Writers' blok #2: The Turing Massacre

A recent find during a rather barren and desperate troll of the internet happened to catch my flickering interest by saying, and here I quote, 'All stories can be boiled down to the following: A wants B but can’t have it because of C. or, put simply: Character + Desire + Conflict = Story'.

I sat and stared at it for a while, dumbly, pondering the implications of what lay before me, either a stroke of pure genius, or [resists the urge to make a monkey on crack comment, those're getting too old] a colossally stupid generalisation.

But why was I so hung up on which one it was? Sure, it might be true. But is that all there was to a story? I mean, sure, a whole lot of tales fit that description. But did that mean that this was the turing machine of storytelling? Regardless of its accuracy, in this age of tinpot self-styled writers and two-bit blog-owners, [yes, i can see the irony of that statement] of wannabe hacks and camera-phone journalists, of bestsellers on self-help and sex for dummies, what happens when we simplify fiction to nothing more than a mix-and-match equation?

No, i'm not answering that.

Instead, let me present my argument in this manner. Writing's a lot of things to a lot of people.

For some, its an outlet. A way to express themselves, either publicly, in a blog, or the letters column of a newspaper, or by printing ten thousand copies of your rant, accompanied by a photocopy of your buttocks, and scattering it off the top of the tallest building in the neighbourhood, shouting 'suck it, bitches!', or privately, in the confines of a diary or, for the less speculative, a journal.

For others, its a means to an end. To tell a story, to make a hypothesis concrete, or to communicate a sentiment too complicated, cumbersome or tedious to do by speech, or a 160 character message.

But for writers, its more than that. Its muscle and bone. Its that precious motorcycle, that well worn pair of jeans, that scratchy fountain pen, that battered camera, and a whole lot of other things, that you can't help but love. It is something to use, to exercise, to hone, to repair and service, with sweat and blood and oil and polish, to patch and mend, to refill whenever it runs dry, to develop over time.

And when writers write stories, it could be to flesh out an idea, or to develop some characters. It could be just because they need to make money, or because they can find nothing better to do with their time. It can be because they are inspired by something they saw, or heard, or someone they held. It could be to prove a point, or illustrate a moral. It could be because they want to immortalise the beauty of their homeland, their culture, their language. It could be because they can make people smile and laugh, to give them hope, or because they like to thrill and seduce. It could be just because they want to use 'Smite thee, foul creature!',  'Return from the wretched pits from whence you came.' and 'Oooh, talking cat!' in the same conversation.

And then it strikes me, that even though a story's essence may be decomposed into something a third grader can bluff his way through [you wouldn't believe how smart some third graders are these days] it takes something more to make an epic an epic. [cheesy as this may sound] It needs a soul. Not in the whispering-fairies and santa-is-real manner, but rather in a i-don't-know-what-but-i-refuse-to-believe-just-anyone-can-become-a-writer-so-i-make-a-requirement-that-can-not-be-seen-or-measured-or-quantified sort of way. But the more i think about it, the better it fits. Some writers use dry humour. Some create entire worlds and languages. Some use suspense to race the plot, others use the morbid fascination of  horror, yet others use an overactive imagination aided by science, or magic, or well, dragons that shoot laser beams from their eyes. And like blends of coffee, each one has its own taste.

So, tough as it may be to digest, the Turing machine does work, in principle. In practice, well, go on and write your story. I'll just grin and set fire to your manuscript, fill your pen with invisible ink, format your hard drive and fill it with porn involving nothing but flies, smash your keyboard with a baseball bat, scatter your notes across multiple space-time dimensions, feed your ideas to the pigeons and watch them suffocate on their own smugness, and toss your shiny new typewriter out of the window and finally, take the one remaining copy of your story and read it to your target audience, who will, doubtlessly, then join me in the extremely enjoyable activity of laughing at you.

Just awesome, ainnit?

Four shots

'Its more fun headbanging when you have long hair.', she says. A grin, bordering on maniacal, lights up her expressive features, cast into sharp relief by the flickering lights, before turning away again. Her body moves in perfect synchrony with the music. The light streaming through the volatile tangle of her hair frames a halo around her head.

