Saturday, November 6, 2010

Sex, Subtext and the City

The 20’s in the city , apart from bringing along its own set of driving tests and marriage proposals, both of which teach you how to swerve carefully and avoid collisions, also brings forth an individual’s understanding of sex, and the other sex. Literally, and figuratively.

Blame it on too many cocktails, or too much Carrie Bradshaw,or just way too much of sex, lies and videotape, but it seems that true liberation needn’t be reached only through the Karmic Theory. In this realm, the line between enlightment and orgasm tends to blur. But it blurs a lot more that it seems, getting hidden away, packed and stacked, bubble wrapped away from all those who are thought unfit of use. Sex, is thus dealt with a major X, and discussions about sex, ironically take the backseat, finding their ways into sleepovers and stag parties.

Which brings us to the one question; should it really be left to the hushed whispers? To be downed with tequila shots? Bound beyond closed doors and history textbooks? Is sex even more fiction than Santa or Satan; where the birds and bees remain just that, birds, and bees.

In a country where sex is taboo, and people are coy about post-coital, one wonders, in a place where sex is accompanied with a seeti,where’s the sex in this city?

>Hidden, but yet in plain sight. Under glossy magazines in plastic covers, on makeshift wooden stands; softwares and soft porn. In the seedier by lanes of town, under shady street lights, hidden beneath the hypothetical carpet of perfection, giving a whole new meaning to streetlight people.

But what about you, and I, and everyone else out there, you ask? We may draw up our own lust lists, and take up all the purity tests that Facebook might have to offer, but sure, there’s a risk in being risqué. After all, the four bases of Baseball aren’t for everyone, are they? A conversation with a friend took a turn when she told me that she was well past base 3, but not quite there to reach the 4th base.

We wondered, sipping our long islands and nibbling at our nachos, is there even such a thing as base 3.5? Well, we both agreed, that she had miles to go before she hit the home run, but what about all those countless others out there, stuck in a sexual limbo, wanting to take that one giant leap, for that one small step?

They say that there might be a thin line between love and hate, but what about the thread between love and lust? Is love necessary, to lead to lust? Or does pure lust lead to true love? In true love’s first kiss, is lust what you sorely miss? If it’s okay to go after the object of your affection, isn’t it okay to do the same for the object of your seduction too? After all, if everything’s fair in love and war, isn't lust but the perfect coupling between the two?
Maybe, I lust you, will never replace I love you.
Maybe love’s labour’s lost, or maybe love’s labour’s lust.
Go figure. I have people to go stalk.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Food for thought- II

You know you are going crazy when you have recurring nightmares of a plump giant chicken squawking away behind you while you squirm around like a worm, trying to hide from its scaly yellow claws. Fortunately for me, this early bird does not end up getting the worm.

You can either get to the food, or let the food get to you. And usually, I would prefer the former. After all, doesn’t the belly rule the mind? Don’t get me wrong, I am not a glutton- I am an explorer of food.

Haven’t we all watched a movie just for the bucket of buttered popcorn? Or watched late night reruns just to finish of the tub of double chocolate chip ice-cream? Who amongst us is not fond of fondue or plotted for a plate of pot rice? Or gorged on Gouda cheese and Foccacia bread? No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after eating one French fry.

There are some things in life you’ve got to bucket before you kick the bucket. Like a stone baked slice of calzone drizzled with virgin olive oil, or rich Belgian waffles with a side portion of nutella crème crepes with a dollop of fresh cream. A cut of pan seared pomfret with a sliver of herbs and garlic, to a square of exotic mocha crumble, with all its crunchy apple goodness, or a plate of mildly spiced chicken seekh kebabs, caked with a layer of a traditional kathi bread.

Good food, unlike a good friend is not hard to come by. You just need to know the right place. And the right plate. In the end, to binge or to cringe, that is the question. You can never have too many of both now, can you?

Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing. So I think to myself, what do I do the next time the hallucination hen comes up in my dream?
I eat it.
Probably with a chocolate milkshake, and a side order of fries.

Food for thought.

