The Perfect Crime.

Step 1.

Motive.

It doesn’t matter if you are stealing or saving the world; the more you want it, the easier it gets.

My kitchen window, like most kitchen windows in my part of the world, opens up to honking cars,dense smoke and concrete.But come late summer if the attention of your wandering eyes is not immediately captured by that little mango tree with dollops of red and gold swaying to the occasional breeze like a classical symphony; you're a prosaic at heart.

The mangoes on this tree were of a variety that is known locally as 'Gulab/Golap Khaas',which translates loosely into 'the special rose'.Now most people will tell you how that although this is a fine class of fruity goodness, it dosent quite match up to the humble langda, the popular himsagar or the frankly overrated Alphonso.Now to put it very mildly, and this is as mildly as I can put it, this is a load of crap.The fault however is not just in their tastebuds. The thing is 'the special rose' can be a very elusive mistress.Unlike her brethren, enjoying her is an art and timing is crucial. Be late by even a day and she turns into orange mush, fuming with petulant rage at having been kept waiting.Be foolish enough to arrive early, and you are treated to a curt sourness that anybody who has ever tried to get a lady to hurry up would be all too familiar with. But be on time,and you are treated to singular experience, an almost heavenly alliance of sight,taste and smell.Especially the smell,a light aroma that would waft down your nostrils and take you to that simpler place.

I knew it was time. I knew, because i could smell it.

Step 2.

Rationalization.

It’s incredible how remarkably easy it is to convince yourself of almost anything.

Remember that time the night before the exam,when you started to watch the stupid jackie chan film because it would help you stay awake for the night, or when you ate the whole box of sweets because they wouldn't be as fresh tomorrow?As stupid as these things seem now, I bet when you did them, they didn't seem all that bad. It’s as if somehow for a few moments in the courtroom of your mind, the judge takes a nap and the lamest arguments seem to make perfect sense.

I reasoned that the neighbour had to be taught a lesson. The man thought the tree was his teen-aged daughter, and every lecherous stare that came by her direction, would offend the very core of his existence. And if some foolhardy teenage boy, high on moxie, would dare to pluck a fruit, the old man would thunder like 'samay' from mahabharat, albiet with more colourful language, and while the poor kid dealt with the forecast of his impending annihilation, he would have to face his veteran adversary’s better half, still capable of admirable mobility, and who armed with a broomstick would chase after him till the ends of the earth.

Step 3

Planning and execution

This is a joy that every daydreamer would understand. Every man who likes little sojourns away from reality to worlds that don't have to make sense .

Now, I had to figure out a way of getting a mango without leaving the safety of my own home.Also,it goes without saying,I had to make sure there were no witnesses. I was pretty sure dadu dearest would make living in my house a practical impossibility if he was to ever find out.

The task was an engineering challenge:- I needed to make something that allowed me to remotely pick a mango with minimum fuss.After making half a dozen plans which ranged from a mini flame thrower,to a guided catapult. I finally settled on the simplest device on the list which basically consisted of a pair of scissors attached to the end of a stick, to be operated by a system of ropes. Now,the trouble was that this, like most flights of fancy, is easier thought than said than done.Finally a lot of rope, some used head phones and measuring tape, later i was done with it. Almost immediately however, I realized that although the scissor system could close shut easily, it was incredibly difficult to open it with the ropes which meant I had to reel the whole thing back in,costing me a lot of precious time. Being the noisier part of the exercise this was also likely to attract attention.I decided in the end to replace the scissors with a more primitive cutting device,a kitchen knife.

Now i had to wait for an opportune time. Luckily, ‘bangali dupure ghum’ on a Saturday afternoon, is something you can invariably bank on.

At 3 pm I was to do my terrible deed,from a window in the the apartment staircase.This was done to make sure that if I was seen,they couldn't be sure it was me.

I made two surveillance trips to make sure the coast was clear and checked the joints on my device.

