Ambiguity

Products. These are what I am supposed to design. Things that will be used by a target set of consumers. So I will be designing cars, mixers, grinders, phones and all that for a target group, giving them form that pleases my audience, complies to their body measurements, reflecting their personalities. But who am I designing for? A bunch of people who believe that the purpose of life is to just mechanically work and enjoy the remuneration for whom products are something they can live without but think they cant? Or for people who need design but are not able to pay as they cant remunerate designers who are already addicted to the bourgeoise? I'd rather go for the latter since I am nobody and nobody according to the puppeteer is allowed to rebel against him. So 3 years down the lane, will I be still thinking the same? I dont think so. Because by then I will be somebody and somebody or the other is always there to cater to the flamboyancy of the so-called "elite design world". This thought continues to linger in my mind and I wish i was this crazy visual communication person who made films that made sense to me(nobody)and not everybody.

Nobody
c/o No one
Nowhere street

October 8th, 2007

Puppeteer
Head of the Department,
Society

Respected Son-of-a-bitch,
Sub: Response to your response to my behaviour in the society


This is in response to your response to my behaviour in the domain that fortunately or unfortunately falls under your control. Myself, Nobody, has been accused of unruly behaviour in the above mentioned domain. It is true that I had recieved a letter from an authority whom you have appointed, accusing me of having disrupted the peace of his domain and also threatening a fellow community member(Name not mentioned as I cannot pronounce motherfucker properly). With regards to this I had written an explanation, conveying my ignorance, innocence and untidiness, complying to all international and national standards of formal letter writing. The matter was dissolved sometime back when I agreed to allow intruders in an area which I thought to be my domain( which unfortunately happens to belong just to you).

The one who must not be named had a tough time after, with the intruder refusing to intrude the above mentioned space and also to vacate the earlier space. This action of the intruder(or the extruder if you have a different point of view) is totally his decision and has in no way been influenced by my ideologies and idiosyncrasies.

This brings me to my character in the web domain( which I assume you have disowned). This character did disturb the peace of the community at one point of time when he protested against a family member of his, Anonymous(gender not yet unravelled), being ousted from a certain community, which happens to be owned by a very respectable person. This was just an excuse to use words that appealed to your own society like fuck off, unclefucker, motherfucker, bastard etc. I had apologised to this "savage" act of mine later. I take this opportunity to apologise for this attitude of mine once again.

There has been only one more incident in the recent past, in which I disrupted "peace", although this time I happened to have hurt the sentiments of just one person. I happened to chat through that person's gmail account to a person who had the same name as mine(nobody). I must agree that both of us seemed to have a very enjoyable(read pissing off) time. Then after a couple of hours I happened to have a conversation with the original owner of the gmail account, during which the person happened to say,"Its me. Now the other person" even though the person intended to say"Its me. Not the other person". I do remember I had politely asked him/her to either go screw his/herself or to go and give a blowjob to the mess guy's gaslighter. I again did apologise to my alias as well as the owner of the account. But there was no reply. I request your highness to order the owner to send a reply.

These three incidents had occured due to three independent momentary lapses of reason and I strongly state that this was the result of intuition and in no way that of analysis. I do agree, that as a designer, I should have given equal weightage to both. I believe that the mere fact that I have analysed all the three incidents in detail, even though late,is as good as any other excuse to be pardoned for the nth time. If you refuse to do so, I proclaim myself an outcaste from this domain of yours, called the society, because I find myself thinking, speaking, writing and doing things that in no way comply to the society's standards very often. Hence, the power to decide whether this letter should be regarded as an apology, or an explanation or a resignation letter remains entirely in your hands.

PS: Sarcasm and puns intended in certain parts of the letter.
The feasibility of being a self-proclaiming oneself has been experimented with and proved to be effective during the test run which began at 19:25 hrs, October 8th to 21:00 hrs, October 8th and hence any attempts to test my willpower will be strongly condemned.

Yours faithfully

Nobody
Outcaste Trainee

Enslaved

Am free
No chains tying me
No blood holding me back
Nothing hammering me down
Nothing cutting off my flight
No one can enslave me
Cos Am free

Am I free?
Dont know the past's face
Dont know why am writing now
Cant recognise my future
Am controlled
Am no more what I am
Or what I want to be
I am what someone wants me to be
Just another puppet
In this mockery of some higher life
Id rather not have thought about this.

