Cheers mate

I'm exhausted, frustrated, nervous, confused and thirsty.

Exhaustion:
My job sucks. As much as I try to enjoy it I end up hating it. I've been slogging my ass off since the past couple of weeks and I haven't achieved anything more than a sore ass and a miserable paycheck. I got to do something about it. Pronto.

Frustration:
I'm supposed to travel on Saturday morning to Lund-un but I haven't yet received neither the flight ticket nor the traveler's cheque. I'm yet to pack my bags, say goodbye to my babies [Madhur Bhandarkar and Sterile] one last time before the guy I'm selling off my fishpond to arrives, pack up things that my sis has ordered me to send back home, put my bike in the train to my dad's place and take a long, long, relieving dump.

Nervousness:
This is my first travel out of the country. I've so far spent my entire life in my hometown and the last two years here in Mysore. I hate flights. You are in an enclosed cylindrical container for 10 hours which is being heralded by a guy who you don't know anything about. Whether he likes drinking at work or prefers smoking strong herbal medicine. It's like an Indian arranged marriage. Some work well. Most don't. You don't know when it's gonna crash. You are on the pot at 20,000 feet taking the crap of your life and boom. You are Kalpana Chawla.

You: *fart* *fart* *crap* *craaaaaap*
Pilot: Ladies and gentlemen, we're experiencing a slight turbulence, but I assure you we will make it safe to...
Plane: Yeah right, smartass. *crash*


Confusion:
I was recruited and I said, "Nah! I got plans. I ain't gonna be a fuckin' slave, man."
I became a slave and said, "Nah! Not more than a year, man. Mark my fuckin' words."
I spent spent a year and said, "Nah! This is it, man. I got better plans this time around."
I completed two years today. 29th October.
"Nah! Just let me get back from London, man. I'm gonna push off from here first thing. You losers are gonna get it in the face. Wait and watch, man" said the loser.

Thirst:
Beer.

The Fascinating World of Graphic Novels

Bill: As you know, I’m quite keen on comic books. Especially the ones about superheroes. I find the whole mythology surrounding superheroes fascinating. Take my favourite superhero, Superman. Not a great comic book. Not particularly well-drawn. But the mythology... the mythology is not only great, it's unique.
The Bride: How long does this shit take to go into effect?
Bill: About two minutes, just long enough for me to finish my point. Now, a staple of the superhero mythology is, there's the superhero and there's the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When that character wakes up in the morning, he's Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic Superman stands alone. Superman didn't become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S", that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears - the glasses, the business suit - that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent. He's weak... he's unsure of himself... he's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race.

Converation between Bill and The Bride, Kill Bill Vol. 2

My love for superheros began after I first saw a masked red-blue costumed athletic young man spinning web hanging onto tall buildings fighting crime. He will always remain one of my favorite superhero. He was a superhero with whom I could relate to until my late teens.

My dad had long ceased being my superhero since he’d refused to buy me a video game I was asking for months. I hated him for it and told him he was my arch nemesis. I told him he’d repent his misery ways in his dotage when he’d be living on a petty pension. I can still hear the echo of that thunderous sound after his rough hand came in sudden contact with my left cheek. However, on my mother’s motherly interference in the matter and her feminine rage towards all of husbandkind, he finally bought me a handheld video game. I made him my sidekick for his unwilling generosity. He wasn’t happy. But he wasn’t mad either.

Coming to the point, Superman happened just after Spiderman. It was the time when the name stickers on the notebook covers were more important than fresh air. I believed in Superman. He was a real man with amazing powers who beat up bad guys and saved people from burning houses. He was a way of life. His unique way of dressing and his taste in colours didn’t really matter. It was the man, his principles and his unbelievable will to wipe out the evildoers that I cared about. For me, at that time, Superman represented unimaginable power and ungetatable strength. He was the highest point somewhere unreachable, an unknown threshold that a normal man could never touch. He made me believe man could fly. I believed and still do, if God were to look like a man he’d look like Superman.

It was all until I realized the intricacies and subtleties of the greatest superhero mankind has ever known, Batman.

Frankly speaking I was never a Batfan in my teens. He was, for me, at that point of time a ‘good villain.’ He was dark, he was troubled, he had a lot of issues, he wasn’t gentle and he wore black. Although he was fighting crime and would beat up bad guys as good as any other superhero, I never really understood the reason for his gloomy, brooding personality. Batman was the poem I never liked as a child.

There were many superheros to love and to watch and to read. There was the lovable Man of Steel, there was the messed up neighborhood boy Spidey, there was the mythological He-Man, there were the geeky Fantastic Four and there was also the green peace activist Captain Planet. There were many more. Batman was something indigestible. But then, one fine day and bless that day, I grew up.

