Here's to the World of Shot-Stories: One-gulp tales and single-swag sagas, if you will. So sprinkle the salt and hold on to your lemon wedges. WARNING ALERTS! 1: Consume contents at your own pace. Do NOT succumb to peer pressure. 2: The stories come in different sizes. How many you chug depends on how much you can handle. 3: Orange juice in your shotglass will also make you ditzy. 4: Yes, it IS 'storiez' with a Z, cause the darn S was already taken! 5: And seriously, Don't READ and DRIVE.
The Lark at heaven’s gate sings
like a snow Goth minstrel.
Halo punked and wings pierced,
she’s zipped her fawn boots to the knee.
With lips that ope to concert lights,
she head bangeth to a little rhapsody. A newly wired electronic harp
finds psychedelic love in angel tunes.
Soulful notes are amplified
through manna snorted melodies.
She screeches for thee, oh human one
To shuffle off that mortal coil
For heaven paints a picture bright,
but it ought not to be as bad.
Sitting there with his demitasse,
shards of thoughts made a word cloud
in his fragmented mind
and brought pointillism on cheap tissue.
He pressed the nib
on his single lined writing pad,
making the ink bleed into
damp latte-stained rings of patience. But the sentences of expectation
had abandoned the creative mind,
leaving the contours of a cursive hand
with nothing to write. He bridged two coffee circles
with a half-mooned hairline
and filled the spaces below
with irises of joy. Doodling his way down
the writer found his muse,
the artist beamed at the big picture,
for Mickey Mouse was born.
He rammed his head and cracked one of those cellophane licorice windows open. The gingerbread walls were crumbling at the scaffolding. He struggled to elbow one of the beams, but the chain around his limbs allowed for little movement.
Gretchen, a pedophile cannibalistic witch of the west, was preparing a new feast of plum cherry clafoutis with vanilla whipped cream. Muttering complicated incantations through cavity-eaten teeth, she skimmed through new dessert specials to fatten him up before the big sacrifice.
But where the heck was Gretel?
Gretel seduced Gretchen’s sharp tongue with a bowl of the previous kid’s leg in caramelized apples for dinner. The witch's lenient eyes rolled to the top of her head and she began to sleep, alternating snores with grizzly whistles.
So the sister managed to tiptoe into the hay barn the night before, promising the fattened elder sibling of a way out.
“Her life lies within the bugs on her bed!” discovered Gretel. “Tomorrow night it is. I’ll just fog up the bedpost and fumigate her to death,” she laughed.
But with peach melbas, pistachio macarons, lime-curd meringues and mango mascarpones on Gretchen’s menu for the week, Gretel had a slight change of heart.
She continued poaching pears of perfection as ideas kept brewing in her head. With Hansel on the back burner, she knew she could create magic on a plate.
Chuckling at her new idea she gave Gretchen a wry smile.
Mouth to mouth
I breathe out
And fog up the reflection.
Soundless droplets of mist
Cling to mercurial glass
And sit there, holding on
To words that haven’t
Been conceived yet.
There’s a twinge
In the pit of my stomach
A seed of life
That has promised to sprout.
My innards have coiled down
With a patchwork of bulky nerves
Thatched together to create
That perfect nest.
As I crumple into the sink
And vomit yellow bile words
But no one hears a thing.
I walk into the closet
And raise my tee shirt.
Cupping both palms
Around the navel
I look through its passage
Into that kaleidoscope of life
Where the umbilical
Connects to the netherworld
With those gone away,
With those dead.
I look into its father's eyes
Dilated brown irises
That collapse
With unconditional love
As I resign the world
In silent deep sleep.
She stood there in the cold, dressed in a faux fur coat and leather overalls. Flicking her wrist, she raised the tobacco-stained ochre end to her trembling lips and filled her lungs with pretentious comfort. She stubbed the last ultra-mild under her stiletto and strutted towards his car.
This was not the first time.
He would park his black Sedan at the corner of Mt. Vernon street on Wednesday nights, and wait outside Delilah’s till she had wrapped up for the day. She’d hop in and they’d head to a pre-booked suite at a wayside inn.
