I always have wanted to do a review on my blog. But things have always crept along that have made this impossible, mostly self-doubt, can I do a proper review? Can I do justice to the subject matter and be relevant to the masses that will be reading my review. Okay that last one I totally made up. Mostly I cannot decide what to review. Also, I have the attention-span of a gecko in hibernation, just so you know.
So what do we review? I was on the Escapist forums when I came across this awesome review of Call of Duty 4 by Gigantor. I cried my friends, I won’t lie, I cried till my eyes bled out. This guy is a much better writer than yours truly. Moments like that always leave me rather flabbergasted(just wanted to use a big word, see for me it is a competition I am losing, just use the word you want, or tits, if that makes you happy). So before I break down completely and go down the oft-repeated, self-loathing, self-demeaning path, lets decide what are we going to review.
My mind says Halo, with pictures of brutes running around. Yet, Halo is so good, that I won’t be able to do an impartial review. It will be an overall positive review, but that’s not what true reviewers do is it?
So we need ideas? Music? Naah. I either like a song or I don’t, which is a euphemism for saying I am tone-deaf and I can’t say stuff like, Mayer should have done Gravity in a different key. Also, Gravity is awesome. It is from Continuum by John Mayer, one of those rare albums I like all the songs of. Just because of the awesome Jimi Hendrix cover on the album of Axis Bold as Love. Wait a moment while I add that song to my playlist.
So now Axis is playing on my laptop. Let’s continue. I cannot review movies, because I am either a fanboy(in case it is the Coen brothers, Nolan, Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson, Tarantino) or I am a vehement critic(mostly when it is a Hindi movie called something like Sarkar Raj).
Also, since I sat through all 5 seasons of One Tree Hill and the one of Gossip Girl, I am fundamentally unequipped to review a television series.
So we’re left with video games. Gawd. Is that all I do? Ah, animes. Lets not go their though. Animes are intoxicating to one so fundamentally simple as me.
Can I review me? Hmm… Interesting idea, you say. Well, fuck you too. What am I? A sales clerk?
I think, I have a lot of unrealized potential, that will forever remain unrealized, if only because I am lazier than yo mama(see, yo mama joke, what is the world coming to? I thought I was a better writer than this. At least, I didn’t say that yo mama is lazier than me, because then it would have been an error of monumentous proportions, in ways more than one. Plus as Yahtzee says, that shit is nasty yo). Then one day, when I am tired of the whole routine. I will jump from the top of a building. Or I will lie down on the railway track. Or just hang from the fan.
Of course, I am a bit heavy for the fan thing to work. But did you notice what I just did there?
I mentioned the three suicides that have taken place in IIT Kanpur, in three years. The common thread between them is that they were all my batchmates.
The guy who jumped from the top of faculty building was called Swapnil Dharaskar. He was in my department. How do I remember him, you ask. I remember exactly one conversation with him.
I was going to the shopping center, I had some stuff to buy.
I met him on the way o’er yonder.
He wanted to tag along. I wanted to tell him to sod off.
Mind your own business or some such shit.
Yet he was persistent, so I let him. We talked.
He spoke, I listened. I was bored to beyond death.
He joked and I smiled some of my emptiest smiles.
That’s it. End of. I felt like writing an immature poem, just in case you were wondering, I did talk to him a few more times I think. Nothing monumentous. We did not solve the quantum field theory in case you were wondering. Naah. I do not even rememeber what we talked about. Often, I do not even care what was it that we talked about.
That was the third semester of my stay here at IIT Kanpur. I remember the morning and the night before Swapnil “commited suicide.” I daresay most of the people who were students of IIT Kanpur at that time do remember, maybe not the exact date, but where were they that night and that sort of stuff. The thing is that we had our end-semesters the next morning and there was a bloody power-cut. It was the Chemistry exam. Since Chemistry had the portion of three courses in one, and students of IITK(or atleast me, mostly me I think) tend to cover most of the portion the night before. The night was a disaster. Everyone had unread portions longer than their dicks. Sorry couldn’t resist. Must keep the mood sombre, says to himself.
So anyways, I was sort of interested in Chemistry since plus two, so I was not that unprepared(which totally contradicts what I just said, I know. Remember this mortal, When I contradict myself, I am telling the truth. Taken from the Ahzirr Traajijazeri, however the fuck that is spelled). Which was lucky I think, had it been some other paper, like Thermodynamics, I would have flunked. I did flunk Thermodynamics.