A few dhinchak rock songs later.I was good to go.

Step 4

The crime.

The part where you shut the fuck up and get to work.

So there I was, armed with a 12 feet pole with a knife and a plastic bag at its end.Looking at my prize.Gold and red with curves that would put Christina Hendricks to shame.From here on,the crime would commit itself.

All this while clouds had gathered ,softening the sun down to a cinematic hue.Then, through a gap in the railing, I slid in my mechanical marvel.I don't remember thinking much for a while,something was taking over.I was surrendering to a primal urge, one which had made us the most successful species on the planet.The next clear memory i have is that of the sound of the harsh rustling of a plastic bag. I shivered with ecstasy. This was it.The mango was inside,albeit a little precariously.Gently,like an inexperienced dad with his newborn or a high school girl with her first chemistry set.I started to reel her in.

Step 4.5

The heebijeebies.

What separates the perfect criminal from well, the criminal?

It seems to me,that one of the unspoken rules of the universe is that an enterprise will not amount to much, unless at some point in it you are scared shitless.

There i was, reeling her in and feeling good about myself. No witnesses, no fingerprints and since i was to dismantle my mechanical marvel, no weapon either.I had, after all, pulled it off.I should have known better.The god above has no respect for such perfection.Like the shallow Bollywood audiences he demands spice,and his spice is chaos.

Of all the ways of scaring somebody I would think a screeching door would be really low on the list , yet on that cloudy summer afternoon that’s precisely what happened and as if on cue, my knees started wobbling and i was no longer sure I was on solid ground.My hands took a life of their own.My stomach made funny bubbly noises.It was as if my whole body wanted to run away and I was forcing it to do otherwise and while I struggled desperately to suppress this primordial rebellion, I looked around to find the source of the noise. All the doors at the victim's house were closed. I looked behind me to see if it was someone from my apartment.Here too every door seemed innocent.I reasoned it must have been someone from the higher floors.In any case, I could not dawdle. In about thirty more seconds, stretched to way more than that by the wanton brutality of time,I held it in my hands. A perfectly ripe 'Golap khaas' that smelt better than any rose. My prize in red and gold.

Step 5

This is once you are in a safe place.

Celebratory dances.

For a while I jumped around like a crazy kangaroo with its tail on fire.For a much longer time loud upbeat background music played in my head punctuated occasionally by scattered thoughts of 'I really should stop watching crime shows' or 'there is no way i am passing on Monday'.Desperate attempts by reality to reclaim a hold it had lost long ago.

Step 6.(BONUS STEP),

Practise evil laugh.Then Gloat.

There is no point to a perfect crime if you can’t tell people how perfect it is.

Not again.

I came here to delete this blog.Something,I have wanted to do that for a long time.There is no point ,i had reasoned.But there never was any point to this kind of thing,and although frankly its nothing more than bad writing.It somehow has captured a part of my adolescence in a way only it could,with all its delusions and pretensions.Something any memory can hardly boast of, the least of all mine and that was precisely why i wrote this blog. The blog incidentally  also,helped me find an answer to something I have often thought  about,Did the 'good old days' that most people frequently talk of ever exist ?,Or were we as far from perfect kids then, as we are from perfect men now.The sepiatic vision we often turn to ,of a place where all was fair and good,is something I think we created in our minds  to help us through life. If we could somehow go back we might find that our struggles then seemed just as great as ours do today,and that even then we looked back to 'those good old days'  just as we do now.In the light of the past  to most everything seems illuminated yet there are others who look at that light and think if its been put there to hide the very darkness that scares us even today.


 Yet i have to admit there are times when a brilliantly colored snapshot from a place almost forgotten suddenly  cheers up a gloomy day. Much more importantly though,i am convinced that some time in the future I will come back here and laugh at what i write today, just as today I laugh at what I wrote earlier and I would  probably want to delete it all,and then something would remind me, this is precisely why i wrote this blog.

'In hindsight every thing is stupid'*.