Mr. Maloney was a reputed judge who had spent 30 years of his life to serve the law. He was a dedicated husband, a devoted father, and a man whose career panned out without a blotch on his reputation. Tina wasn’t his first escort, but there was something about her that kept drawing him back to Delilah’s. He never realized that his mild interest in this pretty young thing would grow into a form of wild obsession.
For three months they met once a week in discrete motels on the outskirts of Philadelphia, and this Wednesday was no different. They headed straight to the room and ensured that their murmurs of pleasure would be confined within the walls of these unfamiliar hotels.
He lay on his side as she pulled out her well-concealed revolver from behind her garter. She sat there in her corset holding the cold nozzle onto his temples. Closing her eyes, she clenched her index finger and splattered his brains out on the pillow that cushioned his head.
“That’s for Sammie’s sentence!” she breathed with relief knowing that it had taken her three years to bring her plans to fruition. Wiping the threads of blood from her face, she touched the gold band that was still clinging to her ring finger.
The praying mantis walked out without fear, as the sounds of the gun kept ricocheting through paper-thin walls.
It’s amazing how you look back at your lot when you’ve looked away for a bit. We Indians are obsessed with little inventions that can scream, screech, shriek, belch, beep or cheep (like listening to your neighbor yell at his wife down the street wasn’t enough!).
Let’s put us in an analogy. We are to small squawking devices like the Japanese are to a camera trigger. What is it that makes our Indian gene so hyperactive when we see a little machine at arm’s distance?
Hitting the honk button for the 7th time in a row will not take you anywhere! If you stopped playing ‘snake’ or 'angry birds' (or whatever else you use to twiddle your thumbs) for a bit and dug your face out of your phone screen ever so often, you’d notice that the light is still Red. The odd chance that it is Green doesn't justify your need to go palm-happy on the steering wheel. You don't need a degree in math to count the five cars between you and the open road!
Ditto for calling the elevator shaft to your assigned floor. It’s a mechanism with a set trajectory that sometimes does have a mind of its own. But it's not a wish-box! (Stop looking for the I-live-at-the-Empire-State-building pity vote!) Contrary to your continued expectation, poking and jabbing at the little arrowed button will not make it appear out of nowhere. Tried and Tested.
And thanks for making me jump out of my skin with the 4 continuous ting-tongs outside my door. Yes yes, getting my daily dose of packetted milk at 6:30 in the morning ranks very high on my emergency list! (I agree, you’re concerned that I might develop osteoporosis in the future, but 4 doorbell alerts? At six-effin-thirty in the a.m.? Like seriously?)
Going by this list, I would’ve easily concluded that we’re a lot that's just always in a hurry. I won't discount that completely, but on careful speculation, I know it’s more than that. As much as we try to hide our li'l secret, we just love gizmo-induced sounds! Period. So much for cheap thrills and vulgar joys.
How else would you explain the need to download annoyingly loud sms tones to your already busy phone! Isn’t the cacophony of conversation doing its bit for you? Why would someone, in their right mind, wish to endure listening to a baby bawl or a cow moo endlessly if they didn’t secretly love being sadistic? It might seem like fun the first time around. But when you get a string of 30 sms with the same baby crooning for help, I’d want to thwack the little thing and put it to rest!
Tight deadlines kept looming in. Her planner looked disgruntled with over-booked appointments. Work was almost always on her mind.
He was working on his PhD in Philosophy and had gotten used to having conversations with Descartes and Nietzche at the dinner table.
It was 8:30pm. She stepped into the apartment and walked straight to the kitchen, scrolling through the New York Times on her iPad. She gave him a wry smile, mechanically picked out a pack of frozen selects and dumped them into the microwave.
“Wow! They’re expecting a complete power outage in the city tonight!!” she gasped, mentally calculating the amount of work she had left until the next day.
Before he could respond to her, the lights made a slight hissing sound and the bulbs began to flicker. Within seconds they sat there in total eclipse, fumbling around familiar objects within the unaccustomed shadow within their space.
