He's like the Indian Batman, only better. DOGA

Now I don't know how many of you know this but Doga is one of the coolest (anti)heroes ever. Yes, he's Indian. Yes, he has a secret identity. Yes, he doesn't respect the law and yes, he stands up for the poor and the weak.
Did you know, Doga's real name is Suraj? Khee-khee.

I read Doga for the first time when I was in the fourth grade. I came up with this brilliant idea that all of us from the neighborhood would hold a weekly library at our houses and the others would pick a book (or more) and return them in the following week (or re-issue it).
[Side note: Yeah, I was always cool.]

The plan was almost a success except that most parents started seeing this as a burden. Lots of kids in their house creating a ruckus, touching things, eating biscuits, spilling drinks and you know, so it ended pretty soon. Also, we wanted to play more. Get some exercising done. Less hassle.
I don't know if this is something my friends remember and agree if this was a cool thing to do but I owe it to this idea most of the things I know about Indian comic books.
As a child, I was born in the times (90s) when every household had a television so obviously, I wasn't much into reading. Unlike my brother, who started reading comic books before he was even four, I didn't start until much later.
Going back to the story, almost everything I know about Indian comic books, I owe to the childish idea of holding a weekly library. One of my friend's brothers was into comics and when she held the library at her place, I was fascinated by all those drawings and all those speech bubbles. After the first week itself, I realised issuing/borrowing a couple of books for a whole week was a bad idea. I needed more. Also, I needed things to keep me busy and to help me put off my holiday home-work forever (that shit really sucked).
I started borrowing more and more comic books from my friend. That's how I read a lot of Raj Comics' stuff like Super Commando Dhruv, Nagraj, Bankelal, Hindi translations of The Phantom, Mandrake and even Archie (amongst many more obscure comic books). Chacha Chaudhary, Pinki-Billoo and those kind of things were my old friends and regular fillers.
I cannot stress enough how much I enjoyed reading Doga but I also knew I was more attracted to finishing off stuff like Bankelal which was pure humor. After the library thing ended, all of us stopped borrowing books and so did I. I had to finally get down to that holiday home-work and Dexter's Laboratory and you know, sleeping and bugging my brother and so I never really got to reading Doga extensively.
However, I now have a good news. I got an internship a couple of months ago and I get paid (that's not the good news). I have decided to either waste the money or invest it. The first time around, I decided on semi-wastage and semi-investment which is why I bought a coffee maker. The second time around, I decided on a complete and foolish wastage and that's how I ended up with some new clothes and this time, a brilliant investment. I bought the entire collection of Doga comics online.
The package just arrived today and I am happy.

Also, I got a huge Doga poster as free gift. Yey-hey!

Uh yeah, this is (not so) unusual.

Now I know this blog has a certain image to it.
It talks about shit and all kinds of it.
I am also aware that I don't address issues. Important ones or the more important ones that have Rakhi Sawant in them.
I also know that that what I am going to talk about in the next few lines is of zero importance when you look at the big picture but I am going to do it anyway.

What happened on the 16th of December in our country's capital, New Delhi was sad. Sad beyond belief. There are several reports on rape and assault making some news every other day. What I am trying to say is, my feelings on the issue is merely a result of the hyper activity among the media, social activists, politicians and to put it bluntly, the mob.

Since I happen to be a person who prefers watching Thappad Padega Henry/Bas Karo Henry on Cartoon Network or Naseeb Apna Apna on Zee Cinema, what happens in the country, what happens of the popular opinion on the most popular current affair, the latest reason for the awakening of our nation and its people and all those kinds of things mostly doesn't affect me. Why? Well, I am not here to give justifications for my inability to feel for everyone and everything.

The thing is, this is not supposed to be a post where I say something profound or share a new vision or criticize the social media, comment on the people who wish for the rapists to be castrated or say as much as a word against the women's liberation activists who seem to be capitalising the situation well enough or anything about the law enforcement issues in our country and the inevitable politics that comes along with all of this. I will not comment on the the social barriers between men and women in our society, how this whole thing has somehow become a supposedly complicated and philosophical question that addresses the age old arguments on women v/s men, how everyone is fucked by the language they speak, how women are protesting saying "police ko apne haath mein choodiyaan pehen leni chaahiye", not realising that if they stand for equality, they are just not doing it right. I will not even try to figure out why women want to be treated as equals in the way the word equal means but make it a big deal when the police beats them with sticks much like they beat the other male protestors. I watch people rant without knowing what they are ranting about. I don't use the word 'mob' because those who are aware of what it means get offended. The internet has become a grand theater these days. Very rapidly everyone's Facebook picture is changing into black dots and more rapidly it is changing back into beautiful pictures of themselves in designer clothes that they could just not resist showing off. Ignorance is a strong trait in us. As disappointing this whole situation is and no matter how ridiculous everyone appears over the internet, most people just don't care to think. They are raged by something obviously hideous that happened a few days ago. I see people quoting various newspapers and magazines and putting it up as their status message telling others to copy the same message and demand capital punishment for the rapists. They don't understand that screaming off over the internet is only good enough to be used as a sub-sub-sub-sub story in a one hour argument on NDTV that has a quirky, opinionated news commentator (rather than a new reporter) playing judge for the arguments exchanged between four feminazi women seated in the studio and one minister representing the government, over the phone. People don't really care and somehow, they just do. It all just goes down to what's fresh and what's latest. Is it your birthday, the best day of your life, the day Sachin got retired, the day before Christmas, Christmas, the day you went out on the streets with thousands of others with a candle in your hand, the day you argued we should hang perverts by law, the day a girl got physically used by six men, the day her friend got beaten up for trying to save her?

