The avatars of Batman

Time may change me...

Christian Bale reinvented the celluloid version
in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005)

A critical difference between comic book protagonists, especially superheroes, and their counterparts in literature is that the former are practically immortal. The obvious reason for this is that books are seldom serialized, while most comic books are. Therefore, it is understandable for the personalities of comic book heroes to evolve over time, and sometimes end up as the polar opposite of what they started out as. This typically happens in cases where more than one writers contribute to the comic, and more often than not one or more of them start drifting towards mediocrity. The character is then revamped to renew the waning interest of readers and/or add a new dimension to the character's makeup.

Characters like Tintin and Asterix, and their entire supporting cast, were very tightly knit by their creators and retained their essential qualities all through their "careers". Their enduring popularity is largely due to the extremely professional and well-developed "script" of the comics. While Tintin relied on the continuous success of a formula that struck a chord with the readers, Asterix surprised its audience by incorporating sci-fi/fantasy elements into the stories. But none of these witnessed a significant change in the portrayal of the leading protagonists. On the other hand, collaborative efforts such as Archie Comics tend to develop a loose outline of a character, and keep revising and revisiting it as and when the storyline demands. In case of superhero comics, it is relatively easier to add a novel hue to the character's personality. In many cases, it is as simple as adding a new superpower to his repertoire. Other than this, general revamp tactics include new origin stories, new love interests, and in cases as extreme as DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths, new universes.

The curious case of The Bat

Batman, and also his arch-nemesis Joker, are somewhat different in this regard. Batman's origin story has remained almost unchanged throughout his 80-year history. He has no superpowers, no constant love interest (Catwoman is a recurring one, but clearly not in the same vein as Lois Lane to Superman or Mary-Jane Watson to Spiderman). It would appear that his character would be tricky to revamp. Maybe it is too. Nevertheless, Batman has possibly witnessed more character revisions than most other popular superheroes. Superman has always been the big blue boy scout. The fact that he is always meant to do the "right thing" makes his character rather monochromatic. Spiderman has always been a bumbling, troubled and confused crime-fighter. His choice to become a superhero wasn't entirely a conscious one, it resulted from an accident which altered him physiologically. Although he could have chosen not to fight crime, it's hard to conceive that he would've lived a normal life.


As for Batman, one can argue that the murder of his parents was an accident that altered him psychologically, in a way similar to, though not the same as Spiderman. Be that as it may, a psychological change always leaves a lot more wiggle-room for reshaping the character. Spiderman's accident gave him superpowers, Batman's gave him nightmares.

The early era

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. To begin with, Batman was created as a typical private detective of the 1930s, with an intense hatred for criminals. He was born in the era of pulp, and the influence was clearly visible. In many ways, he was quite similar to Sandman (the original pulp detective of the 1940s, not the protagonist of the Neil Gaiman series or the Spiderman villain). He was bitter towards a world that took his parents from him at an early age, and this served to fuel his brooding persona. It is interesting to contrast the seedy surroundings of Gotham in which he operates with the dazzling skyline of Superman's home turf Metropolis.

Batman's first appearance in "Detective Comics"
(May 1939)

However, the problem with a character that reflects an era is that it needs to change when the era changes. And so, in the years following World War II, DC Comics "adopted a postwar editorial direction that increasingly de-emphasized social commentary in favor of lighthearted juvenile fantasy." Once his environment was changed to a more cheerful one, there was no way Batman could continue with his dark and menacing image. Instead, he too became a boy scout but with a costume that now seemed even funnier than Superman's. He got himself a teenage boy as a sidekick, and it just got worse from there on. Interest in the character waned, because the readers already had a superhero who was much better at being a goody-two-shoes. As if this wasn't enough, psychologist Frederic Wertham criticized Batman comics for their supposed homosexual overtones and argued that Batman and Robin were portrayed as lovers. By the latter half of the 1950s, female characters such as Batwoman and Batgirl were also introduced to make the comics more warm and sunny. Batman also became a part of the Justice League of America around this time (1960 to be exact), which further reinstated his image as a "regular" superhero.

The rapidly declining popularity of Batman forced DC to introduce the "New Look" Batman in 1964. The detective-oriented stories returned, and the campy sidekicks were retired or killed off. At this point, one might have thought that Batman was returning closer to his original portrayal as a superhero with dark shades. But Adam West had other ideas. 

The darkly "sunny" times

The Batman television series, which debuted in 1966, is now remembered as the worst thing to ever have happened to the franchise. But it was immensely popular in its time, and this drastically impacted the image of the character in comic books too. Adam West's Batman was an unfit comic vigilante in an embarrassingly tight costume, who slid down a pole a la firemen to reach the Batcave, and the screen flashed "KAPOW" when he punched criminals. 

The stuff of Batman fans' nightmares,
Adam West as Batman in the 1966 TV series

He was a sad sad parody of his dark brooding former self. Robin as his sidekick was even more of a joke, figuratively as well as literally, and most of his sentences started with "Holy" and ended with "Batman". Although initially successful, as most parodies are, the show as well the comics eventually lost its audience. As the comic editor Julius Schwartz himself said, "When the television show was a success, I was asked to be campy, and of course when the show faded, so did the comic books."

By the late 1960s, a conscious effort to distance the character from this comic image had started through the collaboration of writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Neal Adams. Batman once again found himself in grim surroundings, investigating dark, dirty cases, and sick criminal minds. Some of the stories had a gothic feel to them and nearly bordered on horror, as the readers were made to realize once again that the bat costume is not supposed to be funny. However, the popularity of the franchise continued to drop throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, until some lifelong fans and graphic novel veterans decided to do some damage repair.