They say that the way to a man’s heart (including mine) is through his stomach. If your heart is full, you don’t feel that hungry. And what do you do when nobody’s particularly interested in finding the way to your heart, you ask?
Well, you do the second best thing. You cook yourself.
Take it from someone who spent a major part of the vacation desserting rather than disserting, the joys of baking brownies is like no other. Two portions of sinful gooey chocolate with heaps of decadent vanilla and a concoction of caramel can solve anything but world peace. And weight loss, probably. If you don’t believe me, take it up with my mother who tells me that breakfast is called so, because it’s the meal that breaks the fast.
What the city loses out it traffic and filth, it makes up in chugging out gastronomical delights., From the lasagna at Churchill’s to the Mississippi mud pie at Fountain’s, all the way to the Bombil Fry at Jaihind Lunch Home. A myriad mix of colours in a Gola cart, to the sizzle of a pound of butter on a plate of Pav Bhaji. After all, who doesn’t know of the pleasure of biting into the first French fry at McDonalds’, or sipping on a Tropical iceberg at an air-conditioned Café Coffee Day on a bright sunny day, when the weather seems so much nicer from inside.
In the post-Anthony Bourdain world where cooking is cool, you realise that the human body’s not a temple but an amusement park, one to indulge than implore, where the next slice of pizza becomes a necessity, or the last chicken dumpling is the key to survival, especially in a friend circle where food comes first, even before friends.
You might be eating Pain Au Chocolat and crackers with Goat Cheese at an upscale New York café, or eating fish and chips in the back seat of a moving car somewhere in London, you might even be binging on a margherita pizza in Rome, or something totally unidentifiable from a suspicious wok in the by lanes of Beijing, hunger knows no language, only its feeder. Whether it be hunger for food, or a primal hunger for power, for knowledge or sometimes, even for love.
Maybe I need some food for thought, or maybe I am just hungry.
I guess I’ll go eat.

Ouch Potato

Come May, comes one month of nothingness to celebrate, a month where pure unadulterated fun is available in glass bottles and tiny Styrofoam cups. In aluminum cans and brown paper bags. You laze, you lounge, you lavish yourself, doing all those things that couch potatoes are known to do. And then, what do you do? You turn to that one thing in your life which you are pretty sure will never leave you, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, the television set.

Last year, While I struggled to keep up with Jack Bauer’s counter-terrorist agents, superheroes swept in discovering their powers, as a New-Yorker continued his quest to find his future wife while suburban housewives schemed and teamed. A medical resident trudged through nine years at every body's favorite hospital with his black best friend, while a private investigator finished high school.. Others partied and parted on the Upper East Side, and show choirs formed and performed. They called out to me from the TV set, in bits and bytes form, in monochromatic hues of red, green and blue. Each and every one of them, in their tantalizing seductive ways, while I watched. And watched. And watched.
For a month I watched. Glazed eyed and awe-struck. Secretly. In the dead of the night, when I was alone. Like a child caught stealing candy, like a teenager caught watching porn.
Eat, I didn’t.
Drink, I didn’t.
Sleep, I didn’t.
And then I realized. Like a scoffed girlfriend, it came out of nowhere and slapped me hard, squarely across my face. And walked away.

Sometimes life's greatest lessons aren’t the ones that you learn through moral stories and all those things parents tell children so that they get their judgments right when they grow up. They aren’t the ones that hit you after life changing experiences. Sometimes, life’s greatest lessons are the ones you learn from the very same character you watch every week. Those fictitious people who stay in make believe land. The ones you hate, the ones you admire, and even the ones you secretly want to be. And just like that, in a non-creepy and non-you-should-get-institutionalized kind of way, you realise that the voiceovers aren’t voiceovers at all.
Like the way J.D sums up life, or Mohinder Suresh discovers it, Or Mary Alice Young, who remembers it. Like Gossip girl’s summations, and Ted Mosby’s lessons, you realize that life is but the greatest show that you can be a part of. And if you are lucky, sometimes you get picked up for another season too.

Theses voice rush in, coming through to you when somebody goofs up and messes up your destiny, or even when you least expect it, like bad weather. Like the truth so naked, that it feels awkward to just look at it. You switch on the remote and stare at the TV screen, watching out for the white noise. The technical jargon. You watch and you learn, till those 42 minutes are up. What do you do then? Who do you listen to, when nothing else works or when the episode ends?
Well, you wait for the writers to come up with the next episode.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

The last twist in the tale: The witch and the bitch.

