overlooked Mr. Mohanty’s rising discomfort with my joke.

“I’m done with your sick, disgusting jokes. And you know what, Reshma ji,” he looked at Mrs. Mehta, “I’m done with this goddamn party.” He threw his glass on the ground and started walking across the hall in short, impatient strides.

When Mrs. Mehta spoke next, it was in an ear-shattering scream.

“WAIT!!! DON’T YOU DARE WALK THE FUCK OFF!” She shouted in a voice not quite human. All heads in the room turned in her direction. Her eyes, already popping out of their lids, emanated a fury unmatched even by the terrifying illustrations of Kali from my Amar Chitra Katha paperbacks.

Mr. Mohanty looked back in disbelief.

“COME BACK, AND LET HIM FINISH THE JOKE!” Her voice thundered and reverberated across the spacious hall. Something unspeakable had come over her, and we could not help but pay her all our attention.

“Excuse me?” Mr. Mohanty asked, still reeling.

“Just COME BACK and hear the joke through!” Her anger had now a tinge of desperation in it. “Please,” she added.

Mr. Mohanty, perhaps too stumped to question the woman, walked slowly back to where he was a few seconds ago. He did not take her eyes off her, nor did anyone else in the room. Everyone wondered what the fuck was suddenly amiss with Reshma Mehta, the high-flying, cool-as-cucumber, life-of-the-party socialite.

“No one leaves this place before the joke gets over,” she ordered in a booming, monotonous voice. Then she looked at me, and her furious gaze made me recoil. “And you; continue.”

And then she screwed her face in one of the most horrific smiles I have ever seen a human perform. “Go on, what happened then?”

There was something hypnotic in the way she looked at – nay, through – me. It was like she held an invisible gun to my head, ready to blow my brains out if I didn’t finish the joke. I couldn’t help but continue.

“Then…when the sage arrived that night to impregnate the queen, he saw her shifting in the throes of self-induced orgasm,” I continued awkwardly, the discomfort in my audience’s faces no longer encouraging me. “He got angry and cursed her with impotency. The queen pleaded copiously to him, asking for one chance at forgiveness. At first, the sage was unmoved, but upon testing her genuine concern, suggested a way out with a peculiar demand. He wanted her to make sure that the instant the baby boy is born, there would be loud clapping in the court to announce his birth. The queen thought to herself: that isn’t too bad, is it? I just have to arrange for a group of clappers who would be present at the time of the delivery and clap the moment I give birth. The sage thus smiled and went away, blessing the queen and leaving her to sleep.”

I paused for effect. Mrs. Mehta looked at me, expecting me to continue. She appeared exhausted and embattled. Her body stood strangely rooted to her place and fat beads of sweat formed on her forehead.

“Anyway, so the queen decided not to tell the king about the infraction and kept the secret to herself. Nine months later, the ecstatic king decked up the kingdom in the most beautiful adornments and threw open the palace gates to the public. Everyone assembled in the hall to witness the birth of their new heir. As per the queen’s strict commands, a group of expert clappers positioned themselves at a vantage point to begin clapping the moment the baby boy emerged from the mother’s womb and uttered a cry.”

The absurdity of the joke perfectly mirrored the absurdity of the situation in the hall. It was supposed to have been a regular light hearted get-together but Mrs. Mehta had lost her marbles over something.

I entered the final act of my joke, sighing to complete the rest in a single uninterrupted breath. The tension in the room assumed a palpable character.

 “As soon as the queen began to wail in labour pain, the court musicians started playing their instruments to drown out her voice. The public waited with bated breath for the baby boy to emerge. Within a few minutes, a baby form emerged from the queen’s body and the clappers readied themselves. Before anyone could clap, however, the baby brought its tiny hands together and clapped them together sonorously. The clappers sat dumbfounded, realizing they had been beaten to it. You see, the baby was not a boy or a girl, but…somewhere in between, which is why he, or she…well, clapped.”

The joke was over, but no one had reacted. Everyone stood in absolute silence as I looked from person to person in hope of any response. Only Dhruv, who stood beside me, stifled a soft chuckle and diffused the situation. Mrs. Mehta suddenly broke into a raucous fit of forced laughter, her beastly voice thundering over everyone.

“LAUGH!” she ordered everyone, but no one did. We all saw incredulously as she stumbled across the room, laughing wildly, before finally collapsing to the ground and fainting.  

Dhruv was right: Mrs. Mehta would laugh at anything.

READ PART 2 HERE.