The resurgence of the anti-hero

Death of the Joker in The Dark Knight Returns (1986)

Frank Miller's 1986 limited series Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, which tells the story of a 50-year-old Batman coming out of retirement in a possible future, reinvigorated the character. DKR, as it is affectionately referred to by fans, was not only critically acclaimed, but was a major financial success too. Although the importance of this may be downplayed by "true" fans, it is noteworthy that the Batman of the 70s was critically acclaimed too, but was still on the verge of being cancelled due to lack of popularity. Miller pretty much laid, or maybe re-laid, the ground for Batman and everything related to him as we see it today. The scary Joker, the hopelessly corrupt Gotham city police force, Bruce Wayne's recurring nightmares about his parents' murder, and of course, to top it all he added a dash of Batman vs. Superman to the mix. The artwork was also markedly different, bordering on avant-garde, and in a macabre way. Miller's Batman was morally ambiguous, in the sense that although he had very high moral standards which he chose to impose on the society that just refused to get in order, neither his opinions nor his methods always fell within the moral bounds prescribed by society. He was, in many ways, an anti-hero, who despised the fact that Superman had "sold out" to the government and derided his righteous attitude as boy scout-like. The concept of Batman and Joker being each other's raison d'etre also gained mainstream popularity following this series. Readers lapped it up.

The epic face-off that was
the highlight of The Dark Knight Falls

During the same period, DC was in the process of rebooting the histories of its major characters through the Crisis on Infinite Earths series. Batman's origins were re-written by Frank Miller in the Year One storyline, which also attempted to beef up the character of Jim Gordon.

Alan Moore continued this dark trend with 1988's 48-page one-shot Batman: The Killing Joke, in which the Joker, attempting to drive Commissioner Gordon insane, cripples Gordon's daughter Barbara (Batgirl), and then kidnaps and tortures the commissioner, physically and psychologically. Moore continued the theme of Batman being the reason for Joker's existence and vice-versa. In fact, the last few panels, with the two arch enemies laughing like madmen over a silly joke (the Killing Joke) exemplifies just how beautifully twisted this superhero really is.


Following this, the character has essentially stuck to its image, despite minor variations. The 1988 release A Death in the Family and 1993's Knightfall are good examples. Although the artwork was not as unconventional as DKR, the themes remained morbid. After sustained popularity throughout the 1990s, Jeph Loeb's 2003 Batman: Hush series marked the return of Batman at the top.

Movies

Jack Nicholson (Batman, 1989) and
Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight, 2008) as
Joker, the iconic Batman villain

The portrayal of Batman and other related characters in other media has followed more or less the same pattern as in the comics, but over a much shorter period of time. Tim Burton's two Batman movies were dark and violent in a depressing way, much like the early Batman comics as well as DKR and The Killing Joke, which served as his primary inspirations. Michael Keaton made a sufficiently dark Batman, while Jack Nicholson was undoubtedly the best Joker until Heath Ledger came along. However, Batman Returns, the second movie in the series, turned out to be too morbid for the mainstream audience, and the baton passed on to Joel Schumacher to revive popular interest. His portrayal of the franchise took it back to its 60s campy feel, but with bigger budgets and elaborate special effects. While Batman Forever (1995) was a huge commercial success, and Val Kilmer was not too much of a compromise as Batman, try pitting Tommy Lee Jones' part comic act as Harvey Dent/Two-Face against the character as depicted in DKR or the recent version portrayed by Aaron Eckhart in The Dark Knight (2008). In both the latter cases, the character of Harvey Dent is seriously scarred, not only physically, but emotionally as well, and Miller makes it clear that even if his face is fixed, the emotional scars can't be remedied by plastic surgery. Schumacher's next offering Batman & Robin (1997) was not just a bad Batman movie, but a really bad movie from every aspect. George Clooney, in his nippled costume, was a pathetic caricature of the dark knight, and the others are not even worth mention.


Then, following a 8-year hiatus, Christopher Nolan re-launched the character the way it was meant to be.

The rest, as they don't say, is the present.

Images: Photo Bucket, Studio Daily,Wikipedia, DC Wikia

Us and Them

(That this post has been published on the anniversary of 9/11 doesn't really have anything to do with anything)

"Take all your overgrown infants away somewhere,
and build them a home
a little place of their own
The Fletcher Memorial Home for incurable tyrants and kings"
- The Fletcher Memorial Home by Pink Floyd (don't say "not again!" yet, the post is not about them, or the interpretation of their song lyrics)


The overgrown infants referred so affectionately to by Roger Waters in this lesser known song from one of the band's least known albums, are of course Messrs. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Brezhnev, Khrushchev, Nixon, Reagan, Thatcher, and their ilk. I really like the incurable tyrants expression, which I believe fits the bill quite perfectly for someone like Stalin, who milked the seemingly idealistic theory of communism in the worst way imaginable. Nixon, despite his staunch anti-communist views couldn't prevent himself from being cast in the same mould as his arch-enemies. Unlike Stalin, he didn't slaughter his opponents for the sake of one-upmanship. He chose to do it in his own unromantic and weasly way - by planting bugs in their workplace. If an attempt is made to imagine a common forum where all the legendary figures mentioned above can exchange high-fives (or maybe throw sheep at each other), it'd have to be a community with a cool title like "Lust for power" or "My chair and why I can't live without it".