I look at the stage, the crowd, feel the heady, inebriating atmosphere, laden with notes resounding and notes unsaid, with memories of laughing with good companions, of better times, of times alone, memories, some real and some false, of how it was, and how it could have been, of concerts past, and pubs, and singing off-note in the middle o' the street in the middle o' the night, of celebrations and consolations, of unexpected achievements and bitter disappointments, of melodies, moods and moshpits. As the music lifts me up, jerks me around, and clouds my vision, and invites me down a path I'm intimately familiar with, I let myself go.

----------------------------------------------First shot.----------------------------------------------

We sit at the restaurant, the sole guitarist plays jazz, a saxophonist beside complementing him, both of them going off into odd little solos in the middle, while the other one, with impeccable timing, drops into the role of the rhythm, both of them keeping the beat without the aid of any percussion, a telltale tapping of the feet all that shows the effort behind mastery.

Utterly mesmerised, we watch the tight pair, our drinks untouched, as they go on playing, in their own world, unhurried by the whirl of life moving half tilt, full paced, around them, drawing all of us along with them with the gentle tug of their music. I notice an elephant outside the window, deeply in thought as it listens to the performance. As the piece comes to a close, it trumpets. The time blurs, I jump again.

----------------------------------------------Just getting started.----------------------------------------------

'Breathe out into my mouth', the dude with the badge. I start, involuntarily, and step back. I've been standing in a line so long that temples had begun to sit up and take notice. All right, maybe not that long, but conventional virtues like patience had long since been worn to nonexistence in our quixotic crusade for international music, tinged with uncertainty of whether the promised land shall indeed be ours, and expectations shall be lived up to.

The fans that were initially so full of eager talk of past concerts, the foreign ones especially inexperienced of indian lines, have sullenly retreated into their music players, as the opening bands start their performance for the night, and heads jerk up. It appears as if the organisers have taken a note or two from the temples after all, as a television streams proceedings from the inner sanctum. Everyone crowds towards the entrance, and they finally start letting people in, but if you thought this was the start of something beautiful, then think again..

'I'm sorry, what?' I'm still taken aback.
'Breathe. You are drunk. I know.'
Me? A strict teetotaler, and drunk? How dare he? All right, I need to bluff now. Think, think.
'I've got a nasty cold. You know, red eyes, runny nose. You don't want it.'
This point seems to strike home. His resolution of my inebriation seems to waver. 'But you are drunk?'
'Nothing but cough syrup, bhai.'
The crowd from behind is pushing and jostling, and somehow this lends credence to my sincerity.
'Ok, ok. Go.'
In as close to a straight line as i can manage, i walk in, triumphant. The band up on stage performs a drumroll in my honour. I bow, to nobody in particular. I decline a joint from a passing acquaintance, for the time in the line has made us like brothers, and run up to the front, as much as i can manage. The scene changes, the time changes, with the song drawing to a close, to the dawn of a new day.

----------------------------------------------Second shot.----------------------------------------------

The bass starts the set. The guitars cry out, wail, scream, sing, and carry you through a bewildering multitude of vicarious emotions. I'm on my toes one moment, and on the ground the next. The crowd sways gently with the music, as the undercurrents in the music translate themselves into a surge of emotional release. Mobile phones and cameras light up the backs of the sea of heads. The set grows tight, leading up to the highlights.

The tempo increases gradually, the band does not speak much, it does not need to. The beat grows erratic, true to its progressive genre, and suddenly the calm crowd loses its serenity, its sync. Two concerts merge into one as the song gives way to a rougher tone, choppy and forceful, as the crowd begins to push and shove. Gentle nudges push aside the more passive observers as a rough circle begins to form in front of the barricade. Some people are already in there, their heads going up and down, fists clenched, oblivious to their surroundings. I stumble forward, my head dipping and weaving, and come to a stand, feet spread apart, From outside the circle, a form hurtles, clad in a metal t-shirt, and tackles one of the headbangers with his shoulder, rocking him around, and he responds in kind, a lining of people now separates the emerging pit from the outside, and tries to make sure that there are no unwilling participants. The pit is violent in its absorption, people push and get pushed back, fall down, and get right back up, the music being the sole object, perception overloaded to an extent that nothing else matters. The master of puppets increases the tempo to a climax, and slowly brings the song to an end, wherupon the enervated moshers gather their wits upon them, and raise their hands in the only salute that the situation demands.