He reached out for the first drawer but couldn’t locate the torch or the spare candles that were still there before her last birthday. She panicked and grumbled, irritated at him for not being prepared for this in time.
He came over to her side and held her by the shoulders, concerned that she might trip over the paraphernalia in the dark. They stood there in complete silence, which was only broken by the soft whistles of the wind that came from the draft above the kitchen table.
He calmly pulled out his cellphone as his guiding light, and rummaged through the refrigerator for baby spinach, plum tomatoes, red onions and cottage cheese, dicing the ingredients before they were tossed in with olive oil and some seasoning.
He poured two glasses of zinfandel with their meal, and switched on her eReader.
Eating quietly with make-shift candles in the dark, they sat there in absolute serenity having a meaningful iPad-light dinner.
Have you ever hated someone so much that you just got up and started applauding as soon as she got done with her act?
(No no, I'm not particularly talking to you, oh nominee-for-the-best-actress-award-who-just-sat-there-clapping-for-the-winner.) I know how you feel, but I'm referring to a whole other gamut of emotions here.
I never thought I could have so much hatred. So much animosity. So much anger for the female form.
But when you get up everyday at 3:30am, and start applauding aimlessly in the dark, you know you can't feel very appreciative. And when two mosquitoes decide to play join-the-dots on your body, you know you want to show feminism the finger.
I'm just this close to wishing that there was someone who'd gas those bitches in one big mosquito genocide!
Mosquitoes! Those vicious, ruthless, blood-sucking monsters that leave itchy red mounds of ugliness on skin, are ALL FEMALE!!
Apparently, they look for a smooth surface on bare (freshly waxed?) skin and meditate on landing quietly hoping that you're either asleep, numb, dead or too thick skinned to care. They whisk out their proboscis and stick it into you (erm...this surely doesn't sound very lady-like now). And while you're too busy focusing on sleep, they burp on your blood and hi-five to the other bitches on the number of Bloody Mary(s) they just consumed.
And for what purpose? Erm... for the noble cause of being a Mother.
Waiddaminute! They need MY red blood corpuscles, to nurse and raise a new swarm of pests who can come back and bite me on the bum? Again?
I'm telling you. One way or the other, children are EVIL!
Remember the good ol' times? The times post the black-and-white era and the reels that graduated from Eastman Colour? The times beyond sepia prints, 70s winged-eyeliners, conical bras and bird-nest hairdo's?
I'm talking about the times that have made an impression on every 80's child in India. It's called surviving a time warp that's now referred to as B.C. (or Before Cable). An age when Bollywood wasn't just fancy coinage for a film industry - But a way of life.
A time when movies made their way to dinnertime discussions on a daily basis. The epic era of bad hindi films (while some might argue that the said era hasn't ended yet), with movies so bizarre, that their connection to reality is purely unintended!
Films that shamelessly followed a set formula. Where lanky heroes with long side-burns were the norm. When being beefed-up and owning a 6-pack meant you had a promising career as a villain or a visible part of his posse. (Someone please throw Uday Chopra into that decade, NOW!) In fact, despite eating right and hitting the gym everyday, you'd have been tossed around like a toothpick in the hands of Mr. Scrawny BigStar himself.
I'm talking about a decade when Mithun's pelvic thrust was the epitome of all things macho, and an Anil Kapoor roamed topless, revealing his welcro-like back without having to bother about sex appeal (what's that?).
When heroes danced in 2-inch heels, wore their hair to the nape, put on horrendously mercurial Aviator shades, and strut around in costumes that would give Lady Gaga some competition.
When 'stylists' were still called 'tailors', when a 'wardrobe' mean't double doors that open up to a clown's closet, and when 'heroine's outfit' implied a quick-fix from the previous movie's curtains.
Biker gloves, blue pantyhose, red socks and yellow pump shoes.
That's the way, aha aha, I like it, aha aha.
Bibs are not meant to be worn there, Ms. Kapoor!