The song was written during the early 80s, at the time Maggie decided that the choice between avoiding a costly, needless war and retaining power ain't no choice at all. Even though hippie counter-culture had died out long ago, the musicians of yore were not able to let go of their protesting ways. To their credit, the politicians never stopped giving them reasons. Cut to the early 21st century, and to pseudo-hippies sitting around in Indian engineering colleges. Add a little 9/11-and-its-aftermath theme to the mix, and you have on your hands a spicy discussion between sworn capitalism fans and even more sworn idealists-who-don't-know-yet-that-they-are-actually-talking-like-communists. Needless to say, the geopolitical frenzy of profit-driven wars hasn't changed the least bit with the inevitable dissolution of the Soviet Union. The US doesn't have anybody left to fight with, so they're just doing it alone in exotic middle-eastern locations. That these locations happen to have huge deposits of some hydrocarbons that fuel every non-living thing that moves, is probably just Jo-incidence with a C. Protests are no longer cool like the good old days, when agitation was symbolized by Mary Jane and an enduring image of Bob Marley. But hey, people are still pissed off at the overgrown infant-like ways of Bush, Cheney, Medvedev & Co.

It is also very interesting (for me, at least) that a large number of authoritarian rulers have communist inclinations. This is because I believe that communism at its heart is a philosophy inspired by the most idealistic notions of an equal and just world. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" appears a very noble concept, at least prima facie. However, I guess what I've learned is that the world was never supposed to be an ideal place, and it can't be forced to be that way. Which is why communism doesn't work in practice, and precisely why religion does. It is impossible to make humans work against their will, unless you scare them with the power of an unknown all-powerful force. Communism discounts God, and hence appears more cruel when implemented. Because cruelty is only permissible in the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost.

My tone may have revealed my inclinations. Yes, I have invariably been on the communist-leaning side of the debate. Probably it's because of my obsession with classic rock, or maybe it's the other way round. Whatever, I used to be throughly sold out to the belief that people like Dubya need to like 'grow up dude' and stop 'fucking everybody's shit up'! Shrewd and cunning were words I never used without negative connotations. Politics as a motive in itself was something I never understood. Then, on the insistence of the biggest proponent of capitalism I've ever come across in real life, aka dassa, I watched the documentary Commanding Heights - aka "A shameless ode to Capitalism", aka "Capitalism ka munh mein kyun nahi le lete ho?"

The self-proclaimed "unbiased" look at the trends in world markets during the 20th century is actually quite intriguing, despite its obvious bias. It starts off pretending to be an innocent story of the transition of world markets from the free trading phase to Keynesian regulated economies following WWII, and back to free markets sometime during the early 80s. It ends up a we-told-you-we-were-right kind of chest-thumping proclamation by the capitalists. My own reaction to the movie has been kind of like the world markets. At first, I was impressed immensely, thanks in no small part to the sheer art of movie-making. It is extremely well-paced for a documentary, does not support any single viewpoint in any overt way, and is peppered with sufficient masala for an economics illiterate and political imbecile like me to not be completely lost. Then, after a whole lot of wiki-ing and googling, I became thoroughly convinced that it's a desperate capitalist ploy, presumably to support US's aggressive expansionist behavior. Now that I think about it, my view is more or less ambivalent. Have I grown up?

It was this question that actually drove me to write this post. Who exactly is a grown up? What does it mean to grow up? One particuarly interesting portion of Commanding Heights is the UK episode. In the early 80s, Thatcher was apparently trying her best to break the shackles and free the UK economy from unnecessary regulatory burdens and government control. However, the short-term effect of any such action is a state of chaos, speaking very broadly. In very simple terms, when price control is lifted, the immediate impact will be a rise in prices, sometimes a drastic one. However, the free market theory, propounded by Von-Hayek, argues that free markets tend to be the most stable in the long term. The bottom line is that Thatcher was nearing the end of her term at the time she proposed economic reforms, and would not have been in power to see those through. She needed to retain power to implement her policies successfully. The Falklands War gave her a chance to do that. Inasmuch as can be determined with absolute certainty, the war was not about the British economy in any real way. However, the improbable win brought with it a euphoria drenched in nationalism and gave Thatcher the much-needed breathing space, and allowed her to usher in globalization and a free economy.

Now, Mr. Waters wrote an entire album devoted to the Falklands War, the first track of which begins with the heart-rending plea
"Should we shout? Should we scream?
What happened to the post-war dream?
Oh Maggie, Maggie what have we done?"

Of course, this wasn't the first time Waters had been disgusted by a needless war, nor was it the last. The point here is, the accusation of immaturity that each group directs towards the other.
I really, really like the lyrics of A Fletcher Memorial Home. Dictators , autocrats, and in general rulers with an iron fist are very difficult people to understand. While some like Hitler and Stalin generate almost unanimous hatred for their murderous ways, others like Thatcher have a much more divided opinion about them. Almost invariably, they say that they are driven by some alleged greater good whch requires a few sacrifices - "the whole you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs" routine. The idealists find this particular political philosophy unimaginably inhuman. I can say because I used to be one. My feeling was that it is not okay for even one person to suffer needlessly for any purported greater good that may well be a political tactic designed to satisfy one person's lust for power. I was all

"Us and them, and after all we're only ordianry men.
Me and you, God only knows it's not what we would choose to do."

The rebuke I often was at the receiving end of went something like this.

"It's not an ideal world."
"What you're saying seems right in theory, but it's impossible to implement in practice."
"This is your inexperience talking. You haven't seen the real world."
"You're just a starry-eyed 20-something with romantic ideas of an ideal world. Get real."
"Grow up!"

It used to bug me no end. Even now, I am fairly certain that no matter what greater interest lies at their hearts, iron-fisted rulers are a selfish breed. There's a childishness about their way of not wanting to let go of their power - the fairly simplistic analogy of a child not wanting to give up his/her toy is pretty apparent here. Their obsession is disturbingly amusing to me, and I'm pretty convinced that if this obsession is in fact real, then it is a sign of genuine mental illness - hence back to the overgrown infant theme.They are incapable of growing up!