The next song is smoother, softer, like the caress of a lover after the more passionate lovemaking has come to a sated close.He leads up to the solo, the crowd is awed. I am awed. I remember the solo that followed, but not much else. The lights psychedelic. The sound refined to a point where it cuts you like a finely honed rapier, leaves you utterly drained after the song. 'so now where?'

The lilting melody of the opening riff of Trains lifts you off, into utter bliss. You do not talk, you aren't capable of it. Your eyes are open. Or maybe they're closed. This experience is as ephemeral as an out of body experience now. You cycle through emotions you didn't think you were capable of. You reach dizzying heights of elation, then abjectly feel depressed, not knowing the source of your grief. you pine for the love of your life, or not. You sing along. You stumble forward, and realise you have a foot, on the ground, at that. You're a bit surprised. They start playing the interlude. The crowd's clapping, en masse. You look up, and find that you're clapping too.

----------------------------------------------*Hic, where were we?----------------------------------------------

It finally takes a jam session to get us started. Us of the timeless continuum of music. The keys go wild, bodomlike, the guitar acoustic plays ubiquitous. Silence reigns as a drum solo is attempted, and pulled off. For a moment there is silence, a warm, anticipatory silence, waiting for the first notes to float in the air. And it begins. Albeit a few dozen hours late, thank the soundcheck, not that they're to be blamed. Its a day of firsts. The small enclosure is packed, well, as packed as it gets.

The tracklist warms up slowly, with the food stalls demanding a desultory visit in the space between two songs, or one that isn't a personal favourite. As the evening progresses, and some metal finds its way into the audience's ears, a lone wolf goes to the centre, and begins to headbang, unmindful, unheeding of the eyes 'pon his back. Emboldened by his misplaced bravado, some more go and join in, and soon enough, the spiral does its work, and the whole place is a raucous, stoned, motley of jumbled bodies, arms around each others shoulders, as a single organism that breathes to the sound of the music, including the ones in front of, and indeed, around the players themselves, who are as much a part of it as the audience is.

As the song comes to an end, and the encore after that, the sweaty, pulsating, out-of-breath revelers disentangle themselves, and settle down on the grass for the ending credits.

----------------------------------------------I think i losht count..----------------------------------------------

Its chilly, and depite the warm clothing, there's a nip in the air. We rub our arms as the band, if, indeed you could call them that, for they're no more than schoolkids, frankly, get up on the small platform that serves as stage, and strap their guitars into the tangle of wires that seemingly impossibly leads to the assortment of old speakers behind the stage, the whole setup looking as if borrowed from the scrappers for the night, the ancient stage oddly at odds with the youth of the performers.

The kids start with style, they might not know tricks to woo the audience, or using the lights, but they know their stuff. They start with covers from the golden ages of classic rock, and go on from there, and most of the crowd hums along, the young, the old, the street peddlers, the cap sellers, and the little furry dog that always seems to turn up at these gatherings.

----------------------------------------------Third shot.----------------------------------------------

A concert in the land of cheap booze, I had thought. Why not? How bad can it be? And here we were, on a beach, a bottle in our hands, singing the chorus of Hey Jude. I try to recall what had happened in the evening, and skip back a few hours.

I'm at the entrance to the venue where the gig's at. I notice a few people sneaking into the stage from under the barricades without paying the customary tipple for entry, and full of righteous indignation, I approach the authorities, who show me the error of my ways, and the beauty of being in a miniature utopia like this,'Dude, look. If they're desperate enough to sneak in from under the barricades, then they deserve not to pay the entry fee. Chill, enjoy the show. Have a beer.' There are couples sitting on the grass, and a gathering crowd near the stage, the music is folksy, but not quite. It has a bit of rock in it, and a bit of jazz, and a whole lot of interesting stuff that the mind ventures to identify. Sitting down, standing up, that day, this morning, the tune is catchy, infectious. With a start, you realise that you're singing the lyrics of the song, a minute earlier you didn't even know you knew them.  The first band's a three piece instrumental affair, with the drummer supplying the occasional vocals. But its the second, who come on stage and blow everyone away. Who knew so much could happen with three guys and a quart-er?