It was sometime during my engineering days when I was hooked to graphic novels like a junkie to pot. I had read most of the Spiderman, Superman and other popular comic books at that time. But I was left unsatisfied. The cheap children’s pass time fairy tales had left me unsatisfied with their ‘comic’ take on the characters and the depiction of two pence ‘comic’ nemeses. It all made me look for something more absorbing and mature. It was then I stumbled upon Alan Moore’s works. This was the point of my transition from comic books to graphic novels which I consider one of the most crucial evolutionary points in my life [Just slightly above discovering the first Playboy magazine]. His novels were so well written and complexly structured that the engineer in me searching for complexities and the nerd looking for an escape had finally got the thing he was looking for all along. It was my holy grail.

In my opinion the best Batman novel has to be Alan Moore’s Batman: The Killing Joke which served as an inspiration to Tim Burton’s 1989 classic Batman. Moore and Brian Bolland created a chillingly new psychopathic arch nemesis which was originally created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger based on the 1928 movie character The Man Who Laughs starring Conrad Veidt. The Joker that appeared in The Killing Joke set a benchmark to all the future villains in terms of artwork and complexity of the character. This Joker created by Alan Moore also served as the primary inspiration for The Joker in Christopher Nolan’s greatest comic book adapted movie of all time, The Dark Knight.

I greatly admire three extraordinarily consummate antagonists that have ever been created over the past few decades. In no particular order Hannibal Lector for his calm and genius bloodthirstiness in the novels by Thomas Harris; the bizarre weapon wielding Anton Chigurh for his ruthless and cunning dexterity in the novel No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy; The Joker for his psychopathic theory of chaos in the Batman novels. These are the three men who are worse than your worst nightmare. No character can get so intensely complicated and wickedly alluring at the same time.

After I read some more of Alan Moore’s work I came across film noir styled Mr Miller’s graphic novels. Sin City yarns were the first set of graphic novels that made me realize that storytelling through graphic depiction of character was not just a form of entertainment. It was an entangled, twisted and extremely detailed form of art—detailed only when you could get into the core of the books and decipher the emotions and feelings the artist had coloured in every stroke of brush, outlined in every line of the sketch and revealed in every word of the sentence. And the day I reread The Killing Joke the above notion was firmly itched in my heart.

Through the time, I’ve piled up a wonderful collection of amazing drawn and written graphic novels by some of the best artists in the industry. I’m more of a DC and Dark Horse person than Marvel. Sandman by Neil Gaimen which is a brilliantly drawn mythological tale of the character Sandman, John Constantine featuring Hellblazer which is an amazing English horror tale about which Alan Moore says, “Riveting, spine-chilling stuff”, Brian Azzerello’s captivating crime series 100 Bullets, Alex Ross’s 5 series Kingdom Come which is a satirical look at the superhero 'contaminated' world with lovely water colour artwork resembling century-old paintings, Preacher by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon and Will Eisner’s benchmark setting A Contract With God are a few novels that have captivated and enthralled me since Sin City and Batman: The Killing Joke and, of course, Watchmen.

A couple of independently released underground works like Maus—a deeply emotional Holocaust story and Ghost World—an alluring story of the confusions in the life of two teenage girls as they gown up in a cynical world [which has been adapted into a movie starring Scarlett Johansson and Thora Birch] are the best examples of the artistically unbound indie movement in graphic novels.

I believe everything said and mentioned above is just a microscopic part of the beautiful world of graphic novels. There’s still so much to be discovered and read and learnt.

I'm only laughing on the outside

My smile is just skin deep

If you could see inside I'm really crying

You might join me for a weep.

The Joker [Jack Nicholson] singing, Batman [1989]

Quotes courtesy: IMDb

Restricted Flight

I see my demons
Hidden not 'neath my bed
But within me.

Somewhere in the distance
In the woods
Unseen
A feathered creature sings.
Its melody wrapped in fear
I can smell
But I cannot hear.

The pinioned creature sings
While I can only desire
And hope
It flies unfolding its wings.

Jeffery “The Dude” Lebowski talks about films

Well, you know, in no particular order here are the movies The Dude abides by. He loves some, he admires a few and sometimes compares them to The White Russian.

Natural Born Killers [1994]: Television kills, man.

12 Angry Men [1957]: Eleven men: End this bloody discussion we’ve got important things to do. Twelfth man: Listen to me you eleven assholes.

2001: A Space Odyssey [1968]: Monkeys evolve into fuckin' men. Men land on the fuckin’ moon. Men make some fuckin’ robots. A one eyed robot screws up the fuckin’ space mission. A new life is born. The fuckin' cycle repeats, man.

Gandhi [1982]: Man had balls, man.

Die Hard [1988]: One fuckin' gun and no fuckin' shoes. Kills all the bad guys. Comes out with a couple of bruises and shit, you know. He’s got some balls too, man.

Raging Bull [1980]: You treat your women nice. Or else they’ll end up treating you bad, man.

