Baboon Logic

I have realised that no matter how much I fret about it, I am never going to be that regular a writer. Life simply isn’t that inspiring all the time. I have realised that I’ll always write in short and intense spans punctured by arbitrary lulls. That is how I have written so far.

Eliminating the sporadic ones, I see that all the posts fall into two bunches marking my most prolific phases. The first two seasons.

This post marks the beginning of the third.

This is a hasty and (hence) condensed post about writers of literary fiction. Or may be not.

There are two kinds of novice writers of prose. Those who start out as narcissists and those who are too aware of their narcissism, and smart enough to keep it out of their prose.

These smart folk never make it as writers. They wouldn’t be able to make it as writers even if they meant to. Prose can never have a life of its own, so the writer must put some of his own into it. Those who are too conscious and afraid of the judgment of others (audience?) shy away from it and their work is little more than dry wit and may be a few insights. Anything more than a few pages long will tire the reader out.

Ah, but then, isn’t it the job of the writer to be aware of how his work will be judged and evaluated and manipulate it? Yes. Awareness makes some people empowered and some others handicapped.

Then is it the other lot, the ones running wild and free with their self-indulgence, who make it as writers?

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In the ideal world, everyone would accept my testimonials. But as reported by a multitude of pompous philosophers, poets, writers and at least one famous mathematician, this world is far from perfect, and we must turn to this explanation when one considers the fact that practically all of my testimonials get turned down on an hourly basis. It is to preserve them for posterity that I post them here, and here is the latest.

This one is actually a song, to be sung along the tunes of “I am a vampire” by Antsy Pants (Juno fans will remember this). Please note that it wasn’t supposed to be funny. And I am not saying it wasn’t supposed to be funny in order to cover up my theoretical and highly debatable crude sense of humour by an acute awareness of it.

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Disclaimers:
1) Before my boredom takes over, I want to make clear that Ghajini is a decent time pass (I’ll list the USPs at the end of this post).
2) This contains a rough overview of the plot that can spoil the movie for you. There are some specifics of some scenes too.

Putting Ghajini into a genre

Ghajini is not Memento. Ghajini is the boy-meets-girl (and falls in love) story followed by boy-avenges-girl’s death rant. The non-linear unfolding of the narrative is superfluous because there is no surprise in the story and because it doesn’t serve any purpose except for tightening the pace. It’s a different movie altogether, with a different focus and a different niche, and it is entirely unnecessary to keep Memento in mind when thinking of it.

Ghajini is not Bollywood either. It has been reworked to Mumbai, but the screenplay wouldn’t have made much sense without its Southie (I think it’s called Kollywood!) motifs. For example, Asin plays the typical innocent bubbly girl with attractive simplicity (real life bimbo made larger than life on screen!). Obviously this is a character done to death in Bollywood, but they do it with a different kind of sensibility in South which you can see in this movie. The Goody Two-Shoes-ness of Asin might thus be a little jarring to the rest of India, but I am sure they will enjoy the bit where Aamir Khan subconsciously learns to drink tea in a pedestrian manner from her.

Ghajini is Kollywood in Bollywood clothes with the addition of Aamir Khan. It’s almost a scene by scene remake of the original except for a better paced and politically correct (or may be I should say cinematically correct!) ending.

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At the onset of his madness, Philip K Dick remarks on the protagonist of his loosely autobiographical novel VALIS (a novel that is at once brilliant and tedious, capturing the essence of Dick’s madness) that he could be happy only because he was perpetually occluded to what was to come, to his own future and to the consequences of his own actions!

That is how I see myself now. I am at the brink of losing my oldest friend. Even if he survives this, the severe strain our friendship has suffered will resolve itself to some terrible conclusion over time, and I can find happiness for the time being only in my incapacity to see ahead into the bleak future.

We can barely look at each other now in the guilty knowledge of what we have done together, and yet, that fateful evening began in the most promising manner.

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Finally I own a copy of Lolita.

When we were buying books for the Library in Chennai, I had looked around for a cheap edition of Lolita. We bought one for the library, of course, but I had wanted one for myself, but there were no cheap Indian editions.

Today waiting for someone, I decided to browse a book store I frequent, a book store now which I like more because it was a very small part of the only lunch date I have ever been to, and there I spotted an edition of Lolita by Penguin. Don’t imagine the ones with glossy covers. This one has the classical green and white Penguin cover and cheap brownish paper inside. But it’s worth it. The typeface is good with sharp contrast between the text and background paper and is something I would not mind looking often at.

Only yesterday I had to borrow two short phrases from the book and had wished I could sink into the first few pages of it. Today I have the book, but the mood is not there! This is what having a girl friend does to you. It replaces your lousy loser of a world full of all sorts of abstract crap with real life experiences so that you don’t have to turn to books to feel that you are alive!

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So I talked to The Wise One just now, and he had a few comments to offer. And one of them summed up my present state of mind neatly and very accurately - love seems to have replaced my clarity of vision and the blur of a perspective with a blur of vision and clarity of perspective!

I couldn’t agree more! And then I said that love seems like bipolar disorder, to sum up everything that he didn’t sum up. :)

Everyone who learns that I’m “open” to seeing a girl (not everyone is as well informed as my blog readers :)) has advice to offer, and more often than not, it is useless and weird.

My brother thought I was dating a guy until very recently.

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For the first time in years, I don’t miss Anshul all that much! And anyone who has seen me writing in all this time will realise that for the first time I am also writing in a somewhat personal way. I don’t have to hide behind the alternate details I usually make up for my life, I don’t have to entertain anyone! For the first time, I don’t mind being myself, unafraid of the banalities and unafraid of the judgements. Anshul will spot this, I think.

Ah, but then I might be deluding myself. :)

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