----------------------------------------------I swear i'm not high.----------------------------------------------

I seem to have landed back in the present. As the blurry shapes resolve themselves, I realise, that the frontman's climbed up the scaffolding. A solo of epic proportions is going on, so much as to seem a jam, laying bare the essence of their unique style as a band.

----------------------------------------------Panic.----------------------------------------------

The band bows and walks off stage, before the crowd has time to react. A collective gasp. Hushed whispers, are they coming back? They can not be done so soon. They're yet to perform their big ones. Or do they not intend to do it at all? Is it really over? The collective cranes its necks to look at the stage, to see if they've missed anything, imploring it, in its blankness, to reassure them that its not over yet. Everyone's on their feet, and crowding near the stage. At the height of the suspense, they walk back, without a word, pick up their instruments, and start. You discover that the world spins. In addition, it also rocks. Hard.

----------------------------------------------Fourth shot.----------------------------------------------

There is a pause. The silence is defeaning. You close your eyes. A single note is played, it hangs in the air, as if unable to fade away. Another joins it. And one more. The crowd goes wild. The song finishes, but its not over yet. The band'll play halo next. You skip back to the present, as someone collides into you.

I'm tired. Bands, artists, entire philharmonics have rendered their performances, and it goes on. And at that one point, your head heavy, feet leaden, your neck stiff, the drummer caresses the hi-hat with a drumstick, and the bassist slaps his thing. The beat worms its way into your consciousness. You know this song, even if you don't. The music starts again, and you forget the heaviness, the regrets, the burdens of mortality and its attendant worries, as your body resonates to the rhythm of the song. All concerts are same, and different. The good ones, the bad ones, the small ones, the large ones. The ones playing metal, and the ones playing jazz. The sophisticated functions, and the hippie gatherings. They call out in you that primal component that has remained dormant under eons of evolution, and yet reaches out to the furthest tendrils of your sensibilities. Everyone is in their own personal universe, and connected to everyone else at the same time. In that one moment, music transcends genre, region, and indeed, time itself.

Its a little past six in the morning, and I can barely stand. I look around at familiar faces, all of them worn out, all of them content. As the first rays of the sun reach the stage from the distant horizon, the band plays Fear of the Dark.

----------------------------------------------

'thank you so much, we had a wonderful time playing for you guys.'

This extended rant is essentially incomplete, taken from my experiences at the concerts of the past four years. all resemblances are intended,
Dedicated to her, who happened to utter the line that got this article started.

Sometimes you get your wish

      'I'm bored of being depressed.', he said, grinning. 

The crowd paid him no attention whatsoever.

      'I'm going to get my life into whack. Straighten out my messes. Dust the cobwebs off those brains.', he persevered.

The crowd continued its demanding task of doing nothing at all. A small argument broke out between two card players, who had realised that the other had been cheating since the start of the game, six games ago.

      'I'm not joking this time...', he said, to nobody particular but the entire populace in general.

The crowd ignored him pointedly, like fungus-on-the-wall. The small argument had started to show all the signs of a not-exactly-sunny nature combined with a bad hangover. In anticipation, money on tables was being pocketed, tabs were being settled, floors were being cleared. 

The card players had pushed their chairs back, and engaged each other in a staring contest. The bargirl, shotgun in hand, was flirting with a douchebag who, oddly enough, happened to be dressed like a cowboy. The entire pub's attention inconspicously centred on the card-table, in the manner where nobody dares to look, yet everyone's watching from the corner of their eye. 

A silence reigned. In the reigning silence, a single fly buzzed over the polished surface of the bar, until someone thoughtfully swatted it with a beer mug. Silence reigned again.

      'Now look, young man, i'm talking here...'

Suddenly, he had the entire pub's attention. The two players advanced truculently, flanking him on either side. 'Whaddya want, twerp?', one of them ventured, in tones of carefully cultured menace. 

      'Er, forget it. I don't think you'd get it anyway.'

'Try us.'

Fakebook Wisdom

timestamp: 10:33pm 20 Jun 2012
title: Fakebook wisdom.