Anyways, next morning, I give my paper, which went fortunately quite good. I am happy and the world is whole again. I completed my paper with like one hour left. I always do that. Mostly, its because I do not know jack shit. This was one of those rare times, when I knew what was going on. My exam was over, I don’t remember anything other than feeling very very happy. I met Pradeep outside the exam hall, yeah I was roaming around the campus, I was that happy. I do so either when I am very happy or very sad. Mostly when I am very sad. I saw police-men but didn’t think anything of them, they’re a common enough sight. I asked him how was his exam. Swapnil commited suicide, he replied. He looked shaken and disturbed.
I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. This was the third death that I had seen, not literally seen, you perv, its a figure of speech. First my grandfather, second was Saim, who drowned in the Ganges, an accident. He was almost a friend, but lets not get distracted.
I didn’t know what to make of it. I still don’t. One question that courses through my mind, when I am not thinking of soapy tit wanks(and perverted stuff like that) is, was I too rude? Should I have been a better friend to him?
Had we been better friends, could I have stopped him from jumping(yeah he jumped, he didn’t “commit suicide.” That is how I try to remember it).
I know my could, woulds and shoulds are all messed up, I didn’t give enough attention to grammar growing up. There were girls in my school is my official explanation. I hated my English teacher is the for your ears only, since you have been such a good friend version. I digress again. I did say something about having the attention-span of a crack-whore.
About a year passed, the second person in my batch to commit suicide was J Bharadwaj(I write his name shuddering. I have forgotten his name). After thinking about it for a few minutes I realize, that there a huge chance that I am correct, like about 90%. But if I am wrong, it is all damned anyways. He was in my section in my first year. A3. He was in the Aerospace deptt. The department became very notorious after our first year for having the most people on academic probation. Most of them made up in their third year, when the department gave them A grades like blowjobs at a bukkake shoot.
I know I never use curse words and such, but right now I am very disturbed. I wasn’t 5 minutes ago. I guess this topic, the one that I have always wanted to write about, yet always postponed, for crazy ass reasons like maybe SG Dhande will read it and throw me out of IIT, no need sir, I am doing a very good job of that on my own. Or that the media would get wind of this, and suddenly my parents would be subjected to the non-ending scrutiny of the Hindi news channels (may they all get crotch-rot, we’ll know when we see them walk funny). Yet, then I realize that the guilt of it all, the effect it has on me overtime, and factoring all such causes, I think I am better off writing it out. This blog is for me, not just about the page visits everyday. Plus, I know who all will visit it already. I can even think of some of their reactions. So no pain there. I needed to talk about this. And since wordpress is my blog, my bitch and my shrink in one, is the main reason why we’re talking about it here right now.
So anyways, J Bharadwaj. The guy I was confusing him with KAK Chidvilas, they were good friends, (south Indians, he lamely offers by way of explanation). I mostly remember him(referring to J Bharadwaj, I wanted to write a lame joke about pointers on C, but since I know shit about them so I won’t descend to that level) as the lab-partner of Himanshu, who is in my wing. I talked to him quite a bit, during the physics and chemistry labs, mostly because my lab-partner was Aakash Sonker, of course you don’t know what that means. Aakash Sonker is anti-christ. Oh so what is so huge about that you ask. Let me rephrase, Aakash Sonker is the Antichrist. My gripe with him isn’t that he was shit at the labs we did. I was shit I admit. He was the hard-working efficient one, as he thought was his sworn duty to remind me. That and drinking the blood of kittens. He is that bad.
Whoa, I am on a rant here. I am sort of sad that my parents didn’t abuse me as a child, I couldn’t talk about that. I wonder what the fuck is wrong with me today and continue writing, like its the effing Bible(made a euphemism out of a swear, at the very last moment).
There is one last explanation I want to make about me, before continuing, or maybe two. Its of the fact and corollary format so feel free to count anyway you want. You might be wondering how can I start from Halo and brutes and end at Bharadwaaj? Matter of fact, I started with grunts, but that didn’t alliterate with anyone’s name. The only explanation for this all is that, simply that is how I think. Also, all the continuous distractions from what I am trying to tell to other(usually juicer gossip) might make reading this a chore for you. For that I apologize and remind you that this is how I think, I have the same attention span of a five year old(finally the metaphor I was looking for).
