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?

Oh, bollocks.

'I want a conversation.', he said. 'Nothing else.'

She didn't reply immediately. She didn't flee either, though truth be said, she looked like she wanted to. She looked at him, too many expressions fighting for precedence in her eyes for him to single out any one of them. Then she gave a shrug, not the shrug of someone giving up, but of someone resigning themselves for a drawn out fight.
'Fine.'

He sighed, and plopped down on the grass, stiff and itchy. Nevermind. He wasn't particularly in the mood for this either. But he'd asked for it. He sat and looked at a line of ants on the pavement carrying a bit of a leaf back to their queen mother, linked, as they were in comics, by the hive mind. Everybody knew everything. Boy, that would be so great. These situations would never come up. He looked back at her. She was staring into the middle distance, playing with her hair, looking supremely uncomfortable.

'What d'you want to talk about?'

Awkward silence I.

'Anything, I guess. Did you know that ants communicate by... wait, you didn't seriously expect me to sit and complete that, did you? You would've let me waste this conversation too, like all the others before it?'

'I would actually like a conversation like before. When you were happy, and we would talk about all kinds of random stuff, and laugh and i would listen to you ramble on about things that i understood neither head nor tail of.'

'Like an indulgent parent towards a particularly dense child who's just managed to memorise a nursery rhyme? How considerately condescending of you.'

The fact that he had taunted her sunk in only when he noticed the change of expression on her face. He wasn't a cheery soul, but he hadn't meant to be sarcastic. Well, not so early on, anyway. Ah, well.

'Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I was just...'

'Whatever. Its okay.'

Awkward silence II.

'All right. Enough with the mushy pseudoemotional balderdash. I can indulge my endless need for self loathing and take it out on you, but i'm bored of that. We could try to thresh out our feelings, possibly fight over inconsequential differences, and feel that we've put it behind us, but that's not going to happen, and the endless cycle of disagreement, contained resentment and subsequent release is going to lead us back to this juncture at some point anyway. So lets try something different. Think about it, tell me what's going on in that mind of yours, and we'll take it from there.'

'....'

'I take it from your blank expression that you didn't really get any of what i just said, did you?'

'No, not really.'

She was smiling now. Good. At least his rant had served the intended purpose. He meant all that he had said, though he hadn't expected her to follow any of it. Reasoning, logic and other rational arguments apparently had very little to do with conversation, and it had taken him a while to understand that, and even longer to actually put it into practice. Earlier, he would've gotten frustrated and repeated the entire thing. Now, he just made a face and smiled back, and said,

'Well, crap.'

Awkward silence III.

He got up. Stretched, and then hopped around for a while flapping his arms and saying, 'Aaaaaaaaaaargh! Fuck. Fuck! Fuck!!', before banging into a lamp post and falling to the ground, twitching spasmodically.

'What are you doing?'

'I dunno. It helps.'

'Should I give it a try?'

'Sure, why not?'

And she did the same.

'You're not getting the flapping bit quite right...'

'Oh, bollocks.'

'Okay. I'll just shut up then.'

Awkward silence IV.

They sat together, huddled against each other, and watched the sun set. It was exactly like a thousand sunsets before, and a thousand sunsets after. That didn't stop it in any way from being spectacularly beautiful, though, as a giant ball of molten gases performed perspective tricks before vanishing across the horizon for the period of half a diurnal cycle. He felt something small and warm slip into his hand, further inspection of which confirmed it to be her anatomical counterpart.

He turned towards her, and saw twin suns setting in her eyes, and resisted running away, or jumping off the terrace, or picking his nose, or any of a hundred different ways to screw up the perfect moment that a hundred insistent voices whispered to him, coyly and enticingly. He turned a deaf ear to them all and drew her closer to him.

He finally understood. They didn't need words. Or actions. Or thought. They didn't need to spend time with each other, or demonstrate their feelings in socially accepted, and commercially encouraged ways. Permanence was overrated, forever was a very long time. They were what they were, at least, for the moment. Change happened, and could either be dealt with, or not. Tomorrow might bring very different reactions to the same sunset, though the sun didn't really care about that. What happened, happened, and indulging in counterfactuals and regrets just wasted the time they had now. All this, in the span of a few minutes, at the end of which he noticed she was staring at him in a rather amused fashion. 'Wajjap?', she asked. A smile played on the corners of her lips.

'I think a fly just went up my nose', he said. And sneezed.

Staccato.

The sun. Now orange. Now red. Blazing. Iridescent. Portentous. Humbling. Setting.

Its reflection. His eyes. His face. Stubble. A tear. Salty to taste. The sea. The waves. Little boat on the horizon. Bobbing.

The breeze. The smell of fish. The taste of salt. Of memories. Bygones. Possibilities.

The seagulls. Fly. Glide. Circle. Fish. Dip. Miss. Dip. Catch. Eat.

Rocks. Vein-encrusted. Tidebreakers. Sturdy. Stolid. Weathered. Worn.

Clouds. Contrast. Shapes. Of wishes. Of dreams. Drift away.