On the other hand, let's take a look at Roger Waters himself. His father died in action during the WWII. Following this, every incident in his life became an instrument of trauma, including his mother, his teachers, his wife (All this is conjecture by the way. Very, very likely, but not necessarily true). After he took over the band, he wrote numerous songs about war, and the one major war Britain fought during his lifetime (the Falklands War) troubled him enough to write an entire album. In a way, he was never able to rid himself of his childhood demons, and got angry or scared whenever those were woken up in much the same way as an overgrown infant would.
Ironically, his continuous whining against the childish behaviour of politicians itself seemed to gather a childish hue as time passed.

But overall, my stance now is of a passive observer. There are very few things that truly appall me now. Whether it be a needless war or an needless agitation, there is a sense of wonder in my reaction as I try to figure out the motivation of the people driving those. Politics as an art is something that I still don't approve of, but I'm most definitely intrigued by it. Conspiracy theorists and activists have started to appear as self-obsessed as the people they're up in arms against. I watch the machinations of politics and protests with equal abandon. Well, maybe not really equal. I still do have idealistic traits - which leads me to wonder who really is grown up? Us or them?

'69

There was a time-bending game that once played me
And I learned that amusement ain't the same as ecstasy
When I think about it now, I can barely define
The fundamentals of '69

There's a thin,white veil that protects my being
A whiff of joy is a wonderful thing
I could captivate every moment in time
Riding on the waves of '69

When you can see your head brought in upon a platter
You're not a prophet, though it may seem like a great matter
A drag in time makes you want another nine
When you get the taste of '69

Little Boy Blue

Little boy blue, up above so high
Wake up the shepherd, the time is nigh
Check up on life, make us some bread
Lose yourself, get rid of the thread

Where is the cuckoo around your wrist?
"What good is that thing in the mist?
I traverse spacetime slice by slice,
God may not, but I do play dice,

I am what I see on the way
Just wish I could get through this day.
I can't be, I wish they were not,
unhealthy happiness besought."

Little boy blue, you are no fun
"Well, happiness is just a bad pun."

Life

Needless small talk be damned!

लायी हयात आए क़ज़ा ले चली चले

ना अपनी खुशी आए ना अपनी खुशी चले



बेहतर तो है यही कि ना दुनिया से दिल लगे

पर क्या करें जो काम ना बे-दिल्लगी चले



हो उम्र-ए-खिज्र भी तो कहेंगे बा-वक़्त-ए-मर्ग

हम क्या रहे यहाँ अभी आए अभी चले



दुनिया ने किसका राह-ए-फ़ना में दिया है साथ

तुम भी चले चलो यूंही जब तक चली चले



नाज़ान ना हो खिरद पे जो होना है वो ही हो

दानिश तेरी ना कुछ मेरी दानिशवरी चले



कम होंगे इस बिसात पे हम जैसे बद-किमार

जो चाल हम चले वो निहायत बुरी चले



जाते हवा-ऐ-शौक़ में हैं इस चमन से 'ज़ौक'

अपनी बला से बाद-ए-सबा अब कहीं चले



Meaning:

Life brought me so I arrived, and I will go when death takes me
Neither my arrival nor my departure was of my own will

It's better to not get charmed by the world
But what can be done if there's no other way

Even if I get an eternal life,
on my deathbed I will rue the fact that I didn't get enough time to live

The world accompanies none on the path to destruction
You too keep moving till life goes on

Be not proud of your intellect, whatever has to happen will happen
Neither your nor my intelligence will work

There'd be few gamblers as bad as me in this game
Each and every move of mine was extremely imprudent

I leave this garden with a pining for a whiff of fresh air
The zephyr that may flow hereafter be damned

For madmen only

"...Taken all in all, it had not been exactly a day of rapture. No, it had not even been a day brightened by happiness and joy. Rather, it had been just one of those days which for a long while now had fallen to my lot; the moderately pleasant, the wholly bearable and tolerable, lukewarm days of a discontented middle-aged man; days without special pains, without special cares, without particular worry, without despair; days on which the question whether the time has not come to follow the example of Adalbert Stifter and have a fatal accident while shaving should not be considered without agitation or anxiety, quietly and matter-of-factly."
- Harry Haller in Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse

"It seems to me that of all my books, Steppenwolf is the one that was more often and more violently misunderstood than any other, and frequently it is actually the affirmative and enthusiastic readers, rather than those who rejected the book, who have reacted to it oddly. Partly, but only partly, this may occur so frequently by reason of the fact that this book, written when I was fifty years old and dealing, as it does, with the problems of that age, often fell into the hands of very young readers."
- Author's note to the paperback edition of Steppenwolf

"What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though."
- Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

"7 am on a Tuesday, in August ...
Next week I'll turn 28...I'm still young, it'll be me...
Off the wall I scrape... you...I gotta wait...
Show me Your Irate
To cause this wake, Its my fate.
They.....They...Never going to fuck
with me again... My own clean slate...
Don't fuck with me again...I just want to go straight
through you....
Irate"
- Frogs by Alice in Chains

Value-add (on-demand)

An advertisement I heard today on the radio went something like this:
"Wanna drop witty one-liners and become the life of a party? Subscribe to Vodafone Tashan Pack...." (followed by some specific service details that I don't remember particularly well because at this point my brain cells were about to perform their "goodbye cruel world" routine, lemming-style! Obviously I had to concentrate on pacifiying them. It was a very intimate moment, and I had to summon all my charm to convince them that I still loved them and that everything would be okay. I'm surely going to hell for duping my own brain cells.)