My next post will only come when I sure ,I can  write something I will willing submit myself to read and that might take quite some time.

Yes.I have nothing better to do.

Yes.I have nothing better to do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxNIPMeH3Dk

A welcome to reality

Your board exams start the next month ,but you don't feel like studying .Then again you Never feel like studying.You decide to move out of the room, into the the veranda and you look the bright yellow orb in the sky.Your mind starts to wander again, but before you know it, your eyes start to hurt, you come to your senses and you close them .The afterglow persists for a little while longer and you try to bask in its glory while its there. You go inside, and pick up the fat book and try to read,but you cant .The yellow orb has done something the book couldn't.You try concentrating on the book again ,it doesn't work,though.Time should have taught you better,You realize its futile to resist now and you give in.

You know a thing or two about the orb or so you think atleast.You know for instance, that its called the sun but perhaps more importantly you realize how perfect every thing about it had to be to allow your existence.Had it been just a little bigger,nearer or farther , you and every thing you could ever relate to ,simply wouldn't exist.Lady luck had been nice to you, but since she's called a lady you know she wouldn't be nice for ever. The sun would die one day.Some seven and a half billion years from now the fusion reactions keeping it alive would cease completely and it would then be reduced to an earth sized object filled with diamonds and strange rocks. Something they'd like to call a white dwarf.But nothing that was ever related to you would see any of this because just five hundred million years from now,life on earth would cease to exist.You wait there. This strikes you somewhere deeper than it should have.The death of human race would also mean the death of every human being that ever existed.Einstein would die ,as would homer(the poet), Homer(simpson),garfield,Jim davies,Jim Morrison, Cato and even Megan fox .But more importantly for you, you would die.

You had always wondered why people had kids, they bite , scratch and pee and by the time they grow up they don't care about their parents anymore.With time you've begin to understand why.Its not just the cute baby photographs one gets to click and then show off to people.The thing is people don't want to die. .They know they will die someday , and that's why they want to leave behind something that wont. A book,a photograph , a memory or even a strand of genetic material does the trick but only as long as the human race itself survives.The entite purpose of human existence is to perpetuate itslef.At the end of the day ,you too wish that some part of you would survive,that some little fragment would escape the absolute void. ,but you know that with the death of the last human being .Every thing that was ever "you" would hurtle down to sweet oblivion.You coudn't allow that,now could you.

Somebody would have to do something about it.Moving out of the earth seems like the most logical thing to do.As the sun gets older it'll get bigger and hotter and would soon burn the earth to cinders. However this would have a flip side. The outer dwarf planets which had till now been barren -icy desserts would start to melt.Some might even have liquid water.A little bit of terraforming and you'd might find some part of yourself in Pluto or Ceres.You woudn't like the place much , but then again you wouldn't even have to.

You begin to feel better now, like every one does when they finish a puzzle and that's why you've always liked puzzles specially the big ones that have the fate of humanity hanging on them,but before you could savor the moment long enough your door bell rings. Reality dawns on you or rather hits you with a bang on your face.You curse yourself for wasting so much time.You should have studied .You needed to,but before you could think more the bell rings again.You blurt out a few curses but hope that nobody heard you.

You open the door , its your neighbor again he tells you how you waste so much water. How the water tanki is empty because of you ,You smile politely ,you even pseudo-apologize but you bang the door as hard as you possibly could.You don't hate your neighbor you just hate him disturbing you.You hate reality , and how it seems to blow great dreams away.You make your way to bathroom ,you see that you forgot to turn off the shower.'The bastard was right" ,you think.You don't bother turning it off though instead you lie down ,make a pillow out of that dusty fat book and drift off to sleep .Before you fall asleep though you allow your self one final grin ,a grin that said reality could go fuck itself.

--

I am not going to post anything for quite some time now,They'd prolly book me for human rights violations if did.Take care.Ciao.