'I want to...'

Thoughts. Fragmented. Splintered. Incoherent. Looking. Searching. Lost trains.

Life. Meaning. None. Journey. Pointless. Goal. Unattainable. Game. Whose? Mine. Yours. His? Whose? Somebody. Nobody.

Beautiful? No.

Interesting? Yes.

Spectacles. Opaque. Coulombic. Not inverse. Mundane. Nontrivial. Together. Simple. Lies. Random. Words. Strung. Together. A theory. An explanation. A fact. Contrast. A rationalization. Expectations. Reality.

He sat and thought. For a way to put his thoughts into words. Of any form, in any language. Words. Powerful. Meaningless. Powerless. Wise. Such...., such that it allowed his wandering, traipsing mind to express all kinds of eloquent trivialities, but fell short when he wanted to speak of what mattered.

But what mattered? Initiate cycle. Success? Meaningless. Company? Temporary. Love? No, not that. Freedom? Self imposed. Self declared. Semantics. Life? Not being dead? Achievments? Individual. Meaningless. History? Stories. Depend on the storyteller. Peace? Wishful thinking. Happiness? Too hard. Satisfaction? To whom. Self. How? Success? Full circle. No answers.

He sat and watched the sun set, a reflected fire burning in his hollowed eyes as the incandescent ball ducked below the skyline with deceptive quickness, the lights in his eyes flickering with the stormy sea before they, too, went out altogether, leaving the burnt out husk of what once had possibly been a great man. Softly, he sang to the wind, as they carried the quiet words away,

'Don't take away my shine, my shine is all i have...'

Viewpoint.

In the morning, they both didn't feel like writing the exam. 
She thought, 'I'm set. I don't need to write this.' 
He thought, 'I'm screwed anyway. What's the use?'

Meaning

The search is endless.
The path fruitless.
The goal uncertain.
And yet we look.

An incomplete theorem.
An unfinished painting.
An abandoned building.
You stare at them.
They stare back.
And yet we look.

We search for the one.
In crowds so big.
Not knowing, not believing.
Not accepting. Nor stopping.
Life goes by, and I grow old.
And yet we look.

The wisdom of the ancients,
Know thyself, it says.
'What's the point?' we ask.
Ignorance is bliss.
And yet we look.

The universe builds on singularities,
Asymmetric, warped, like desire.
Like will, like logic, like love or pain,
We know not the solution,
Or even if it can be solved.
Unprovable, axiomatic, it lies,
The fruit, in itself, the seed.
And yet we look.

Love, loss, wisdom, pain.
Zero sum, zero gain.
Sometimes a bit high, then low.
From dust to dust, we come, we go.
And yet, we look.
For meaning.

Descent to mediocrity

The thing with beauty; true, untarnished beauty, resplendent in its own glory,is that she can not be appreciated fully by the mediocre, and doesn't care a damn about it. Whereas the truly perfect is naught but an abomination, bringing destruction upon itself and its maker, in the manner of Athena and Arachne, beauty, as humans perceive it, is chaotic, mesmerizing in its asymmetry, which, while not immediately apparent, forms an inherent feature of its appeal.

The mystery also plays a part. We have always been intrigued, awed, frightened by that what we do not know. Figaro, yes. The arms of the Venus de Milo. Mona Lisa's enigmatic half smile. The crescendo that a concerto rises up to, the percussion beating against our hearts, synchronous in its solid thump, the strings quivering in its high notes, vacillating between ecstasy and torment, while our body responds in a thousand different ways to what we do not understand. The slow rise, followed by the near deafening music, yes, music, not noise, and ye unfaithful be damned. The rapture of rhapsody, the untold words of  a picture, the primal attraction of a dance, they speak to the soul, insofar as one exists, in tones of exquisite sensitivity, in a language made up in equal parts of thoughts and silence.

But this isn't for the mediocre. No, the mediocre have been cursed, to live in this world, of unparalleled beauty and unequaled horror, and yet, to go through life, either content in their ignorance, or suffering in the eternal torment of yearning to listen, not hear. To surrender, not understand. In the manner of birds that want to take to the sky, they wish to fly where others shamble along the ground, not looking up, and yet their wings are clipped. And so they live, nudging and shoving, fighting petty squabbles, concerning themselves with trivialities, wishing, but not truly knowing what they're wishing for.

The only thing that is worse, pain beyond all measure, that drives one to the brink of a cliff of sanity, then pushes them off, is the pain of those who have risen above the rest, who have seen, and heard, and felt, something that touched their souls and changed them forever, but lose their ability, either by quirk of a fickle fate, or the premeditated malodorocities of malcontents, and are, like Icarus, thrown down to the ground to live with the heathen, the hoi polloi, to have their thoughts drowned out by the incessant meaningless chatter that is the vox populi. Their silent screams rend the fabric of their existence, in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to push themselves off the ground, to push off themselves the chains of an uncreative gravity that binds them to the maximal plane of the many.

What kind of a life is that?

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.