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Showing posts from 2021

Mind-reading is a Complicated Profession

  December 26, 2021 It’s my 26th birthday today. Not a lot of people at school know that because I don’t particularly like celebrating [my] birthdays. Only my best friend Lisa knows, and she’s on the other side of the globe, so this winter, it’s just me. As much as I hate celebrating my birthday, I do love to treat myself. I went to the nearest McDonalds and decided to order myself a vanilla cinnamon cappuccino along with my usual.  The queue kinda gave me the jitters, so I stood at my distance and drowned myself in my earphones. When my turn finally came and I took my earphones off, I realised how insanely noisy the place had gotten. As I turned to place my order, I heard something that totally shook my shit. “God, I can’t wait for my shift to be over. I hate working on Sundays. I hate everything.” It seemed like the cashier said it, only I never saw her mouth moving. I shit you not.  I gathered my thoughts and placed my order.  Then, it happened again. “Why is she dressed like a home

Dead Dog Polaroids

  I left work humming the Weeknd & Lana Del Rey’s ‘Prisoner’ today, a song I find absolutely calming and beautifully serene, not forgetting to mention how much I love to sing it. I’d barely moved a few metres when I saw a puppy lying in the middle of the road with two dogs just hanging out beside the puppy. On reaching closer, I realised the puppy was lying in a pool of blood and was dead for at least a few hours. The stench, although slight, was unmistakably lingering in the crisp winter air.  Psychology says that you feel sad when something makes you uncomfortable and you cannot eliminate it. You feel pity for the beggar on the road because they remind you of human misery and you give them money so they’ll leave you alone, not because you feel sorry for them.  I’m used to death. I think. But the dead puppy didn’t make me cry. It was the dogs sitting beside it. They were quiet, they were unresponsive, but they were there. It was as if one of them said to the other, “so this is wha

I can smell the crisp winter air

Hero vs. anti-hero Q: Why does the anti-hero always have a cooler theme soundtrack than the hero?  A: It’s the movie subconsciously siding with the anti-hero because deep down, we know that the villain isn’t entirely illogical in his pursuit. Maybe the hero and the antihero should work together sometime. Wait. That’s the entire plot of American Gods. Crime: what a weird word. Sounds like a choice of dip at first.  Out of context, but when was the last time you orgasmed? Remind yourself to get one if it’s been too long. I’ve realised when people don’t get laid they make the lives of those around them harder for no reason at all. Go get it. You deserve it. The previous months I didn’t get to write have made my proverbial pen rusty. I almost convinced myself that maybe I wasn’t born to be a storyteller. When you finally understand that humankind is a parasite leeching off everything it can find and that one day, when mother earth is done dealing with us all, she’ll wipe us all out and tha

Another Round? Yes Please!

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  “But it makes me terrified, to be on the other side, how long before I go insane?” What was your first experience with alcohol like? Did you puke? Did you dance it off? Did you end up thinking about that asshole who broke your heart? What was it like, getting intoxicated for the first time? Letting loose voluntarily and then realising that it wasn’t half as bad, compared to the things you had heard about alcohol? Drunk or not, I believe that one should always live their life thinking there are no tomorrows. It definitely is a better option than dying with regrets. And I know it’s easier said than done, but as the characters in this movie will show you - sometimes you gotta let Jesus take the wheel and let loose a bit to understand what a wonder, a truly unique miracle the gift of life is.  Another Round [Danish: “Druk” meaning binge drinking] is about letting go of control; seeing how losing control feels like in your personal as well as professional life. Set in the sublime surroun

Synchronic: A Time Travelling Treat

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  Watch if you liked: Tenet Directors:  Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead Year of Release: 2019 Running Time: 1 hr 36 mins. Rotten Tomatoes (not that it matters): 80% Violencemeter: Sword wound, snakebite, open fracture, bullet wound, burns, death from falling down an elevator shaft “People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion .” -Albert Einstein For starters, I’m a Netflix hater. I don’t think anything ever good ever comes out of surfing Netflix. All you can ever find there are shows with a great first season followed by 5 more lousy ones. Or shows with hype in the mainstream media. I was wrong. Plus sometimes, something good can come out of morons hyping up good shows. Like The Queen’s Gambit. Dark. A Series of Unfortunate Events. Sex Education. Unbelievable. Stranger Things. One Day at a Time. [ Titles of your sex tape? ] If someone were to say that a series of events is ‘synchronic’, they

Intensely Spooky: The Babadook

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Watch if you liked: The Haunting of Hill House Director: Jennifer Kent (her directorial debut. You go, girl) Year of Release: 2014 (Really, it’s been that long) Rotten Tomatoes (not that it matters): 98% Violencemeter: 02 deaths, a broken nose, a stabbed leg, a hit to a forehead, loads of screaming A friend and I recently got into a debate. My friend was of the view that people who perpetually stay happy are dumber than those who’re sad and depressed. Say what you will about my friend, she may have a point there.  If there were a blue pill that could make you 10x smarter and a red pill that could make you dumber, which one would you go for? Would you choose intelligence along with the awareness of worldly despair, or would you choose the bliss of ignorance? Would you like to be smart enough but let your dark thoughts consume you or would you want to be dumb enough to not care about them? The Babadook tries to challenge you to ask yourself something similar - whether the movie is scary

Lost & Found in the Cosmos

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He wasn’t a good boy. He was the nastiest, most incorrigible dog to exist. Eight years, eleven months and seven days ago, the most dysfunctional family I knew brought home a cross-bred German Shepherd from their family friend. He was a birthday gift to my younger brother, but in retrospect, he enriched the lives of everyone he met. At one-month-old, Jasper aka Chinu aka Tannu was not a lot to look at. He had smaller hair than purebred dogs of his breed and was so well-fed that sometimes his hind legs would slip under the weight of his tummy. My brother, 10; my sister, 12; and I, 15, had no clue how to raise or train a dog. All we knew was that he was the best thing that had ever happened to us.  Being the eldest of the three, I was supposed to assume charge of, with my siblings expected to help in feeding and potty training the “fourth kid”, as my mother put it. Tannu was too big to be put in a shoebox, so we put him in a plastic cloth-washing tub and slid it under my side of the bed.