मुझे पूरी ज़िन्दगी ppt नहीं बनाने

मुझे पूरी ज़िन्दगी ppt नहीं बनाने
मुझे words per minute की rat-race
और ctrl c और v के दल-दल में
पाओं नहीं धसाने।

 मुझे काम करना है, बड़ा बनना है,
एड़ियां घिस कर सख्त करनी हैं।
फिल्में बनानी हैं, और बना रहा हूँ!
बातें नहीं, गुल खिला रहा हूँ!

 मेरे सपनों के कोरे कागज़ को मैं,
paper planes बना कर आसमान में दाखिल कर रहा हूँ।
और मेरे सपनों में
एक सौ इकतालीस पन्नों का ppt कहीं feature नहीं करता।

 अब तुम कहोगे कि
'हर इंसान को, कभी न कभी
अपने काम को बेचना ही पड़ता है'
सच ही कहोगे!

तो ठीक है; मेरे सपनों में मेरे under
दस नौकरों की भी जगह है, जो
मेरी फिल्मों को, मेरी कलाकृतियों को
मोल भाव के तराज़ू पर चढ़ाएंगे।

और 'नौकर' शब्द से मेरा तात्पर्य
ऊंचे या निचले से नहीं;
जैसे नौकरी लगना हर मधय-वर्गीय नौजवान का स्वप्न है,
उसी तरह मेरे लिए नौकरी करने वाले लोग भी खुशनसीब होंगे।

 यह मेरा अभिमान या घमंड नहीं,
बल्कि  इरादा है; और इरादों  का क्या है ना,
निन्यानवे प्रतिशत सच नहीं होते.
पर अगर सोचो ही नहीं, तो सौ प्रतिशत नहीं होते।

सीखने के लिए गिरना अनिवार्य है
एक जीत पर हार, हज़ार हैं।
गिर तो रहा हूँ, लाखों ppt बनाकर,
कमबख्त सीख है कि फरार है!

Feminism and Bollywood (with 'Piku' as a case study)

[SPOILERS ALERT for Piku and Margarita with a Straw.]

 “I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat."

-Rebecca West

Humans in urban 21st century India are not alien to the concept of feminism. We have embraced, at least outwardly, the idea that equality among the genders is something desirable and that patriarchy is a double-edged sword that harms both, or, as better social understanding informs us, all genders. The world is sitting up and taking notice of the idea of feminism, the rights of LGBTQ communities  and the broad spectrum of sexual orientations that humans must be entitled to.  It is cool to be open to these new ideas, especially in youth communities willing to establish and uphold a new set of social standards for a brave new world.

Various art-forms are instrumental in carrying this new-found social responsibility on their shoulders. Gender-sensitized narratives in film, literature and fine arts are cropping up around us and contributing to a gradually increasing stockpile of progressive, forward-minded artworks. Sadat Hasan Manto's seminal 20th century prose comes to mind, among other artists like Mahesh Dattani ('Morning Raga') and Shonali Bose (of 'Margarita with a Straw' fame). 

The Indian Film Industry, or Bollywood, as it is colloquially (and rather scornfully) called, is somewhat a late bloomer. Since the masses of India still find these feminist ideas too extreme, Bollywood in its inherent populism has largely had an inclination towards orthodoxy. It would be unfair to single out movies that adhere to these parochial values, but the majority of films made by Karan Johar, Mahesh Bhatt and even David Dhawan fall under this broad spectrum.

We relegate the lowest kind of physical comedy to the 'gay' character in our movies. Women are merely cardboard characters and/or eye candy in item songs that serve the sole purpose of luring the male audience to fill up cinema halls. Even top-billed actresses like Kareena Kapoor Khan and Priyanka Chopra have to go through the same system of exploitation and blatant sexist baiting.

 Of late. we have had a slew of films that are challenging this notion of our industry. There are movies deliberately breaking sexist norms that have persisted in our cultural narratives since time immemorial. Again, it is tough and unfair to single out a few over others, but I would say that the cinema of filmmakers like Onir, Vishal Bharadwaj, Dibakar Banerjee, Sriram Raghavan and Anurag Kashyap are very feminist in nature. Even though their films do not actively promote the cause of equality, that is not the point of advocacy in art. In my understanding, a perfect form of feminism is where characters are realistic and relatable and not painted unrealistically in a certain way. A film's topic or subject has little to do with their being pro or anti-feminist in nature. 