The narcissist.1.i.i(Durga puja)

I don't like durga puja, not as much as the other folks here do at least.Then again i never had friends who i could go "pandal hopping" all night with and even if i did have some, i am not sure if daddy-dearest would allow it.My experiences with the pujas have been limited to say the least,usually restricted only to an occasional evening trip and the morning anjali.My dad tried to do the best he could but he was nearly always ill and despite being the sadist that I am i didn't want him to be sicker because of me.However its not just because of my limited experiences of it that I don't like the pujas .Mindless crowd-bashing ,dancing ,smoking,drinking and loud bollywood music could never figure in my definition of having a good time ,not by a long shot.The one of the only things I like about the pujas are the dhaks .I have never claimed to be a spiritual person but I think a good dhaki can give anyone an intellectual orgasm.Something i thought only pink Floyd could do.The thing is with the sheer number of people fighting it out in the pandal ,reveling at the dhaks gets rather difficult.I am serious,the bengali aunties in a puja pandal would make the blokes at a mosh pit wet their pants. The only thing in your mind then is getting your ass(intact) out of there.The dunuchi naach looks pretty cool but when you're a guy who has never danced in his entire life anything remotely related to shaking a leg can give you serious panic attacks,especially if it involves fire and smoke and people staring.The thing i hate most about the pujas however are the people some of them are drunk ,most of them are rude and nearly all of them stink.So would i if i had to wrestle my way through a thousand people every time i visited a Pandal .The music gets to my head And my ears and by the time I get home I feel like a villain from a 90's bollywood flick ,beaten to pulp while the rest of the world dances to bad music .

p.s - I love these trademark durga eyes , They seem to be this epic celebration of feminine power .No where else in the world does one find , female power glorified to this extent.The western world has for centuries regarded the fairer sex as weak.Little wonder that jesus ,moses and allah were all men .It took the twentieth century to make them realize the potential of women.In india ,we knew this for centuries. I wish we didn't though , Mudiali had atleast a million people yesterday.My precious zodiac shirt now looks like a floor mop.So much for phemale empowerment.

The seductress

The wait was over,she had arrived .The light flashed and then after the habitual time lag came the sound ,more “kick-ass” than any of those super-expensive sound systems. The people who were standing around me started to scramble for cover they didn't want to be out in the storm ,they wanted to feel her..too but from the comfort of their living rooms. I was tad more adventurous though ,as I looked up and saw her ,I saw how murderously beautiful she was.She reminded me of the bollywood beauty queens, unlike them however,she was allowed to be dark,fat and ill-mannered. Nature wasn't stereotyped,great nor was I .I looked on.. blissfully unaware of the fact that every one in the thoroughfare thought that I was the biggest weirdo ever to set foot on the face of the earth .Then it came unbiased and unprejudiced she dint care if I was rich or poor,well dressed or otherwise, all she cared about was getting me drenched and the fact I had no umbrella meant that I had to oblige. Cosmic justice put two choices in front of me get drenched in the rain,or take an autorikshaw ride home I would have chosen the latter had it not been “for the autorikshaw affair” and the fact that she was looking so damn beautiful. I started to walk fully aware that dad will kill me when he sees me wet. The occasional bolt of lightning lightened up my senses as I walked along ,my shirt sticking to me,my shoes making weird noises,but I was feeling great and that's what really mattered.



I tried a to do stuff with my hair,didn't work though .Then again usually it didn't .The streets were totally empty now a few minutes of rain had scared them all away ,apart from the raindrops and the occasional roar of thunder their was an eerie silence all around me.I did have her for company or did I.....,darkness was gradually setting in and she was fading away into the distantness .Since the seductress was gone now ,there was no point in walking,I saw an auto approaching .Then with the dexterity of a bojpuri film star I whistled for it,it stopped like clockwork. Then still confused about what all had happened till then ,I got in.