A red-gold glow burst suddenly across the enchanted sky above them, as an edge of dazzling sun appeared over the sill of the nearest window. It was the moment of reckoning. The battle of Hogwarts was about to end. Harry potter raised the blackthorn wand, and he saw Voldemort do the same with the elder wand.
They both hesitated. Something was not right. It was one of those feelings when everything’s in place but still something’s missing.
That’s when it happened.
The doors to the great hall swung open with a resounding bang, and all the heads turned mechanically to see who it could be at a time like this.
Three figures glided in, in robes of dark purple, fast as bullets.
“It’s a bird!” cried one apple-cheeked young wizard.
“It’s a plane!” cried another.
“What’s a plane?” asked a plump blond witch, inconsequentially.
“It’s Superman!!” rounded off a third, dramatically.
The sunlight from the tracery window up near the roof hit the faces of the three strangers who had entered the room, and their faces were revealed for the entire hall to see.
Bella Swan, Edward Cullen and Jacob Black peered at the crowd of hundred odd witches from under the hoods of their travelling cloaks, their faces weary and tired. But it wasn’t because of the long journey they had undertaken, their faces were just built that way.
The crowd stared blankly at the trio, while the three of them blinked stupidly.
Bella, who was clearly not used to such a lack of attention, cleared her throat. “Love me. I need you!” she screamed nonsensically in the air, to no one in particular.
“I am hot.” Edward said matter-of-fatedly in a tone which would have made Paris Hilton proud.
Voldemort tutted disapprovingly.
When no one responded, she awkwardly crouched and hid herself in the shadows. Not before she tripped on her own feet, though.
As Bella fell to the ground, face first, Déjà vu slapped harry squarely on his face. This had happened before. Twice.
The crowd burst out laughing as one while Bella lay there, sprawled awkwardly on the cold stone floor. Jacob rushed to her side, while Edward preened and pouted at a particularly attractive witch in the crowd who eyed him suggestively. Bella winced angrily as Jacob clumsily tried to help her.
“Go away!” she yelled at him, as he tried to hold her up in his arms. Even though she had Jacob on the hook (she had kissed him once, but had blamed it on the pre-battle stress then), it was Edward who she really wanted. After all, he was handsome, really old and made intense soap actor-like faces. What more could any girl ask for?
Jacob sulked off to the sides, and harry distinctly heard him mutter something about choosing Edward over him.
Voldemort rolled his eyes, frankly, this teenage angst was getting to him. After all, wasn’t having to deal with a whole school of hormone ridden youngsters enough?
Edward walked nonchalantly towards Bella, who was still sitting awkwardly on the floor. He hoisted her up, with a sudden jerk, and walked away, still not paying any attention to her. There were so many girls here, and so little time.
“Oh, what big arms you have, Edward?” Bella cooed sappily, noticing this, while Edward preened and pouted.
“The better to hold you with, B” Edward replied, looking more at the pretty witch, than at Bella.
Bella was pissed. Majorly.
Harry thought that this all seemed vaguely familiar from a fairy tale he had heard while he was younger, but he couldn’t remember.
“What a big head you have, oh Edward?” Bella continued, at which Edward cocked one of his perfectly shaped eyebrows.
“Go sister!” Hermione Granger hooted from amidst the crowd, feminist that she was. Luna Lovegood and Ginny Weasley high-fived.
“This is not a part of the script!” Edward hissed at Bella, while she glared with the little bit of emotion that she could manage.
Edward who had always gotten out of trouble till now by giving one of his trademark piercing stares, tried to do so, But Bella wasn’t stupid any more. At least, not so much.
“Red Riding Hood!” harry cried out aloud, and immediately stopped as everyone turned around, wanting to see who had disturbed the intense charade.
Edward thought that two could play the same game.
Scrunching up his eyes, as if he was concentration with great difficulty, Edward rounded up on Bella, and asked, “What a Non-descriptive face you have, Bella?”
“The better for young adolescent girls all over the world to associate themselves with!” Bella replied, coolly.
Harry was amazed by her wit at a time like this.
“Jacob, Oh Jacob! Where are you?” She wailed loudly, and Jacob rushed so quickly to her side that Harry thought she had summoned him with a summoning charm.
Jacob grinned appreciatively at Bella, having had forgotten that she had reproached him just a few minutes ago.
Jacob looked at Harry’s quizzed expression, and smiled slightly.
“Rebound, Bro!” he said, as if it explained everything.
“No fair!” Ron Weasley burst out. Harry didn’t know whether Jacob calling him bro or Bella openly canoodling with her best friend while her boyfriend stood there, had annoyed him more. Harry didn’t dare ask. Ronald had issues, and Harry had come to terms with them. Hermione hadn’t but that was an entirely different story.
A story which Harry had told to a roomful of people, much to Ron’s annoyance, when he was three fire whiskeys down. Ron had not yet forgiven him.
Hermione tsked impatiently, and Ron rounded up on her. “ Yeah, you take his side. I always knew that something was going on between the two of you, all the times you were cramped up in the tiny little tent. Harry stifled a laugh, trying not to think of graphic images of Him and Hermione in the tent disturb him.
Jacob laughed loudly, which annoyed Edward in turn. “what are you laughing about?” he asked the werewolf,” You very well tried to do the same thing with my girlfriend!” he growled, which made Bella snort with derisive laughter.
“ Girlfriend? What about the tramp over there?” she asked, pointing at Pansy Parkinson, the girl who Edward had been eyeing.
“hey! Don’t involve me in any of this! My Death eater boyfriend is enough drama!” she said defensively.
Hermione snorted.
As the six teenagers bickered and bad mouthed each other, Voldemort shrieked like a young school girl. “ I. Can’t. Take. This. Any. More.” He wailed loudly , making a dash for the entrance gate. World domination was one thing, But handling teenage angst, well, that just wasn’t his cup of tea.
As Voldemort disappeared off the ramparts of the school façade, The sextet stopped. The battle was over, but the teen drama wasn’t.