Anyway, so I guess the you-can-buy-happiness brand of consumerism, better understood (by pop-culture nutcases like me) as the 'IKEA nesting instinct', is scaling new heights - actually entering altogether new dimensions - even as I type. The phenomenon is beginning to transcend the boundary between objective and subjective effortlessly, although I'm not sure I want to be around to see the results. You can simply buy being funny now. I'll emphasize that again in all caps just to drive home what is to me a very weird transition, even by the standards of kaliyug!

WIT IS ON SALE NOW!
Jerry Seinfield and Chandler Bing can go to hell.
(A side thought: This completely convinces me that there really is no afterlife, because if there was, the ghosts of Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, P.G. Wodehouse, Groucho Marx, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, Ambrose Bierce, Douglas Adams, et al would have haunted the shit out of the Vodafone guys!)

So apparently, humour is not the bitch of those elitist fuckers anymore who think they're oh-so-ingenious. It's just another on-demand value-add to your personality.

Go to sleep, dear Cerebrum. All's well with the world.

In the rain

Do you think I’m not,
What I once used to be?
Can you sing me a song
And alleviate me?

Or maybe, buy me a shell that is thicker than this

Bid me goodbye and I’ll go amiss

Can’t stand to wait for the finish

I’ll do fine sitting in the rain

Can you give me a hand

With all this burden of lies?

Can you pass me the wand

That has me hypnotized?

I will run through the sky, like a tickled up bee

Is that a stupid analogy?

Can't remember last time I felt funny

Since you've been missing in the rain

Are you reasonably hurt?
Or should I try even more?
Try to see through the dirt
There's a castle of yore

We can build back this way, we can make it alright
You'll build the bridge, I can be dynamite
All this trouble to kill the boredom inside
It's easier sipping up the pain

Pigs on the Wing - Pink Floyd (both parts)

Easy now

The divine sigh

Chafing the skin

Exposing every sin

Didn’t mean to get so high

No choices anymore

No time for you or time for me

No pain, no joy, no epiphany

No hinges on this door

A different plane

Lines converge and lives diverge

Now cremate this final urge

Not easy being insane

This languid ride

Uneasy truths, unnerving stakes

Pummeled pride, broken brakes

Perched lonely on a tide

Dissolving light

Expanded eyes, dilated dreams

Loosely held by opening seams

Liberated, but not quite

Disjointed faith

Uncomfortable paragons

Immoral kings and shoestring pawns

Can't use much but wraith

That's not what I meant at all, that's not it at all!

New Blog

You & I, we've been through this

It’s the way of this world, my friend
Making sense of what’s absurd
On a scale of one to ten
Life is just a four-letter word

You can try to give me reasons
But in the end it’s all a joke
There’s no such thing as a free lunch
Although all you eat is smoke

Yesterday when it was raining
The water came up to your eyes
And sanity is an insane thing
Truth is lie in a disguise

And I’m standing in the river
My cold feet shrunk beneath my soul
I’ve got nothing left to give her
This is where I lose control

Frogs - Alice in Chains

Shitty video, but the song is beyond awesome!

What does friend mean to you?
A word so wrongfully abused
Are you like me, confused
All included but you
Alone...

The sounds of silence often soothe
Shapes and colors shift with mood
Pupils widen and change their hue
Rapid brown avoid clear blue

Why's it have to be this way
Be this way

Flowers watched through wide brown eyes bloom
A child sings an unclaimed tune
Innocence spins cold cocoon
Grow to see the pain too soon

Why's it have to be this way
Be this way

"7 am on a Tuesday, in August ...
Next week I'll turn 28...
I'm still young, it'll be me...
Off the wall I scrape... you...
I gotta wait... Show me Your Irate
To cause this wake, Its my fate.
They.....They...Never going to fuck
with me again... My own clean slate... Don't fuck with me again...
I just want to go straight
through you....
Irate

Brother - Alice in Chains

Here comes the ghost again

As far as he could remember, the ghosts had been around. There were three of them. One of them was always with him and looked just like him; the second was that of a monkey which perpetually clung on to his back. He could never actually see it but it kept reminding him of its presence through irritating noises and occasional scratches. The third showed no signs of its presence at all. The only way he knew about the third ghost was through the conversation between the first two. It was painfully elusive, yet the other two talked of it with reverence. Sometimes he thinks there was just one ghost, and his mental condition had tweaked his perception to impart it some sort of ghost-splitting quality which manifested three different forms of the same ghost. That theory would impart the elusive quality to all the ghosts, and nothing would remain with him, so he tried not to think that way.
Sometimes he wondered about the ghost that he was most familiar with. He realized that it had superhuman qualities when he tried to get rid of it but couldn’t. It kept running along with him and simultaneously staring him in the face even as he kept running past it. Although it was the one he knew the best, but he still didn’t really comprehend its nature, because it hardly existed at all. Its nature kept changing continuously. The fingernails of the two other ghosts kept tearing holes into his skin from both ends, and that’s when he realized that he didn’t know anything about any of them after all. This epiphany corroborated the one ghost theory in a way, although it was not meant to.
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
The ghosts had a messenger that ran very fast. He once tried running with the messenger. When he got reasonably close, the ghost by his side slowed down and fell behind him for the first time. The ghost is hard to comprehend because it’s not tangible, yet it is the only certainty, the only ultimate truth, if there ever was one.
The messenger was even more baffling in its behavior. It had the totally bizarre power of altering his perception. When he finally got close enough and almost caught up with the messenger, the three ghosts started to look more and more like one. The rules of the kingdom clearly stated that overtaking the messenger was not allowed under normal circumstances. But he wanted to find out what existed beyond the borders of this kingdom, and he could only do that by crossing the border before the messenger did. The plan was to cross the border disguised as the messenger in order to get past the guardians of the adjoining kingdom.
But there are two paths you can go by, and in the long run
There’s still time to change the road you’re on
He had heard about a cave between the mountains that formed the border between the two kingdoms. People had told him that it was very narrow and the messenger couldn’t pass through it. It was just big enough for a small child like him to pass through. Nobody on this side of the border has actually seen the cave, although some intrepid explorers who had ventured into the adjoining kingdom claimed to have found the cave’s entrance on the other side. It was hard to verify their claims, because the border is only selectively permeable, and the other kingdom denies entrance to skeptics. It’s easy to dismiss that which we haven’t seen as second cousin to Harvey the rabbit, but then can’t we say the same thing about the ghosts? Well of course we can, that is why they’re called ghosts anyway.
Epilogue
I guess the story of humanity is just a never-ending search for the cave – an endeavor to overtake the messenger and unite the ghosts.
The future of the past is eating away the past of the future.
The ghost of time present and the ghost of time future are both children of the ghost of time past. The roles may change depending on perception though.