p.s:her picture the next day/

A long walk

The summers were getting worse with each passing day ,on that day however the mercury had touched a staggering 41 degrees.School getting over meant that going home fast was the only thing in my mind. I was however pleasantly reminded by a friend that i had tutions after school .Though reluctantly i made it there.I got to the place where the classes were supposed to begin and then just as the teacher entered and was just about to start the oh-so-boring-class.The the monkeys working at the electricity department pleased at the fact that i had fed them (yes bananas )initiated a power cut & Yes the invertor thingy was low on charge and we thus got a holiday.Yipee!!.Now normally i would have just boarded a bus or something but nothing beats walking through streets of Calcutta in the dark.The fact that the street lights too were busted helped(the monkeys again!!) .As i walked ,"fear of the dark" played for the millionth time on my phone .My eyes fell on a  woman walking past me .She was a professional ,her uniform told me that much.She wasn't really very attractive physically as i had hoped she would be.Then again few women are, but she was confident, she was promiscuous,she had broken every single  shackle that our Hypocritical society puts on her,.She had become  every thing the stereotypical indian woman was not supposed to be and all  that made her attractive in a very strange way .As the sound of her footsteps faded i had to  turn my attention to something way more important. "low battery" was being conveniently flashing on the shitty symbian based device.So realizing that the the laws of cosmic justice would soon shut down my phone .I turned it off myself  .Denying it of the pleasure, it so desperately wanted.   I turned my attention to other things namely tottenham's 5-2 defeat last night ,Rednapp's grave tactical blunders had cost us the match ,i wished i was the manager.Could have done a better job at least.Pavlyochenco deserved a start.Funny how the people who matter make the wrong decisions and the people who make the right decisions don't really matter,

Suddenly i tripped on some pothole on the road making me,ALmost land on my face ,i was just about to curse the municipal guys when i saw the moon .In all her glory ,till then i was blissfully unaware of the fact that it was a full moon night.The solar system's fifth largest satellite had never looked this beautiful .For the remainder of the journey i regularly Glanced at the moon,disturbing my view only to make sure there were no more potholes in my way.


I walked quite a bit after that, when a spine chilling moan made its way to my ear . It seemed as though something was dying.I didn't want to look ,but i bloody had to.On a closer inspection i found that a dog had fallen into the drain and couldn't get itself out.It was literally "rotting alive".For an instant i thought that i should rescue it or try and end its misery somehow ,but some thing pulled me back.I looked at the street where i was standing i saw that many people passed the dying dog ,all of them had heard its cry .The creature almost begging for death to befall on him somehow,but no one even bothered to look they were too bothered about their clothes ,and the fact that the missed their soaps because of the powercut.But i shouldn't blame them though for i too did nothing to help it( it turns out my parents dont subscribe to certain a detergent companies”daag ache hain” campaign ).I did something else though i switched on my phone and tried to take its picture.I knew emotional pornography made for great photography subjects but i coudn't make myself do it though,I coudn't mock it's pitiful existence any further..I started to walk again and  my mind started to wander,wander as I wondered what is it was like to be a war photographer,taking pictures of dying men .When every thing around him is absolute devastation all  he does is take a picture. .I don't know how he does it.I don't even think its humanly possible.

As i turned my attention to the road I realized that the streets seemed awfully familiar.I was almost home.The guard greeted me with his same big smile,which by now had almost become his trademark..I tried to return his smile but mine could have never really matched his ,for his reflected absolute contentment mine, mere courtesy.I soon made my way to my bed.I coudn't sleep though.I'd like to think it was just the heat,but it wasn't .A few of the thoughts ,that had made their way earlier that evening kept lingering around my mind.Disturbing me at very frequent intervals.  The  dog slowly rotting away to nothingness,the lady,the photographer.The dog specially though,i just couldn't get him out of my head. .But  i knew and so did the dog perhaps that in time even its  miserable death would  fade away from my memory and would become just as obscure as his life always was and maybe then i would  get some well deserved sleep and he his redemption.