I'm not a dreamer

The rays of the evening sun invaded my room, penetrating the walls I had created. If the beurguoise could create walls around themselves neglecting the downtrodden even I could. The cobwebs that shone in the corner, the pieces of a broken glass jar, the remnants of sleepless nights and a broken past all did one thing kept out one class of people from my habitat, the ceanliness obsessed who just cannot accept that everything is constructed of the same things, a past. The dirtier it looked the more interesting it was.

I woke up from one day of slumber to the dark glory of the night. The room seemed nice. Everything seemed to live its life. Specks of dust danced in the rays, the cobwebs swayed in the breeze as the spider dared to stay on, the aroma of tobacco, burnt and burning flew around.From the comfort of the dusty rag on my bed, I got up to see a huge white screen put up in the BBC. Walked around enjoying the company of a weird roommate who could talk about things I believed in.

That was what made Basim my roommate-he could talk things and I would believe it. I could listen and he would appreciate it. I could write that down and he would appreciate. Just another wheel in this whole wheeled system of mechanical bliss.

A motion picture was soon to be screened. One drenched in cliched imagination, stereotypical love, the loser winning the girl story. Too much addicted to variety, I moved around during the film, succumbing to the temptations of the parallel world I lived in. But time is a good salesman. Two hours of the film in parts had forced me to stand still and watch till the end when the roadside Romeo would walk away with the girl. I laughed at myself for the three parallel worlds I was present in during the same point in time and how reality differed from imagination but didn't differ from constructed reality.

Soon it was time for the celestials to play their games. The notes of a certain melodramatic song from that joke of a film had just started to silence the audience. And they roared, the skies. A brief flash of blue light, puzzled looks on faces and a a sound that promised to shatter the rhythmic noise. The Romeo walked towards the girl who was wet from top to bottom, not literally but in the ideologies of the cleanliness obsessed minds of our society. That was enough. Breeze had removed its mask. it was no longer the silent gypsie who floated around kissing flowers, it was the wind that had drowned many a ship. The white piece of clothe fluttered swaying more to the rhythm of the rustling leaves than the preplanned drama. The celestials would still not stop, they sent arrows down onto the earth. The arrays of people had broken down their formations and had started running for shelter, I had started to stop laughing and started smiling. The screen flew away, hiding from a hundred man-eyes that seeked to see more of that rustic piece of entertainment.

I went down opened my arms, closed my eyes and felt the only person who would still kiss me, the rain. By the time I opened my eyes countless others had joined me in the ritual, getting wet, going back in time. I was wet, I was wandering in a sea of people, with a chilled spine and numb brain. I walked relinquishing the joy I had witnessed for that puff of tobacco that would warm me. I could see the guard at the middle gate fiddling with the register, phone and everything that was there on his table. Nothing could get wet. All were records that the system demanded in order to administer all of us with doses of discipline. All of them were wet, surrendering in the war with the celestials. Meanwhile the trees out celebrated their arrival. I smiled again.

"Everything is wet in the rain. No more signing today.", the guard said and it felt good. Then I saw my roommate. He didnt say a word, and I didnt listen. I looked in his eyes and both of us understtood. Those games that brains play and eyes watched. Some eyes refuse to look us and they dont understand but those that catch, catch it fine. "Life's not bad after all he said." Life is not bad, its not bad at all.

The whole thing had me celebrating, laughing and smiling. It was as if all the people had realized that the world was constructed and it was time to break it down, to return to the earth, to be sons of the soil, to dance in the rain and not in front of the eyes of a thousand flesh hungry mongrels who stare at faces and arms but not the flow that has caused the show,to rebuild those thoughts that had been embodied and finally hidden in a thousand clay structures that looked beautiful in isolation. I felt good and Lennon sang in my ears...

"You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one..."

These Faces

These faces...
These faces That i wore to school...
Well groomed and well bred
To pass off moments of innocence.
Those phases of ignorance.