The black dots just come and go. It doesn't matter. Sad.


PS: This gives this blog a new label- When I am Serious.

नंगू

Start From Scratch.. Or Not!

Yeah, I am back and I shall write.



I have been busy as hell the past one year dealing with a really 'professional' student life offered by the institute I am currently enrolled in. Yet again and like every other year, I pray I pass gracefully or, with grace marks.. whichever suits the teachers.

I have also shut down my Facebook page in order to flee from difficult folks, useless communication with unimportant people and updates that form the basis of a compelling today.

Last year was spent staying up nights finishing assignments, creating a really bad impression on a particular teacher (who is to decide my fate from the coming year) and traveling Bombay in local trains. The last year was also particularly happening for me because it was the first time I was away from my place for such a long time.. away from my parents, being independent. God, it sucks when stuff doesn't come ready-made. Seriously.
Also, I read a sufficient amount of books.. most of which I came to know through this bookslut and I do not bear a certain sense of pride when I say this but I am the kid who read the most number of books in my college. The reason why I am not proud of this apparent achievement is because design students don't read much at all and those who say they do.. well, they just say they do.
A formal list shall be put up as a separate post one of these days.

Home is good. For one, I get edible food to eat and two, I literally do whatever it is that I want to do.. which is not much considering I continue to be the lazy fuck I have always been.

I watch more T.V. than I read. I read more than I sleep. I sleep more than ever. So yeah, twenty-fours time makes for an insufficient day.

The coming semester is going to be a new pain in the ass. I am supposed to work with:
1. various design software
2. uncompromising models
3. judgmental teachers
4. ignorant working partners
5. surprising flat-mates
6. a new laptop
7. an epic camera.. hopefully
8. a back-ache
..if I said any further, I'd just be trying too hard to reach for a perfect 10.

Anyway, there are movies waiting to be seen, books willing to be read and a bed waiting to be slept on.

Yeah, I am back and I shall write.. later.

I Came, I Ate and I Slept

I have been in my hometown for the past one week with 24x7 internet access but the given condition that's the sole constant in my life.. yeah, my lazy genes, didn't allow me to.. uh, let's just say create a new post in order to let my humble minions know that yeah.. their Lord was back.

Come to think of it, it would be have been a totally worthless effort cause in all probability, I am not going to make any new posts in the near future for I now live in the city that's known to be India's New York.. Bombay (now, known as Mumbai).

Bombay kicks, kills and pwns.
I hardly get to sleep and whoa, it feels good to crib once again.

Nice!

Anyway, I have a train to catch in the next three hours and man, I haven't even started packing.
Damn.

So yeah, this half-assed post was like an update for all those who wished to catch up and know what's the scene like.

*settles her glasses*

Ciao.

Can't Help But Wonder..

I can't sleep tonight. It's just this trail of thoughts that keeps me awake. Nothing serious. Thoughts seem to come to me one after the other and I notice that in the darkness of my room and the little blue light from my speaker that illuminates it minimally, a weird shadow imprinted on the ceiling. It's my left hand over there! Excited by this sudden gush of child-like curiosity, I start painting my ceiling with the short-lived shadows I can create with my hands acting like some manipulative but sincere pair of models. Folding, bending, twisting both my hands to cast a shadow like that of a little rabbit, a dog (with no noticeable change from the rabbit's), a stone (easiest), a moving evil eye (by joining the index finger with the thumb, aligning the other three fingers behind the index finger and using the thumb of the other hands to move between it's corners to make it look like the moving iris of the eye keeping track of every movement inside the room), makes me really believe in a sort of a mystical randomness.



It's getting cold these days and I need a blanket to put me off to sleep. I keep the fan switched on though. My feet are all cold and numb. I don't like it one bit, this way. So I jolt up to cover them properly (and this time, with great caution because I really do want to go off to sleep and dream until the end of time). You know, the thing is... I hate to think knowingly.

So there I am lying on my bed like a log with no apparent movement, trying really hard to concentrate on black and desperately waiting for Mr. Sandman to do his job on me. As I lie here staring at my pillow kept next to me, I feel...