Divine comedy

"Um, Death!"
"Yea?"
"Urgent call for you, man just got shot."
"Dude, I had just settled in the tub! The bubbles had only begun to hit the right spots, if you know what I mean."
"First of all, that wasn't very subtle. Everybody knew what you meant. Second of all, dude I'm the frikkin Alpha-Omega shit! I know what everybody means all the time, and I know a fuckload of other stuff too."
"All right all right your cockiness, what's the assignment?"
"Check it out for yourself."

(Cut to the hospital scene)

"Man I can't believe she shot me! Who would've fuckin thought that?"
"Dude you're dying and you still can't stop making references to Reservoir Dogs! Cut it out man!"
"Sorry dude, but it's just that my life was brilliant, my love was pure. I saw an angel..."
"Shut up, just shut up okay! And James Blunt?? Is that sissy the best you could think of on your death bed?"
"I'm dying okay, I can finally admit I really like that sissy. I also like Backstreet Boys, N'Sync, 911, 98 Degrees, Code Red, and all other hunky boy bands from the 90s."
"Whoa! Dude, you're lucky you're dying, otherwise we would've mocked you to death anyway."
"I know."
"Man you're such a loser!"
"Hey, I'm in pain!"
"Alright Edward Norton, just take it easy."
"You're the only one who understands me."
"I know, and boy am I sorry about that! Anyway, your girl is here, I'll leave you two alone for a while."
(Friend leaves)
"Hi baby"
"Hey Leslie"
"The doctor said..."
"I know, I'm sorry but this is it."
"This can't be happening. God can't be so cruel."
"Well, apparently he can. Anyway, there's something I needed to tell you"
"What is it?"
"Well, I never really loved you Leslie"
"What?"
"Yea, I don't even know what that word means. You were just hot and randy, and so...."
"I can't believe this Tom! Why would you tell me this in your dying moments?"
"Umm..I thought I should confess my sins on my deathbed. It was always about the sex Leslie."
(girl breaks down into a horrible cacophonous wail)

(Cut to heaven)
"Wow!"
"I know, that's really clever of him to insult her on his deathbed. There's nothing much she can do about it. He's dying anyway."
"Hey, know what'd be fun?"
"No dude, I'm Death, I only know what'd be tragic or gross or gory or.."
"Yea yea I get the drift. Anyway, what if we let this guy live?"
"What? How? He's been shot in the gut four times! Who would believe that?"
"Dude they believe the Rambo movies!"
"Good point. So what if we let him live?"
"Don't you see man? His friends are gonna disown him, his girl is gonna dump him, he's gonna wish for death but he ain't gonna get it. Oooh I feel so deliciously malevolent!"
"Dude you're pure evil! And to think the humans fear your poor helpless pet dog Satan!"
"I told you they'd believe anything. Anyway, you go back to your bubble bath. I'll stay and see how this plays out."
"Righty-O"

(Hospital)
"Mr. Tucker"
"Yes doctor?"
"Good news, you're gonna make it"
"What the fuck?"

(Song playing on radio stations all over the world)
"O mommy, o daddy, I am a big ol' baddy!"

There is hope aka Aila ek aur poem!

Into the depths of briny deeps
Into the blue cap overhead
A gentle whisper softly seeps
Shaking the souls of the undead

And no one speaks to break the lull
The half-burnt whisper turns to ash
And buried in the cold rubble
It marks the embers with a rash

In echoes of a distant time
Is veiled the final semblance
It rises from the past sublime
To clear the smoke of indifference

And tiny hope does lay afloat

Ca Ira, the heavens resound
We hide inside the snowy coat
Upon a cloud of eiderdown

Honey - and the meaning of life

She was just a maid. He had big beautiful eyes. She had seen him grow up into a handsome young prince. The queen couldn’t care less about her children. When he was a child, she used to feed him, bathe him, everything. He didn’t really know his mother. She was all he cared about.

Honey. She called him Honey.

Although she was considerably older, this feeling was as alien to her as it was to him. Love? She couldn’t be sure. What did she know about love? She was not meant to. He would someday be married off to a princess of some other state, someone of equal stature. She could never have him. But it was okay, she never had a choice. She was used to reconciling herself to her mundane life.

He thought he had gone crazy. To fall in love with a maid is the kind of thing for which the word ‘preposterous’ was invented. He never thought this would happen to him, but it did. He was the prince, the heir apparent, the cynosure of all eyes and all that jazz. Eyes. She had beautiful tiny eyes. He could marry any princess of any state across the country. Then why did he have to fall in love with such a lowly, insignificant life form? That’s what his mother told him about their ‘kind’. Oh Lord, thine ways are mysterious, and also bloody sick.