These faces...
These faces hand-picked to my mother's taste...
Moulded in love.
Singing lullabies till moonlight.
Those phases of love.

These faces...
These faces my Father bought me
Marinated with pride.
Speaking thoughts I didnt believe in...
Those phases of pride.

These faces...
These faces that my teacher taught
The matters of the material world.
Remembering, recollecting, Never rethinking.
Those phases of bliss.

These faces...
These faces of childhood infactuation.
A battered piece of a man within.
Serenading thoughts in a black and white lake.
Those phases I thought I knew.

Those faces...
Those faces...
Faces I can wear no more.
Archaic masks of a medieval play.
Now am more.
Now I know.

Busybody

I sat at chai gate, early morning(around 11 oclock that is) still in the hangover of yesterday, smoking a cigarette, and staring at the bluish white smoke that looked as if I was setting it free and contemplating why that one-eyed man at chai gate was so nice for a change today. Some seniors(who seemed to have fallen in love with this place and vowed they would never leave here) sat opposite me. And the one eyed man sat next to me, just outside the gate, dressed typically gujju with a bright blue t-shirt which read "Desyre", tight pants which made me think his legs were imprisoned and hair combed to resemble the traffic outside, Dyed orange here and there as if some bollywood director would offer him the role of the cooling glass wearing hero in his next movie.
There was something different in him today. The guy who usually could not relent to the beurguoise concept of sending someone to get you cigarettes, asked me in a soft tone,"Bhaiyya Cigarette vigarette chahiye?" He politely took four bucks from me and came back soon with a cigarette and a cup of tea. As I sipped the cigarette and smoked the tea(maybe it should have been the other way round), this guy was running from one end of the gate to the other restlessly, as if someone had told him that if he didn't perform his dharma of serving tea, the gods would come down on earth and bash up his face to resemble a tea cup. Then he started clunging on to the gate in different postures, just like Naomi Campbell posing for a Victoria's secret promotional video. In a split of a second he was gone. Just as the thought of finding something else that was amusing to stare at came to my head, the guy came back, this time with a plastic cup. And called out for the senior and politely asked him if he wanted tea. He answered in the negative, just looking at a dozen cups around him as if he was checking if his quota was over. But Mr. Busybody would not give up. "Arrey, Chai peena yaar. Is baar maine achhe cup mein leke aaya hun." Again a negative answer and a look at the used cups. Busybody pleaded, bugged and almost told about his fear for the gods. And then one of them got up and said"Tu yahan se jaa, ya fir main chai gira dunga." Busybody looked back pleading for sympathy. "Abe subah subah dimaag mat kharaab kar yaar." The senior retorted. Busybody had enough and turned to me."Tere ko chahiye?"I looked somewhere else as if I didnt hear.
The poor guy came and sat next to me, but outside the gate silently sipping the tea. After approximately 12.5 seconds of thought I turned to him and asked "Tera naam kya hain?" He beamed and said something undecipherable. Then yesterday's grass told me it was "Pyaare laash". "Oh nice name."I said laughing inside at how technically complex the relation between his name and himself was. And that made Busybody's day. He tried to start a conversation. "Andar Ganesh aa gaya?" As I wondered which kaka in the workshop was named Ganesh, he said he was talking about the idol for Ganesh Chathurthi. "Ganesh chathurthi ko andar main hi dhol bajaatha hun. Kaam bhi karta hun, dhol bhi bajaata hun." Trying to impress me with his musical brilliance which to him was the only rival for Himesh Reshammiya. I nodded. Pulling myself out of the conversation I sat back and thought about why people try being nice once in a while. And I knew I would end up with something that Mathew or Madhusutan said. He is not him and I am not me. I have been constructed by everyone and everything. So is he and that leaves out the possibility of trying to be someone. Either you are or you are not.And what you try to be is usually contradictory to what people think about you. This fails you. And now what I am trying to say...There is no point trying to construct or determine the way our life is going to go. Its beyond our control. A dozen other factors determine it that are miles out of reach. And I guess the best way would be to let life walk its way, and we can sit back over a mug of beer and enjoy the jouisance of having that bottle in our hand.