"...Wait a second!" I say to myself, realizing that my pillow lay beside me and not under my head like it is for most people. So, I stare at my pillow thinking how lonely it must feel just lying there all by itself as if it is not required. I kinda know this feeling. It's familiar. Like a déjà vu, I picture myself as this little girl patting her small little pillow as if it were her dog then pressing the fast forward button, and jumping ahead a few years from then, I see this exact picture of me holding my pillow, asking if it got hurt when under my head.


Over the years I have changed relatively and I consider myself a way more matured person than I was then so why is that even now, after ten long years this feeling to only feel for the scientifically 'non-living' remains? I chuckle at myself in that darkest light like a vamp from some TV serial and look at my pillow scornfully and say it in my head "Yeah, I remember.."

...

I am this stupid psycho who has never had a pillow under her head from the time she first felt sorry for her pillow and apologized for having hurt him (!?). This feeling is not new. I have been a girl who has been feeling sorry for her pillows all her life.

Mystical randomness, is it?

Mic Testing

I am here to formally announce that I am fairly happy and contented for the time being.
The past few days have been a good (apart from random mood swings which keep happening to me) cause I completed a lot of manga(s), anime series, books and movies.

Here's the list of what is done:

Anime Series:
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
Baccano

(A fellow anime lover suggested this awesome site called AnimeStash)

Anime Movies:
Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind
Paprika
Spirited Away
My Neighbor Totoro
Perfect Blue
Tokyo Godfathers
Mind Game
Whisper Of The Heart

(AnimeStash is the site for this. Trust me!)

Books:
Watchmen (Graphic novel-revised)
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Graphic novel-revised)
Persepolis (Graphic novel)
Diary (Novel by chuck Palahniuk)
Survivor (Novel by chuck Palahniuk)
The Depressed Person (Short Story by David Foster Wallace)
Love In The Time Of Cholera (Gabriel García Márquez)
Neuromancer (William Gibson)

(From the Fakir dude's collection except for Persepolis, which in turn, I read in Landmark itself)

Movies:
The Bow
Amelie
Takeshis'
Bombay
A Tale Of Two Sisters
Dil Se...
House Of Flying Daggers
Irreversible
My Girl
Peace Hotel
Search For One Eye Jimmy

(Watched all these on T.V. except Irreversible, for obvious reasons)

Manga:
Angel Sanctuary
Appare Jipangu!
As The Death God Dictates
Binbou Shimai Monogatari
Himegimi No Tsukurikata
Living Game
Parallel
DNA2
One Piece
To-LOVE-ru
Alive
Camelot Garden

(OneManga has always been my favorite manga site)

...

Apparently, there's a lot more that I plan to do in the coming few days. Not to forget, I am churning out pages of shitty doodles everyday too.

Let's just say that I am busy out of my joblessness.
XD



PS: A new list of accomplishments... Coming Soon!
PPS: Perhaps.

New Age English, Typos and Convenient Abbreviations

Orkut is indeed the best place to observe where the world is heading.
LoL?
That's the short for 'laughing out loud'.
And wait, there's just so much more.
If you wish to sound more cool use a LMAO instead which might be interpreted as an exaggerated and cooler version of LoL cause it stands for 'laughing my ass off'.
The 'ass' part of which makes you stand out and look like you're KeWler than the others.
As a result of this you might even get a few friend requests with a (now) default message which reads: 'Hi ___, I wannabe your orkut friend, ___'


Apparently, these cool abbreviations and random typos can lead to some of the most hilarious errors ever.

For example:

I m waiting here, just cum.
Did u receive my testis???


And that's so not it.
Look at your keyboard and see how the 'u', 'i' and 'o' are right next to each other.

Consider a sentence:

I want you to love me written as I want u 2 luv me ultimately turning out to be I want i 2 luv me.
Hmm. Quite a narcissist!



Despite the new age cult of eff-bee(ing) with constant status updates giving us the minute details of dull individuals' boring lives like: I think I should get a haircut, My dad is in the hospital. Plz pray, It's my friend's neighbour's dog's birthday today, our old Orkut continues to flourish with some of the best online disasters ever.

Pick up a random person's scrapbook and see how a plain 'how are you?' is written as 'who r u........???????' Look closely and notice how both time and labour has been saved but don't consider having a closer look or you might just go into a trance if you're some English scholar from eight grade cause dUdez the 'how' has turned into a 'who'.
It's a plain typographical error but when the error is recurring it gets painful.

Like this: Wh R u? i ws ThnKng Og giVn u my tEsTis sO u rEmMbR em evn aftr 4erv. PlZz dUn sAy nO 2 meh Mahnz!!!!!