Let me drive home this point further through an example. I recently saw the film, 'Margarita with a Straw', starring Kalki Koechlin and Revathy in lead roles. It is a Coming-Of-Age Story of a Girl with Cerebral Palsy who sexually explores herself, first with a North-Eastern college mate and then with a Blind Bangladeshi Girl, all the while coping with the imminent death of her Cancer-Stricken Mother. The way I put it, it seems like the filmmaker sat down with a checklist of marginalized groups of people that the mainstream media ignores and then decided to weave her plot around them. Though I agree the treatment is very sensitive and well-meaning, there are times when plot contrivances take precedence over realism. This sort of tokenism is still better than nothing, but I would like to see a more mature and refined version of feminist values to come to the fore of our visual arts; where these messages are not spelled out but already ingrained within the story arc. 

I have decided to study this year's Piku, directed by Shoojit Sircar, in light of the subject of gender sensitized films in Bollywood. Written by Juhi Chaturvedi (who has also penned the brilliant but [or 'and'? who knows] plot-less Vicky Donor), it is the story of a young, Delhi-based woman who has to cope with an overbearing, hypochondriac father who vies for her time and attention. While the father's bowel conditions take center-stage for comedic purposes, the underlying themes of dealing with death, carrying out family duties, holding on to one's roots and acceptance of idiosyncrasies of others are explored with some depth. The concept of humor - and the ability to apply it to oneself - is also a recurring sentiment in the film. 

To furnish you with some examples, let us first talk about about the character of Mr. Bhaskor Banerjee, father of Piku, whose role is essayed near-perfectly by the legendary Amitabh Bachchan. He is an attention-seeking, bitter old man who is constantly finding purpose in life. Ailed by chronic constipation, his displeasure in all common pursuits of life such as marriage, social interaction and any overt display of affection is evident. He wrecks all his daughter's attempts at serious relationships, going so far as to announce to a potential suitor that she is 'not a virgin' and hence, possibly not as desirable. Piku hates his habit of interfering with her life, but reluctantly agrees that she has inherited her father's selfish and grumpy attitude towards life. Whether it is for pissing off a character by alleging he tortured his father to death or washing his hands off all decisions that turn out to be not-so-well foreseen, Bhaskor always projects his mistakes upon others and never owns up. Piku reflects similar obstinacy when her regular cabbie crashes the taxi twice on her instructions of overspeeding. In subtle ways, the writing reveals how the rebellious daughter just cannot help morphing into her father. 

There are two distinct mentions of female emancipation through their forays into what is generally considered patriarchal territory: one, driving; the other, matrimony. In fact, there is one scene where a character blatantly says the line, 'driving liberates a woman'. But in actuality, does driving alone liberate a woman? Most definitely not. Having the choice to drive or not? Yes, that's what truly frees a woman, or any human, from any bondage. 

Which is why Piku simply brushes the questions away, saying that 'she does not like driving that much'. Her nonchalance towards the act of driving as a tool for anything other than utility is the actual display of feminism here. She is so normalized with something still a banned activity for vagina-carriers in some parts of Earth (Saudi Arabia disallows female drivers), that she hires a driver instead of buying a personal car.

The institution of matrimony also becomes a talking point in the film, as Piku's father is insistent that a strong, independent and financially secure woman like her must not get caught up in limitations of marriage. He sees it as a highly detrimental union where the odds are stacked up against the woman in the relationship. Citing the example of his own deceased wife, Bhaskor says that 'marriage without purpose is a low IQ decision'. Piku's own views are radically different; she is growing weary of casual relationships and plans to settle down for good, but for his dominating father. Her sexual life is active and healthy, but she wants more out of her attachments with men. 

While many feminists will frown at matrimony and its patriarchal implications in our society today, Piku has been brought up in a completely opposite atmosphere of openness and freedom. Notions of matrimony bring to her mind visions of stability, strength and union. That marriage can be a strengthening bond - stronger than any casual, sexual engagement - is in itself is a feminist idea. Not to be partial, from what I have seen and experienced of our country's Bengali community, they have been at the forefront of progressive relationships between man and wife, or woman and husband, defining the basics of equality within the household. A common stereotype among my college friends is that of the voluptuous, sexually liberated Bengali woman who 'sleeps around a lot'. While most of these generalizations are harmful and demeaning, I, in my twisted optimism, suggest that there is some sort of goodness to be found here. While not all Bengali women maybe sexually 'outgoing', I think it positively stereotypes them as liberated and in-charge of their sexual lives.