She was there when the dacoits attacked. She died defending him.
He was married to the princess of the neighboring state. She poisoned him on his wedding night and became the queen.

Epilogue

It all started with a desperate attempt at profundity on my part when I fired a simple query at the Madhabhushi (it doesn’t sound too good this way. Also, it’s a terrible comeback, I agree). What exactly is the motivation of worker bees? It may be noted that I had watched (re-watched, actually) Fight Club the previous day and the whole we are the middle children of history commentary had yet again managed to rattle the beehive in my head. Also, there’s a haiku in the movie that goes

Worker bees can leave
Even drones fly away
The queen is their slave

I spent the entire next day reading up on honeybees. Worker bees fascinated me the most. Their lives are kind of a throwback to the Sisyphus theme of doing meaningless tasks without any apparent motivation. And then I looked around me, at all the worker bees sitting in their tiny cells, working hard at nothing of any particular significance to anyone. As Chandler Bing puts it,

“If I don’t input those numbers….nothing much would happen.”

It’s an old analogy. We’re all worker bees, working without any sense of purpose is what we’re meant to do. Of course, actual worker bees accomplish a much more critical task than most of us – that of sustaining the hive. Sure, queen bee lays the eggs, and is critical for the survival of the species in a much more real sense. But worker bees do everything else. But then again, motivation is not so much about the meaningfulness of their tasks as that of their lives as a whole. Or maybe there really is no difference. Queens will lay eggs, drones will fuck around (literally), and worker bees will do everything else, including feeding the larvae, cleaning and guarding the beehive, collecting nectar, optimizing the hive temperature, attending to the queen et al. At first glance, workers may come across as the most important class among honeybees. The reason I thought of the worker bees in particular was that they don’t do the one thing that seems to be the only true purpose of the lives of most, if not all living beings – reproduction. Well, at least not normally. What probably helps their case is that they’re not genetically engineered to think about the meaningfulness of their tasks, or the lack of it. I don’t think the bees need to dwell on the question of hope or denial dude. That’s obviously a very specie-ist remark, and should the bees gain perspective – or maybe voting privileges – in the near future, I may be forced to withdraw it. Unfortunately, humans already have those things, and hence their case is more complex. So as much as Camus insists that we must imagine Sisyphus happy, it’s not as simple as that. It’s probably the best to not ever let the question enter your mind, but once it has, how do you get rid of it? Skepticism is not a choice, it is an affliction. You can go on pretending that you believe in everything.
But in the end, you can only pretend. (aila poem!)

I personally believe that you can only hope for something better if you keep convincing yourself that the current situation sucks. And I’m pretty damn good that way. I tend to run away from perfect scenarios so that I can at least look forward to those. If there’s no reason to be depressed, life just seems to stand still. I guess I’m actually an optimist after all, albeit in a very sick, twisted way.

Anyway, for those you who know me, this is all old hat, and I’m as bored of myself as you are.

Mayank Mandava Ullu ka Pattha

Disclaimer: Pardon the outrage. I really wanted the title to be subtler, sarcastic, clever and all. Something like “To Mandu, with Love”, despite overflowing with gay undercurrents, first came to mind. Then there were “Surely you’re joking, Mr. Mandava” and “In the name of The Mandu”. But I felt that the intensity of a title like “In-Yo-Fuckin-Face” and the seething umbrage oozing from every pore of something like “Eat This, Bitch!”, was what I needed to convey my feelings accurately enough. Hence this.

Now the issue. No, actually let me start with this.

Humse mat puchho kaise mandir toota sapno ka
Gairon ki baat nahi hai, ye kissa hai apno ka
Koi dushman thes lagaye to meet jiya bharmaye
Manmeet jo ghaav lagaye, usse kaun mitaaye?

And now the issue. As is his wont, He who has emerged from the All-American Beaver recently made another of his sweeping generalizations.

“Dude all Hindi song lyrics suck! There have been no good abstract lyrics in any Hindi song ever!”

Note the careful use of words like ‘all’ and ‘ever’. Also, note that He of the American Beaver has heard fewer Hindi songs than the number of times he has reinstalled Linux. Fuck the resolution to never use clichés! I can’t restrain myself from saying this: Surely you’re joking Mr. Mandava. Also, are you fucking insane?

The argument, I guess, is essentially that there are no Hindi songs that can be interpreted in multiple ways – y’know, that thing about rock lyrics. Abstract is obviously a much overused term that can be used to justify the inanity of stuff like

This machine will, will not communicate these thoughts
And the strain I am under
Be a world child form a circle before we all go under
And fade out again, and fade out again

Of course, it helps if the songwriter can spew horseshit at will.
Pioneered by The Beatles and immortalized by bands like The Doors, Nirvana, Radiohead and to a lesser extent, Led Zeppelin, the USP of abstract lyrics seems to be that exclamation from some retarded fans, “So that’s what the song is about! Du-hu-ude! That’s like totally the bee’s knees!”

Not that I don’t love these bands. Far from that, mate! I am the Walrus, Street Spirit (Fade out), Rape Me, The End, Stairway to Heaven – all of these are absolutely goosebumpy stuff to me. But then again not because I get the lyrics, or that I believe that only if you get the lyrics can you truly appreciate the song. The thing is, with the probable exception of Radiohead and the ‘poet’ Jim Morrison, none of these guys took their own lyrics seriously when they wrote meaningless stuff. Definitely not John Lennon, who wrote I am the Walrus to defy interpretation – he learnt that some high school teacher was analyzing The Beatles lyrics in English class, and he wanted to throw the teacher off course with elementary penguins, crabalocker fishwives and pornographic priestesses. Not Kurt Cobain either – there is no way you can get the true meaning of a mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido. But that’s okay; the guy who wrote it didn’t know what it was about anyway.