Note 1: Curtains can be replaced by anything colourful or unusual. Even birthday streamers will do, so long as she looks like she's emerging out of Draupadi's forgotten costume, or a 7-tiered wedding cake.
When all-natural and voluptuous was considered beautiful. When women like Amrita Singh played lead roles (up until the point where she started resembling the hero's younger brother.)
When hotness quotients were defined by Rekha in her avatar as a cool vengeful fauxhawk-wearing momma with a face-lift... and a tummy-tuck (erm, but the darn crocodile only bit your cheek, lady!).
When skinny little Sonu Walias could fall off the stage (or the villain's life, or the face of the earth) if Ms. Ample Hips obliged.
When villains were put on a different kind of pedestal.
Firstly, the bad guy = bad GUY. (If you were a woman and a bad one at that, you were either Bindu, Aruna Irani, Shashikala or a slut. No grey shades there.)
Coming back to our typical villains, they came in different sizes of obviousness, cause subtlety is for wimps!
They either had a physical handicap (movies with Prem Chopra, Shakti Kapoor, Gulshan Grover, Danny Denzongpa and their ilk), were subject to some unexplained abnormality on the face (hairy moles, scar across eyelids) or were just downright ugly (Cause if you're ugly, you're going to be pissed with mankind, right?).
On the rare occasion that life had chosen to be less mean to them, they'd sit on a skull throne all dressed up in alien clothing and a bad haircut (e.g. Mogambo, Shakaal, Dong) expecting the audience to cringe in horror!
Mogambo, khush hua!
Note 2: The villain's plans could involve hijacking a 2nd-hand cycle in a busy market area, but even such a seemingly irrelevant plan would've been strategized sitting in a helicopter that can land anywhere unannounced [air regulations not applicable].
Note 3: Our man, Scrawny BigStar, might have never set eyes on a dumbell in his life. However, when thrown into the fighting arena, he can take down 5 WWE wrestlers at one go. He's not called 'Jay' 'Veer' or 'Winner' for nothing! (Hint. Hint.)
Note 4: The hero might be a chauffeur or a vada-pav stall owner, but he (almost always) has the supreme wisdom to outwit the villain who has been planning to release weapons of mass destruction around the world since he was born!
I'm talking about that time frame in Bollywood when actors of today, like Emran Hashmi and Mallika Sherawat, would've been jobless for years! When everything around was symbolically suggestive.
Lip-locking and making-out was inferred when flowers (out of no where) would rub against each other. If flowers were out of stock, they'd replace the frame with oranges falling off the actress' body.
[Disclaimer: The video below is more than suggestive symbolism. Yikesss @ Jeetendra! You just killed 'sweet-limes' for me, forever!]
Flower on flower mean't happy times, but bee on flower mean't rape. Other symbols for 'rape' in that era include over-boiled milk (talk about corny imagery!), a goat staring at a butcher (again in the middle of no where), or an old creaking ceiling fan (erm, I'm still trying to figure that one out!) that continues to whirr till the end of what seems like eternity.
A time when animals seemed to have meatier roles in the film (pun unintended). Movies that brought 'ichaadaari nagins' into our collective consciousness such that you'd anxiously wait for every girl with light eyes to transform into a snake.
In fact snake movies broke lose a new genre of creativity to include plots that were as original as having Aruna Irani breast-feed a snake for reasons so bizarre, I'd rather you go and watch it for yourself!
If that's not all, we have Amitabh Bachchan calling a dolphin his mother; a pet pigeon who helps Anil Kapoor in robbery; and a pomeranian who behaves like the 11th incarnation of lord Krishna by saving Madhuri Dixit from marrying Mohnish Behl in Bollywood's longest marriage movie (Ok, so the last one was in the 1990's but they don't change overnight now, do they?)
With all their antics in place, these bad movies have made their mark in the most unexpected recesses of our minds. While some of us might pretend we hate that stuff, there's no denying how we automatically parrot dialogues and songs from movies long forgotten.
I just hope and pray that this disgusting Jeetendra-Meenakshi song was NOT a part of my earliest childhood memories!