It is interesting how Piku (the film; not the character) tackles these two subjects in the urban landscape and comes out with a refreshing take on a working woman's life in a metropolis. When Bhaskor da collapses after a particularly frolic-filled night, the first words that come out of his lips are, 'take me to Kolkata'. No matter how much he denies it then, I had a feeling he knew right then that his days were numbered and hence, he had the urge to visit his ancestral place before he died. Piku, even though she is unwilling to, decides to accompany him to Champakunj, their sprawling haveli in Old Kolkata. She has plans to sell it off, but is still in two minds about making the decision. On one hand, there is no prudence in holding on to a piece of property that they have no use of, and on the other, holding on to one's roots is also a consideration (as voiced by another character). 

Again, for all of us, the dilemma is very real. What do we do with monetary holdings that hold no practical purpose but keeping one's legacy alive? How does one reason with a parent who refuses to walk out of the past? 

In the end, I liked that even though Bhaskor Da kept proclaiming that they'd never sell off Champakunj ('which even has our mother's name, 'Champa', in it,' he exclaims), it is Piku who finally puts her foot down and everybody takes heed. She is clearly the head of the clan because she is a successful professional, a solid, level-headed earner in the family. The entire family has differing views on what to do with the house but when Piku decides its fate, it is final and non-negotiable. She is the rising matriarch after his father's generation, and it is never spelled out in blatant words; it is merely hinted.

By the end of it, Piku is in full control of her emotions, actions, relationships, money, sex-life and men. She is not bitter or cold but quite warm and grounded. Her love for her 'baba' is no less but she realizes that he is a selfish man. The film ends not with her marriage, but a mere suggestion of her growing closeness to Rana, whom she has befriended over the course of the events in the story.

A special mention must also go to all the actors who lived their characters to perfection. Irrfan, Deepika Padukone and Amitabh Bachchan pull off amazingly believable acts in their respective roles, which enables the writer-director duo to inject real emotions that do not seem overdone or underdeveloped. The story moves forward, at times, only through gestures and a lot is said without a word being spoken. Here is a short exhibition of the range of emotions that only Piku's character displays, and speaks volumes:

Amused

Submissive

Buzzed

Hopeful?

Tempered Sadness

Unbridled grief

Indescribable

Despairing

 
 
 
 
 
 




























If you haven't seen Piku yet, there are two things you should do:
1. Kill yourself for having read this far despite the spoiler alert.
2. Watch it nevertheless. It's not about what happens, but how it happens.

I would have written more about feminism in today's cinema with more verbal abandon, but I will restrict myself to these two case studies for now. Piku for me defines a mature form of feminism that needs to be taken seriously and taken forward in our films today. Breaking the Bechdel Test is one way of ensuring that a film has some form of gender equality in what has today become an extremely skewed entertainment industry. To depict reality as it is is itself the best way forward. Therefore, when a female character is raped by a male character in a movie, that is not an anti-women depiction. When, however, the same woman accepts the man as her true lover, yes, that's when shit goes wrong (ref: Ishaqzaade).

Character actions, unlike plot setting, can be progressive. The need according to me is to write reasonably unrealistic characters in completely realistic scenarios to drive home a message. Anurag Kashyap did it with That Girl in Yellow Boots. Dibakar Banerjee has done it time and again with LSD, Shanghai, Khosla Ka Ghosla and Oye Lucky Lucky Oye. Vishal Bhardwaj did it with 7 Khoon Maaf and Haider. We need more honest narratives that depict the truth of feminism and the feminism in the truth of today.

Badlapur and Sriram Raghavan: Marrying mainstream with neo-noir

(A million spoilers are peeping out from between the lines. Watch the film and come back to this if you haven’t. )

Sriram Raghavan is my favourite Indian filmmaker, which means I will be as biased in admiration of his work as can be. I thoroughly enjoyed Agent Vinod (panned by critics and viewers, I can bet my money it will attain cult status in the years to come), loved Ek Hasina Thi and consider Johnny Gaddaar to be one of the most inventive movies in Bollywood in recent times. His degree film, The Eight Column Affair, is a revealing study in abstraction and plotting, along with his hallmark dry dialogue and relentless genre-bending.

The 52 year old filmmaker, timid and lisped, however exudes a rare sort of confidence when behind the camera. His sequences are self-assured, lively and always relaying information not explicit to the uninitiated viewer. He lends a certain intelligence to his stories with some help from clever editing and complementing acting.