A TRIP(Kendriya Vidyalaya Science Club Field Trip to Ramarameshwaram shrine)

I am stoned right now. What happened was that a human from a pre-human era(I love contradicting myself because I live in a world of cool media which are essentially multi-sensory and such a contradiction induces thought which involves all the senses.) came and smashed my head and splattered my brain across the floor creating images in my non-existent brain just like a friend of mine who had sort of a similar experience. Meanwhile a fat, plump and pink guy has started trying to create walls around me. Or well is he trying to break one. Oh!Well in age of empires you cant understand whether they are constructing or destructing. And with a roar, that threatens to beat thunder, the same arsehole is welcoming to a machine(Oh it must be the lathe machine, and it should be Devendar bhai who is calling me. Oh god, Is it written somewhere that if you are stoned, you should listen to this ugly fat guy from LA? The grass is greener on the other side of the joint anyways. Maybe thats why rock is cooler than a melam for me, even though my roots, my brain(again my non-existent one) and my dad prefers the latter. Now that am running out of ideas, let me roll a roadroller. 5 minutes of rolling and spilling, and then comes the fast-food joint. The perfect piece of design from the americans(who i thought thought from their arses . Well sorry they would prefer "asses")The perfect combination of a cylinder and a cone. (My maths teacher will be proud of me for that). And talking about the invaders, the Americans, if they hadn't put this image of Barbie and Sharon Stone in my mind, I would have loved my fast food joints to be more rich, roundish and fat.An implication I came upto after a lot of Mathew and Madhusutan happened to me. I love Coke and pepsi though. I hate you Uncle Sam!

18 years of sleeping on chairs, sitting on tables and attempting weird sitting positions on bicycles and bikes. But I never knew I had to always keep my backbone S-shaped. And one lousy morning when I decided to sacrifice my face and show up in class(just for a change) someone started screwing into my head that what I thought was comfortable was in fact not.

But me being the hammer, decided to hammer the screw back into that faculty's behind and sleep on the floor throughout the week and try out different letters of the alphabet instead of that stupid S that kept screwing me. ABCDEF....I tried everything out and discovered that ergonomics was actually like Math problems in which you simplified things till it was no longer interesting.

The course went on and I worked hard debating whether to complete my pending assignments or make huge posters(that can stand for lesbian and gay rights, glorify the egyptian mummies, proving that shit is good etc etc etc...(Well that was just a way to make you that I actually know much more than I actually do.) Two days before the presentation, the subject started bugging me...the benches in the BMW, the audi chairs, my lost phone and the new one, my shoes, my specs and even the shitpot. And one ordinary day I decided to take an asthmatic inhaler for my study. I went around hunting asthmatic people and made notes in the weirdest postures(This time inventing new letters instead of choosing from the 26 existing ones). Then it was the turn to explore different grips for the camera. After studying a hell of a lot of people(well 8 might sound very less but its like a million in my standards)I started my work on the presentation(this time exploring the transformation of my backbone from L to S to C to F, which is basically sitting straight and then automatically sliding down the seat till my neck was in the position of my backbone).While putting down all the valid (well this time the points were actually valid) points in my presentation, I came to know of a very sweet batchmate(sarcasm unintended) who happened to be studying a bucket. With a short questionnaire of less than a hundred questions (sorry for the exaggeration)she was apparently exploring how to attach soapboxes, mobile phones, television sets, computer monitors etc. on to the bucket. What a brilliant idea! Why didn't anyone think of it before? Then there were a lot of talk about whether you lifted a bucket while sitting or standing and whether you could compete in a marathon with a filled bucket in each hand.

Well, enough of trying to crack bokas and compete in the Great Indian Laughter Challenge. What I am saying is that we hardly see. All we have is a set of mechanical assignments which we do passively hardly knowing what we are doing. We live in the future, a world of our imagination, hardly knowing whats happening to and around us. And what I still don't understand is the hype regarding the time machines when the human brain and a bit of grass(for people who don't know how to use their brains) can translocate you to any point in space or time.

SORRY
1.For writing this
2.Killing time
3.Kicking a batchmate's behind
4.Exaggeration
5.Sarcasm
6.For not being able to help it!