"Teen Spirit" is widely interpreted to be a teen revolution anthem, an interpretation reinforced by the song's music video. When discussing the song in Michael Azerrad's biography Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana, Cobain revealed that he felt a duty "to describe what I felt about my surroundings and my generation and people my age." The book Teen Spirit: The Stories Behind Every Nirvana Song describes "Teen Spirit" as "a typically murky Cobain exploration of meaning and meaninglessness." Azerrad plays upon the juxtaposition of Cobain's contradictory lyrics (such as "It's fun to lose and to pretend") and states "the point that emerges isn't just the conflict of two opposing ideas, but the confusion and anger that the conflict produces in the narrator—he's angry that he's confused." Azerrad's conclusion is that the song is "alternately a sarcastic reaction to the idea of actually having a revolution, yet it also embraces the idea."
Cobain has said, "The entire song is made up of contradictory ideas [. . .] It's just making fun of the thought of having a revolution. But it's a nice thought." Drummer Dave Grohl has stated he does not believe the song has any message, and said, "Just seeing Kurt write the lyrics to a song five minutes before he first sings them, you just kind of find it a little bit hard to believe that the song has a lot to say about something. You need syllables to fill up this space or you need something that rhymes."

There’s nothing hallowed about the meaning of the stuff. It’s nonsense, and thoroughly enjoyable nonsense at that, but you don’t actually like the lyrics. You like the fact that you don’t need to like the lyrics.
My favorite rock artists lyrics wise? Oh well…Of course, Floyd and The Who can be occasionally dismissed as being too direct, not subtle enough and stuff. Which is why Dylan is the ultimate poet – all along the watchtower and beyond.

Anyway, what we’re talking about is good Hindi lyrics – even better if they’re abstract too. Hmm…let me start off with one of my absolute favorites.

Saahilo pe behne wale kabhi suna to hoga kahin,
Kaagazon ki kashtiyon ka kahin kinara hota nahi
O majhi re, majhi re
Koi sahara majhdaare mein mile to, apna sahara hai

The meaning is not in-your-face obvious, but you can sense there is a meaning. Very subtle, but definitely there.

Oh, another one just came to mind, albeit a lot more direct than the last one.

Kori chunariya aatma mori, mail hai mayajaal
Wo duniya mere babul ka ghar, ye duniya sasuraal
Haan jaake babul se najrein milaun kaise
Ghar jaun kaise
Laaga chunari mein daag chhupaun kaise

Gulzar is probably the king of truly abstract stuff – the Real Thing.

Dhundha karenge tumhe saahilo pe hum
Ret pe ye pairon ke mohre na chhodna
Saara din lete lete sochega samundar
Aate jaate logo se puchhega samundar
Sahib rukiye zara
Arre dekhi kisi ne aati hui lehron pe jaati hui ladki?

Oh and just in case one is thinking of committing suicide, allow me to recommend a little piece of advice from Kaifi Azmi,

ud ja ud ja pyaase bhanvare, ras na milega kaaron mein
kaagaz ke phul jahaan khilte hain, baith na un gulzaaron mein
naadan tamanna reti men, ummeed ki kashti kheti hai
ik haath se deti hai duniyaa, sau haathon se leti hai
ye khel hai kab se jaari
bichhade sabhee, bichhade sabhi baari baari

Of course, one may be instantly cheered out of one’s depression when one hears the line ek haath se deti hai duniya, sau haathon se leti hai. But then that is one’s own prerogative, isn’t it?
As for innuendo-laden desi counterparts to The Lemon Song, well, isn’t that what all of Mithun Da’s songs are about. But there’s some classy stuff too.

Ang ang mein jalti hain dard ki chingariyan
Masle phoolon ki mehek mein titliyon ki kyaariyan
Raat bhar bechari mehndi pisti hai pairon tale
Kya karun, kaise kahun, raat kab kaise dhale

More Gulzar

Aye Udi Udi Udi
Aye Khwaaboon Ki Pudi
Aye Ang Rang Khili
Aye Saari Raat Jagi
Halki Aye Halki Kal Raat Jo Shabnam Giri
Arre Akhiyaan Vakhiyaan Bhar Gayi Kal To Haath Par Dab Dab Giri

And of course, the truly immortal

Naa to chakkua ki dhaar, na daraanti na kataar
Aisa kaate ki daant ka nisaan chhod de
Ye katai to koi bhi kisaan chhod de
Ho billo, jaalim ja jod de makaan jod de

I could go on forever. But I guess this suffices for now. I had to do this because TV chided me with a mild “Behen ke lund tumne uss behen ke lund ko kuchh jawab diya ki nahi?”

Signing off with another personal favorite.

In bhool bhulaiya galiyon mein apna bhi koi ghar hoga,
Ambar pe khulegi khidki ya khidki pe khula ambar hoga
Asmaani rang ki aankho mein basne ka bahana dhundte hain dhundte hain
Aab-o-daana dhundte hain ek aashiyana dhundte hain

Jab tare zameen par chalte hain, aakaash zameen ho jata hai
Uss raat nahi phir ghar jata wo chaand yahin so jata hai
Pal bhar ke liye in aankhon mein hum ek zamana dhundte hain, dhundte hain
Aab-o-daana dhundte hain ek aashiyana dhundte hain

Flying Trapeze OR Iambic Pentameter

I like the way you swing
It makes me sweat
I’m cold and hot and I
Can’t breathe alright

The rope it breaks you fall
Into the net
You crash and break your head
I lose my sight