Take for instance how he introduces a 15 year leap in time through a subtle yet raw device in Badlapur. Laik, the chief antagonist (or is he?), has been shown to be planning to escape from prison on multiple occasions. These sequences are stitched together with simple cuts, which leads the audience to believe that the subsequent cut will move on to another such attempt at freedom. As an unestablished figure of the same height and stature as Laik is shown fleeing the confines of the jail boundaries (and failing), we begin to think that this is taking place in roughly the same timeframe as the last shot.

However, as the next shot has the camera pan slowly to his much-aged face, accompanied with a taunt spoken by a fellow inmate, we realize we have been tricked a split second before the title card appears, reading  ’15 years later.’ The director has spent the entire sequence to establish a flash-forward through the years. Compare this with how Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra ages a thieving young Milkha Singh into a muscular Farhan Akhtar (traditional fade in slow-mo with blaring music), and we begin to see greatness in Raghavan’s novelty.

Later in the film, Laik tricks his police parole officer and sneaks out of a cinema hall by sinking repeatedly into his seat, out of his pursuer’s line of sight. For the first few times, the cop gets alarmed but Laik slyly resurfaces within a few moments. Reassured by this, the pursuer loses precious few seconds when Laik actually sneaks out after sinking deep into his seat. Sririam seems to be playing a similar game with the audience in the jail-breaking sequence.

Dialogue is Sriram Raghavan’s best-behaved mistress. Non-theatrical yet not lacking in flamboyance, he writes lines which grace the situation most honestly. Take for instance a brief exchange between the eponymous protagonist and unwilling Pakistani spy-cum-femme fetale Iram Parvin Jalal in Agent Vinod. The unlikely duo share a very small interlude from all the punching and shooting in a small motel room in a far-off European nation, evading blood-thirsty terrorists as well as well-meaning authorities. As they wait for things to happen, Vinod tries to release the awkward tension between them by initiating small talk. While Iram talks of dreams of becoming a doctor, he tells the account of an incident that changed his life and made him a spy. As a schoolboy, he had been taken to a field trip to Manali, where a cableway had snapped and he had displayed exceptional bravery by holding on to the unwound cables until the authorities came in. Noticed and picked up by the Research and Analysis Wing of India for training, he says, “Aaj bhi main us cable se latak raha hun…” (Even today, I am hanging on to that cable…). Subtle, simple, believable yet powerful dialogue.

Another glowing example from the same film is when he calls up a dying Iram during the climax, directly from the cabin of a helicopter which has a timed nuclear explosive device on-board. In the heat of the moment, at a complete loss of words, he tries his best to console his moribund lover/companion with these words, “I had decided that when all this is over, I’d give you the world you’d dreamt of. All I want you to know is that…I’d decided.” In a world where a copy of The Rubaiyat by Omar Khayyam is used as a remote control device of a nuke bomb, he had promised Iram ‘a world where Rubaiyat is just a book of love poems and nothing more.’

Dhawan doesn't completely do justice to Raghu, but shows potential.

In Badlapur, he subverts the classic revenge tale and takes away the payoff, leaving many a cinemagoer dissatisfied with its final act. Why does Laik surrender himself to the police for a crime he did not commit? Why does Raghu keep the 2.5 Crore for himself, when his original motive was revenge? How, in one painfully awkward, stretched out scene, the antagonist confesses the crime to the protagonist, and yet there is little redemption to be found?

Raghavan achieves all this through his deliberately unconventional elemental choices: the build-up of revenge is accompanied by an overpowering background score, while the moments of expected release are brutally silent except for atmospheric sound. We see Raghu transform from a bereaved husband and father into a col-blooded killer over a period of fifteen years. Many other clever plot-points hide in plain sight, but it will take me a long time and more space to list them all. To name one such speck of intelligent design, Raghu, during the first instance of passing by a local temple, does not bow in obeisance and walks past indifferently. Later, after having committed a crime and fleeing the grasp of law, he stops by briefly and prays, perhaps, for release. He goes from being a man with nothing to lose to a purposeful plotter with money around his neck and blood on his hands. The Batman and Robin reference in relation to his son and him is another example which I am unable to resist listing here.

At a time when neo-noir is a genre almost entirely unheard of in mainstream Bollywood, Raghavan is steadily becoming its greatest Indian practitioner. To see him being backed by rich people (*cough Saif cough*) and big production houses fills my heart with hope for the future. I myself intend to join the industry in the near future, as a storyteller of Film Noir themes, which have and always will fascinate and enthral me.

Long live Cinema!