Another twist in the tale: The edward Cullen story

A red-gold glow burst suddenly across the enchanted sky above them, as an edge of dazzling sun appeared over the sill of the nearest window. It was the moment of reckoning. The battle of Hogwarts was about to end. Harry potter raised the blackthorn wand, and he saw Voldemort do the same with the elder wand.
That is when it happened.
Edward Cullen strutted into the Great Hall, his lips pouting, his eyes scrunched up intensely.
“Cedric!” cried out Cho Chang, who stood amidst the crowd, and ran towards him. Harry and Voldemort lowered their wands, puzzled expressions on their faces and looked at each other questioningly.
Almost the whole Hufflepuff house tittered the hall with their echoing applause. Edward stopped, in the centre of the room, attention hungry that he was.
“I am not Cedric.” He said slowly, emotionlessly.
“You are not?” But you look the same!” Cho said, her smile faltering.
“Polyjuice potion, I must say.” Harry said loudly, wanting to belittle Edward. Nobody stole his thunder. Nobody.
Edward glared at Harry. Or tried to. His botox-ed face wouldn’t let him. “No. I am a vampire.” He said smugly, looking at the crowd, expecting all the girls to swoon and all the boys to cry out. Nobody did.
He stood there, blanked out.
“Bella?” he asked, unconvincingly.
Bellatrix came up front, smiling suggestively at the boy in front of her.
“Yes?” she asked of him, winking at him.
“No. Not you. Bella Swan, My one and only human love.” he said, meekly, his face stiff. He wouldn’t want to mess with this one, she looked like somebody who meant business. He just needed a simple small town girl who would worship him. He searched in the crowd, for a suitable candidate. Well, If Bella wasn’t here , he just needed to find another human.
He saw her then. The pretty girl with the bushy brown hair.
“You” he cried out to her, while the girl shifted uncomfortably, “yes, you. Want to worship me? we can have make believe intellectual conversations like eighty year olds” he asked her cockily, sure she wouldn’t say no, Bella used to love those sessions.
Hermione Granger blazed with fury. “No!” she cried out angrily, with an echoing resonance. Almost everyone laughed. Somewhere in the crowd, Ron Weasley breathe a sigh of relief.
“You can’t be Cedric anyway.” Cho said spitefully. This was the second time a boy had chosen Hermione over her, and it did not go down well with her. “He was cuter. More intelligent. And lastly, had normal meals like the rest of us!” she concluded smugly.
All the girls agreed. The boys hooted. Minerva McGonagall whooped in the air, while Flitwick rushed into an impromptu hip-hop jig.
“ How dare you, you, you…Humans!” he said lamely, his voice shrill like that a school girl.
“Are you done now?” Voldemort asked Edward hoarsely, rolling his eyes. “We have a battle to get back to, pretty boy!” Edward shifted slightly, getting a bit luke-warm under the collar.
Then it happened.
A dirty shoe came hurtling from somewhere, hitting Edward and bouncing off his head.
“ ow!”, he cried out, trying to fight back the tears.
“Wimp!” somebody cried out.
“Loser!” said another.
Another shoe followed suit. And a hundred after that.
“Moron!”
“Retard!”
“Male chauvinist pig!” That was Hermione.
“Dumbfuck!” McGonagall said loudly. She was in her element.
Harry and Voldemort threw their wands at Edward, having nothing else to throw,laughing derisively as he ran out the Great hall, crying loudly.
All was well.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