The internet is the mother of all lies, and the social network popularly, and unpopularly known as facebook, is its lovechild. It is the gorgeous, ravenous, filthy, irresistible creature that grabs you by the neck and shakes you till you're to dazed to do coherently think of anything else. Most of you agree with this. To the people who think this is utterly, completely wrong, facebook is a website that you make an account on, and sit and wonder what to do, because you have no friends. Not even artificial, grown-on-the-pot ones. And to people who don't know what facebook is, well, its just one of the things 'this arrogant new generation' chooses to drug itself with.


Well as far as introductions go, i'm not sitting here to do PR, so you'll have to make do with that much. And if you need more, for god's sake just Google it. (Ah, Google, another of the net's lovespawn, but I'll come back to privacy infringement another time. I'm afraid you'll have to wait.) And as it stands, i can't afford to sit and write about facebook as a whole. There's simbly (imagine a Malayali accent) too much to cover. I won't be touching on how good, or bad, a publicity agent it has turned out to be, nor the meme culture, because that's way older than an upstart like fb, not the pron groups, or the hate groups, or the i-am-a-depressed-goth-kid-who-would-like-to-be-alone-because-nobody-cares groups, because by definition, those shouldn't exist, and as for those of you who post the pouted-lips-short-skirted-self-shots, you just wait, i'm getting my whores-of-babylon column ready. Today's just about those small snippets of valuable knowledge that fb-users so liberally dispense, in the manner of a monarch distributing his largesse among the needy crowds.

The world's grown smaller, and there's a new set of cool people in town. The new set needs new rules. It goes by a new dress code, one apparently aimed at uniformity across the globe. It has a new language, where messages are shortened, unnecessary vowels cast aside like vestigial appendices, and flowery turn of phrase scorned in the manner of the black plague. But above all this, it has a new playground. A social one, a virtual one, where the players and occupants learn the wisdom that will serve them for the rest of their life.


What better way to illustrate this than with stuff straight from the source, the spring of perpetual horniness, er, knowledge. Let's start with everyone's favourite, relationship advice, 'Son, someday you'll make a girl very happy, for a short period of time. Then she'll leave you and be with new men who're ten times better than you could ever hope to be. These men are called musicians.' or, 'Dear god, please turn me into an asshole so that i can be attractive to women.' or, 'friends are like potatoes. when you eat them, they die'. Moving on to ethics and conduct, we have, 'why kill them with kindness when you can use a hammer?', 'smile, listen, agree, and then do whatever the fuck you wanted to do anyway..'(Robert Downey jr), and a billion others. On every conceivable topic.


It takes all kinds to make a world. Some are doubtful in nature, some are misleading, some are blatantly false. These, i need not go into, it comprises most of what's out there. Some are political, ''First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.'(for Anna Hazare)', some are aimed at pop culture, 'i think lady gaga just puts glue on herself and rolls around in random items'(Orlando Bloom), and others at religion, 'Retards. We all know one'. Some are lame, 'wanna know what makes me smile? face muscles.', some are corny, 'birthdays are good for health. studies have shown that people who have more birthdays live longer.', and some, plain crazy, 'the ocean gets its saltiness from the tears of misunderstood sharks who just want to cuddle.'. Some turn up the corners of your mouth in a wry grin, 'destroy racism. be like a panda. he's black, he's white, he's asian and he's chubby.', some are so true they leave you feeling awkward 'the moment when you have so much shit to do, you decide to take a nap instead.', and some are truly inspiring, 'the important thing is not to stop questioning. curiosity has its own reason for existing.'(Einstein).

For a generation that increasingly seems to display the average attention span of a baboon on shrooms with a rectal infection (or, as i've been told, Bill Clinton), the only true knowledge is that which can be summarised in a hundred and sixty characters. That being said, there still remains the minority of the populace (this being you and other similar minded people who could at the very least read this entire column) who appreciate that there just may be more to it than that. Look for it, that elusive bit that completes the picture, that goes beyond the 'lol' that etches itself on to your keyboard after a funny message, the bit that makes sense. It lies just beyond the page.

You don't need to leave facebook and exile yourself to a cave in the misty mountains. You don't need to go on a world-changing-candle-march demanding that facebook make sense. All i ask, is that, at least some of the time, use your brains.

Writers' blok #1: It writes once again.

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