The Bridge on the River Kwai [1957]: Pride and war. Two greatest fuck ups, man.

A Clockwork Orange [1971]: Once a fuckin’ psycho, always a fuckin’ psycho, man.

Casablanca [1942]: Look. The lady’s got some serious issues, man.

Once Upon a Time in the West [1968]: Bang, bang, bang. You know what I mean.

The Shawshank Redemption [1994]: You got to crawl through fuckin’ shit to find that shit you are looking for, man.

One Flew Over Cuckoo’s Nest [1975]: If you ain’t insane, don’t act like one ‘cos they’re gonna bust your fuckin’ ass, man. Nobody understands nothing nowhere. Know what I mean.

Pulp Fiction [1994]: That’s what you end up doing, all messed up and upside down, you know, if you flunk in the, uh, editing class, man.

Annie Hall [1977]: He talks a lot, you now. Maybe that’s what’s fuckin’ up all his relationships.

The Night of the Hunter: [1955]: Greed will land even the god’s man in hell, man.

Amadeus [1983]: He sucks, man, that arrogant little fuck. But makes some kick ass music, man. Not as good as AC DC though.

Batman [1989]: He ain’t just a fuckin’ superhero kickin’ around bad guys. He’s got his problems, man. You know. Real life issues and all that shit.

Trainspotting [1996]: Don’t do chemicals and stuff. Pick up White Russian. It’s cheaper, healthier, and legal, and it won’t fuck you up that bad, man.

Casino [1995]: Chicks, man. Chicks. The root cause of all evil.

King Kong [1933]: Chicks, man. Chicks.

The Shining [1980]: You don’t mess around with ghost occupied mansions, that’s what my friend says. There are rules everywhere, man.

Psycho [1960]: Never steal your boss’s money and wander around dining with strangers. You’ll end up being the person in the scariest shower-death, man.

The Godfather [1972]: He make you an offer, the other guys reject the offer, nothing fuckin' works, they all begin killing each other, one smart ass goes into hiding and marries a beautiful lady. They kill her too. Sad, man.

Star Wars [1977]: One fuckin' word. Epic, man.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture [1979]: Ah, fuck it.

Reality?

Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion. ~Democritus

Did you ever wonder if the person in the puddle is real, and you're just a reflection of him? ~Calvin and Hobbes

You are a surviving sperm that’s gotten bigger and dumber that didn’t end up in the bathroom. You are the justification for 15 minutes of exercise and 3 seconds of fun. You are the tiniest possible nobody in the universe. You are a surreal dream of something unknown that runs the show. A show that has no script and meaning. You are an improvisation. An improvisation that makes no sense.

Birth.

*sproing*

*sproing*

*sproing*

Death.

That’s all there is to it.

You were falling and falling and falling. From a cliff. In an elevator. From a building. You are falling. This time you won’t get up drenched in sweat, panting, reaching for a glass of water. The dream is real. Just like before you woke up. The dream is terrifyingly real. And you are dreaming reality.

Bilbo Baggins of Bag End

The peaceful village of Hobbiton

Was witnessing strange events.

For which the funny and shy Hobbits

Blamed the burglar and his friends.

Bilbo Baggins the clever burglar

Stole neither from rich nor poor.

Believed the treasure his

If it belonged to him, however.

He loved good food and warm bed

Friends and adventure.

The other Hobbits found him strange

For he was queer and showed no fear.

Wizards of far country and Elves of Mirkwood

Would often come by to his little Hole.

They’d drink and laugh and sing songs

For which events Bilbo’s dwelling in Bag End was never small.

Arrived one fine morning

A company of Dwarves;

Along came Gandalf the great Wizard

Carrying the news of a treasure stolen by Smaug.

Smaug the Magnificent was the dragon;

Over the Lonely Mountain he reigned.

The path to which was perilous

Gorged with vile Goblins and Spiders wicked.

Consented the adventurer in the Hobbit

After a sumptuous meal and much thought.

Unaware of the imminent perils

The venturesome company set out.

An insignificant homage to The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins and imagination.

Decide

The momentary pleasure you seek

Although it is sweet

It’ll kill you.

Sooner than you think

Quicker than the years you’ve spent

Without mercy

Or repentance

It’ll kill you.

All the friends you’ve made

Will remember you as long

As long as the forgotten tragedy

As long as the taste of yesterday’s coffee

A faded memory

And that’s long enough.

Everybody has problems

Misfortunes larger than everybody else’s

Heartaches stronger than hurricanes

Pain painful than pain itself

Unknown jobs and known stories

Your friends they’ll indulge you

Only to forget their worries.

You talk about you

The person you love the most

It’s just a dull party

Where you play the host.

They’re all eating your supper and drinking your wine

Praising your picture

All the while painting masterpieces in their mind.

Tell him you quit.

Tell her she’s her.

Tell them no more.