Now that I have grown up a bit, I might think in heavier words and chicks in postures that would have, then made me either blush or throw-up(hey, at least I am creative with the process). Yet, my thinking patterns have never changed. They haven’t in the last 7-8 years. I can go back and try to remember the stuff I used to think about when I was younger and if I remember correctly, which I do as a matter of fact, it was much the same. I am not very complicated really. I cannot think something and say something else. I have a tendency to make up little stories, just to spice up what I have to say. I have on occasions, made up elaborate lies, that have stood the test of time and fooled much older people(even when I was in class 3 or 4). I can at any moment summon any emotion, depending on what I need from the people I am duping. I have never been caught, I am that good.
Yet, I have or at least I like to think that I have honor, so do not worry, nothing on this page is fabricated, I may be an ass, but I am not an ass-hat. Or similar words to that effect. Of course, this is not the blueprint of a working nuclear fusion reactor(more on that some other time), so you really don’t really care if I made up a bit. See, I got sidetracked again. For me writing or thinking are basically the same activity. I write what I think and I think what I write. I am very simple, praise me a wee bit and watch my face turn crimson. Criticize me, and I will joke about it and say its no big deal, yet I won’t be responsible when your dog is found face down in a ditch, run over by a car. Jeez, enough with the finger pointing already, I don’t know how to drive. I alternate between phases when I gorge on food or when I am almost bulimic(except for the whole self-induced vomiting and cutting your own thighs bit). I fantasize most of the time. Actually if I am awake, I am fantasizing about something. Of course, before you snicker and go virgin, fantasizes about sex all day. Not true. I have many fantasies that are basically the same as or extensions of my fantasies as a kid, of which there are probably thousands. Every phase of my life has had an over-arching fantasy, pm me sometime and I will tell you about them. I am not in the mood to discuss them right now, there is so much I have to say about the matter at hand.
J Bharadwaj, was unlucky, so to say. My knowledge of what happened in his life, after our first year are sketchy, most of them were compiled hastily after his suicide from word-of-mouth, and as such are less reliable than chicken-little, who according to Disney-Pixar, (don’t remember which actually) was not that wrong after all. I remember him as a whiny little tosser. You haven’t really sworn until you have sworn in Queen’s English.
So I won’t go into details, he lay down on the railway track. It is a gruesome image. I wonder why he was being so creative. Was he trying to make it painless? I mean sure, railway track, dead in a quarter-second. But if I have to hear my train a’coming, I prefer the one sung by Jimi Hendrix. Seriously, try imagining it. You hear the train before you see it coming. You hear it faster when your ears are on the track, because sound travels faster in metal than in air. Then sound is after all longitudinal vibrations. So he would have actually felt the train. His body would have resonated(? what are the natural frequencies?) with the track. Of course, you can go, Basit you sick bastard, as many times as you want. Yet, I cannot stop wondering. Sure it must have been painless. Yet incredibly stressful. You, sir would have had a heart-attack much earlier. I would probably shit my pants. Can you imagine the horror, of the train slowly coming. It must have been night-time, I am not sure. I do not have the condolence message saved anymore on my computer so I don’t remember, but if it was daytime, he would have been seen. The gate is more than a kilometer from our hostel. It was hall-5 so maybe kilometer and a half, maybe more. Then, he could not have just lain at the crossing, because people would have seen him. He must have chosen a busy hour, because if the roads are deserted, the SIS guards(inept and useless though, still they’re human, they must have something redeeming about them), might notice a person going along the track.
Of course we are not talking about the SAS, the crack team of British commandos, but SIS, headquartered in Patliputra Colony, Patna-800013, half a kilometer from my house. Next to the World Headquarters of Shulabh Shauchalaya(literally Easily Facilitated Toilets, or summat), the people who are making the world a better place, one public toilet at a time. As my nan used to say, money is shit. The guy interpreted it to mean there is money to be made in the shit business. Now he has a bungalow higher than Notre Dame’s(the all girls school, spank bank of half of Patna’s morally and sexually repressed teenagers, and by that I mean me. Except I don’t know anyone there. I just have a thing for their uniform.)