Anyway, this was just an exercise to let out some frustration but anyone in need for more kewl slang, abbreviations, tips etc. can contact me at: bejinroxxxalwayz@gmail.com



With loyalties intact,
BeJIn HaKumEizz

Not That High

She is still fighting the nauseous, giddy feeling followed by a couple of strong drinks on the rocks. Yeah, she got drunk and it was the elite Johnnie Walker's Black Label worth some 5000 in the Indian currency.

Technically, this was her second attempt and having learnt from her first, that nothing could possibly give a thick skinned brat like her a high, she resort to get drunk a little over the edge this time in order to experiment with the alternative states of her consciousness. It was around six in the evening and she was over the internet and what followed after was something she was not too aware of but she does realise that she had been a major pain in the ass for many people.

The first time she had this acid like shit gulped down her throat, it was at her friend's place. Her friend was struck with the idea of getting high and there was absolutely nothing she could do to change her mind. What the other female did was amusing. She got a huge pile of clothes hiding within which a huge box containing a sealed "scotch whiskey". The idea was to take in some of it and then reviving back the original mark by mixing in some water, then replacing it inside her mom's closet. Hurriedly they opened the seal only to realise that they could fill in some water but they definitely couldn't get the seal fixed. Conveniently they filled in their glasses and laughed at the thought that it'll all be blamed on the servants, if discovered. After a shot followed by the random curses and cribbing over the disappointing taste, they resort to fill it in with water. But soon enough, they realised that there's a cork like valve which doesn't allow water to seep in through it. Now all they were left to do was to get it replaced completely, and how? Well, they could have just thrown it off had they been ignorant of it's damned price but then our very own Bejin Hakumei volunteered to take it back to her place and hide it in her room. Nobody at her place gave a shit so it was okay.

Anyway, so now was their turn to take in the full glass and relax in the room and utter shit and yet stay sane enough to face their parents. In fact, what's amusing is the fact that they never thought it'd get to them. They didn't make any arrangements. So, that was that. And yeah, all this while, they were in the bathroom attached to her friend's room in the first floor. Very safe a place indeed.

So then, Miss Hakumei wanted to get over with it first so she just took in the shit, the little bit that she could without barfing the rest on the floor. She then told her friend to have her share while she would stay in the room in order to shoo off any alien entering it. Bejin watched some T.V., felt her stomach boil, ate some pop-corn, felt it getting to her, watched some more T.V., felt herself getting tipsy, ate some more pop-corn then holding herself straight, she walked into the bathroom to see what the girl was upto and holy shit, she was holding onto the wash-tub uttering random gibberish. Now was Bejin's turn to get shit scared. Now, the intricate details of Bejin's attempts to get her friend to sleep will be skipped but yeah, it was tough for even for the mighty Miss Hakumei.

After getting her to somehow sleep, Bejin packed the bottle and everything, ran down the staircase, told her friend's granny that her granddaughter went off to sleep after a rough day's hard work. Bejin then just rushed back home. Maybe she was scared of getting caught or maybe because she could be accused of stealing an expensive intoxicating drink from her friend's place or maybe it was because her mom was calling her up every two minutes ordering her to come back home cause good girls don't stay out too late (it was 8:30 in the night), or maybe it was because she had her internet connection fixed after so long. Whatever it was, Bejin Hakumei was surely not her cool and calm self. So anyway, she rushed back home, hid in the stuff and thought of how the day went by. Now the crucial thing is, the first half of the day has still not been dealt with, which too was coincidently enthrilling. Anyway, Bejin lay on her bed thinking of how her dull and uneventful life had this rather interesting episode in it and then she pondered over the idea of how her friend got high and she was still sane enough. She was glad about the fact that none of them got caught and it was all thanks to her capacity for if she too had been high then the both of them would have been in deep shit but in the end she was just too upset over the idea that she didn't get to see herself getting high.

. . .

Now, last night's story starts from two days back when Bejin was ridiculed for being a failure, loser etcetera. She was emo, not because of the lame comment but because she too had immense faith in her rather low potential. Her long suppressed and ignored grief was very much felt. She was gloomy over the thought of not making it anywhere decent. She was terror stricken at the idea of going through the shit all over again. She was plain anxious. It was then that she resort to drink and get high on that one bottle kept inside her closet. After her parents left for a little outing of theirs, she immediately took out the bottle and took in a glass full, then another and then yet another! She still felt nothing change in her and she packed the whole thing back again cribbing for not being good at academics, for being a miserable failure, for sucking at art (her only hope) and most of all, for not getting high. Slowly it got to her, oh yes, it so did! And after that... she doesn't remember much of anything, except a friend calling her up to console her, another friend calling her up telling her to have lemon and tea and the ultimate, falling off from her chair, hitting hard on the edge of her bed and getting herself cut in the leg. Best, this time too, she didn't get caught. Man, she's too smooth a rustic!

On being interrogated, all she says is "What an experience!"