A twist in the tale: The Bella Swan story.

A red-gold glow burst suddenly across the enchanted sky above them, as an edge of dazzling sun appeared over the sill of the nearest window. It was the moment of reckoning. The battle of Hogwarts was about to end. Harry potter raised the blackthorn wand, and he saw Voldemort do the same with the elder wand.
That is when it happened.
Bella Swan ran into the Great Hall, a hundred pair of eyes fixed on her.
“Love me. I need you!” she screamed nonsensically in the air, to no one in particular.
Harry looked at her, so did Voldemort. They didn’t know what else to do.
“Are you a Vampire?” she asked loudly, looking at Harry first, then the Dark Lord. Harry shook his head slowly, while Voldemort unconvincingly mumbled up a negative. Bella looked at him suspiciously.
“Aren’t you?” she asked, her eyes small and beady, her eyebrows raised.
Voldemort shifted uncomfortably in his place.
“Your skin’s pale, your eyes are red. And if I look at you from this angle over here, it almost seems as if you are dazzling! Love me, I need you.” she told him, adding the last bit as an afterthought. The audience tittered. Voldemort glared at them, and they immediately stopped.
“I am the dark lord, muggle! Not a lowly vampire!” he screamed, his voice echoing through the ceiling to the forbidden forest beyond.
“Uh-huh. Your breath’s not sweet anyway.” She said, rolling her eyes at him.
Voldemort stared at her pointedly.
“Edward! Where art thou?” she whined, when no one answered, she asked again, “ Edward? Robert? Cedric?”. Somebody in the crowd giggled.
“ He died. Four years ago!” the answer came, a disembodied voice, somewhere from the crowd, and everyone burst out laughing.
Voldemort blushed. He had done the deed after all.
“So. Anyone?” she asked the crowd in general, “Come on, you know you love me. Every guy back home surely did. Human. Vampire. Werewolf. I thought I’ll add Wizard to the kitty too!” she grinned, but nobody laughed.
Harry tapped his feet irritably on the floor while Voldemort checked his breath.
“Love me. I need you.” She repeated, whining like a bawling child.
Harry and Voldemort were both getting annoyed. Then, a that point, they knew what had to be done.The light hit their faces at the same time, so that Voldemort’s was suddenly a flaming blur. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he, too, yelled his both hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand:
“Avada Kedavara!”
“Expelliarmus!”
The bang was like a cannon-blast and the golden flames that erupted between them, at the dead centre of the circle they had been treading, marked the points where the spells collided.
Which was sadly, the place where Bella Swan stood.
Bella swan fell to the ground, as everyone in the crowd cheered and clapped for their two heroes. The battle of Hogwarts would be fought later, for now, The greater evil had been destroyed. :P

For all you Harry Potter fans, this is my tribute to you.
For all you twilight fans, eat shit. :D