Whew, I am tired. Its 2900 words already. I have spent about 3 hours typing, proof-reading and thinking. So if you have made it this far, here is a little thought-nugget, I am no pervert, I just write stuff like that to sound cool, like Yahtzee. Who is my new man-crush. There, I have laid bare almost all the skeletons in my closet. The ones I haven’t, I’ll take them to my grave. I suddenly realize that I am no longer a teenager. Thank God for no acne.
So back to pointless speculation, instead of letting the dead lie in peace. Why you wonder. Well for my mental peace I guess.
Resume, resume. So what I was trying to tell for the last few minutes is that, he decided not only that he wanted to end it. He also decided how. Also, the method he chose, is at the same time, rather painless and immensly trepidating(that is not a word, fuck you firefox spell-check) . Also it is probably very very painful for the split-second you experience it. It is also the method that would seriously damage one’s body. Maybe he didn’t want to become a zombie, but then he would have been cremated anyways. I mean, what he did was premeditated. It was all planned.
Of course, you can say that he went to IIT gate, got bitch-drunk and fell on the rail track. In that case I am as far from the truth as I am from making sweet sweet love with Keira Knightley, and a couple of kids to show for my efforts. So assuming that it was premeditated, (the scientific method, despite what the feminists of the world have to say about it, rocks) leads to a simple conclusion. He wanted his body torn to shreds. I won’t even try to imagine (basyt speak for he will think, but won’t blog, besides you’re safer not knowing) what he might have been feeling to go that far.
With this I bring this riveting, utterly pointless discussion (that has more bends than, okay resisted like a hundred silly metaphors) to a close that should have come hours ago. So what was the need to dissect two dead guys and disrespect them so? I guess it stems from a need to explain and understand what happens around me. I remember how my dad reacted to the death of my granpa. It is an image that I will never forget, except for brief phases maybe. I love my parents but I know that my reactions would ultimately be, much more muted. How do I know that? I know it from experience.
IIT Kanpur is not the happiest place in the world, but I am sure that the trend of one suicide a semester is something totally out of the normal. Yeah, I am not kidding. How does the administration react? The details are wrapped in mystery, a condolence meeting takes place (I have never been to one, if I never go, its like they never really happened). For the record, they did nothing wrong, that is the grownup mature way that people handle death, not telling anything about what actually transpired prevents people like me from gossiping and condolence sessions are simple yet elegant, not like how uneducated widows mourn the death of their husbands(from the images seen on tv). Wow, I am shallow. Yet the response is almost standardized, reading the condolence messages I feel as if there is a template they have. I think they might, bureaucracies have protocols for when to sneeze after all.
How did we the students react? We joke about it. If there is an exam and you’re unprepared, standard response is “I am going to jump of the top of the faculty building.” Of course no one jokes about lying on the rail track. That is way too nasty a mental image. Why do we joke? We are not insensitive zombies, in case you were wondering. I course since you’re reading this blog there is a 99% chance that you’re of the same batch as me, one of the 3-4 guys who read my blog, even though I never read yours, thanks a lot guys means a lot to me. Or you wandered here from google where you were looking for pr0n of Keira Knightley. In that case, sod off mate, she’s all mine. The following words are traps meant to ensnare you, Halo, Cortana, The Ark level, Miranda Keyes, free porn, no credit card required, hot anime girls, Sakura, Sex is Zero, Halle Berry, Thandie Newton, Oscar Wilde. My golden rule, I never discriminate.
Fuck it I am tired. Since I am tired, I am guessing you are too. So you must be wondering what is the conclusion, the moral of the story, the whodunit? The time for my inner Sherlock to lay it all out to your Watson in 4 letter words that you can comprehend. Well, my dear Watson, despite we being the butt of a million homosexual jokes, let me put the record straight that Arthur Conan Doyle, lazy son of a bitch that he was never did. I am not gay. Never was, never will be. My heart belonged to and will always belong to Irene Adler. So go back to your mediocre life, in the arms of your mediocre wife. I find your constant man-crush on me disturbing. Maybe daddy didn’t love you enough, if you want that, go seek out Professor Moriarty, he has enough repressed homosexual urges in him to light up Chernobyl. Now where did I put the cocaine?
