The Transformer

I love her. Just the way she is. But she wants to change. I tell her I didn't invent the machine for her, yet she insists. She wants to do it. Even though I don't want her to. I tell her she's perfect, she says nobody ever is. I'm reluctant. But I agree.

She wants me to program it myself. She wants to look the way I want her to. I tell her she already does, she says there's always room for improvements. She says that since I invented the machine, I know how to use it best. She's right.

I strap her in naked and plant the electrodes. I close the door to the chamber and let it fill with the misty gas. I see only mist from outside the glass door. I use the console on the outside to input the code.

I start typing, tentatively. I love her. I don't want anything to go wrong. I have to make sure I do it right. The program has to be perfect. There are no second chances. Nobody can come out of more than one transformation alive. No errors.

As I type I grow more confident. It's not difficult anymore. Ideas take shape. I know what I want. My fingers fly over the touchpad as I punch in line after line of synthesizable code. The code that will define what she looks like when she walks out of that chamber. Feature for feature, I define all the parameters needed by the synthesizer. I change everything. I give her new eyes, a new nose, new cheekbones, a higher forehead, different hair, a shorter neck, a different body, everything. I don't need to think. Everything comes automatically, as if I were programmed myself to program that machine. I know what I want her to look like. I'm in a trance, furiously typing out my new woman. I feel like God.

I'm done coding. I command the machine to execute the code. It analyzes and finds no errors. For the first time in my life. The machine needs five minutes to carry out the transformation. I give it just as many. I sip my coffee, proud. Proud of myself, proud of the machine, and proud of my girlfriend. I love her.

Five minutes. The chamber lights turn green. The mist inside whirls and lifts. I see a figure inside. I can't control my excitement. The door opens and the naked figure steps out.

She is slightly overweight, her breasts sag just a bit. Her skin is blemished. Her nose is a little large for her face, and her mouth is slightly crooked. Her hair is uneven and of the quality that will never settle no matter how much you try. Her eyes are not quite focussed. She's smiling at me.

She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.

I recoil in horror. Terror grips me as I realize my mistake. Perspiration soaks my shirt.

She looks like my ex-wife!

I must leave her.

God I loved her so. Just the way she was.

Love Song To An Enemy

I know what I want, then I'm not so sure
I'll do what I can, but I don't have a cure
I still can't find the words to say, like I never have
I could never find a way, you know I never have
But don't go away, not just yet
Need you today, no don't leave yet

I never made too much sense, it's only too plain
But when you're gone it always rains, maybe I'm to blame
I'll hide under your tears, you don't have to love me
I'll live off all your fears, just be a shelter above me
No, don't leave me now, don't leave me so soon
Need you tonight, don't leave so soon

You think you can live without me, maybe you can
You think I'm a pity, maybe I am
Give me all your stains, so I can be clean
I'll give you all my pains, if you know what I mean
No, don't turn your back, not already
Need you, come back, I need an enemy.

I wrote this almost three years ago. I found a stash of old writings, thought I'd put up a few of the less insipid ones.

Are You Happy Now?

The Times Of India yesterday carried a front-page article that read "Indian youth happiest in the world". It went on to say that according to a study carried out by MTV Networks International, 60% of Indian 16-34 year olds are both religious and happy, while less than 30% in the US and 50% in the UK admitted to be.
I don't get it. What are we so happy about? Are we gloating over the fact that the country is in shambles? Is it because of the instability of the coalition governments that seem to be a permanent given? Are we happy about the law and order system, the crime rates, politicians' families running amok to the point of murder and then getting away scot-free? What about the infrastructure- the potholes where roads should be, the erratic water supply, the unpredictable power outages? What about the garbage dumps that seem to make their appearance anywhere in the city? What about civic sense in the common man? What about the regressionism that is the public epidemic? The state we're in is no secret to anyone. So what are we really so happy about?
Or has someone confused the word happiness with complacency? Is the common motorcycle-riding, loud-talking, law-bending Indian youth secure because he's insulated from the progressive thought of change? Is he happy because as long as it doesn't affect him directly in his face, it's always somebody else's problem? Is he happy because he can dump his garbage anywhere he pleases or urinate beside any road he fancies? How many of those who were surveyed actually voted so they could get a better government? Our rich get richer and the poor get poorer, but it wasn't the poor who was surveyed by a certain music channel most of them might not even have heard of, now was it?
I'll concede the fact that the family and marriage values here may contribute to the happiness, as may the booming IT industry, and the generally upward trend of the economy. But doesn't the way they actually live really matter to anyone? Don't they realize that there could possibly be more to patriotism than waving flags at cricket matches and cussing Pakistan? And why is revolutionism so unfashionable? Why does anyone who talks of such things immediately become an object of ridicule?
And what is the nature of this happiness, this contentment? Does it not cause stagnation? All the great thinkers, revolutionaries and progressionists were far from being happy with the status quo. Any instrument of progress must be bred out of discontentment. What if Gandhi, Bose or Bhagat Singh had been content? What if Martin Luther King had been? What if Voltaire, Rousseau, and Jefferson had all claimed to be happy with the world as it stood? What if the Bastille had never been stormed because the people were indifferent and complacent? What would history have been then, and what would we be now?
No, there is no room for complacency. Happiness is but a euphemism. The youth of India must realize where they are headed with this attitude of theirs and make amends before it's too late. People did not lay down their lives in the struggle for Independence so that an apathetic people can let the nation run itself to ruin. Disorder invariably increases in a system left to itself. The Second Law of Thermodynamics succinctly states so, and let me assure you, the concept of entropy does not limit itself to physics.
(I have referred to Indian youth as 'we' because even though I am Bhutanese, I've spent a lot of time here in India. I mean no disrespect to India or Indians; I would be one of the happiest people to see the nation rise to glory. But will it really?)
(The words regressionism, progressionism and revolutionism probably don't exist, so please pardon my free use of them. On second thoughts, why don't they, really?)

Yoko

"Why is it empty?"

Looking around for something light to post for a change, I thought what better than the sweetheart of the family? So say hello to Yoko. As I type, she's sleeping right here under the computer, her favourite spot. Interesting bit of trivia- we had to teach her to bark, rewarding her each time she obeyed the special 'bark' command. Today she barked twice from the gate at other people, of her own accord- yay!

The Almighty wears a black Robe and strikes a Gavel

Justice be just, Justice be just to me
Fall if we must, I shall with Dignity
It’s not revenge I seek- that they say is for the weak
But immunize not the mighty from us the Meek

The laws that protect, do not those they are for
The lines that correct fade away in some hazy blur
I thirst not his blood, nor wish another Flood
But you to hoe up the Truth you interred

Memories cry for things left behind
My blood's running dry, Faith much harder to find
I long for the Peace every moment it flees
I long for this strange emptiness to cease

So Justice be blind, Justice be blind for just once
If Kindness was kind, life wasn't thrown to chance
And though Love were for keeps, her Spirit still weeps
And we never even got to finish that last dance.

"I don't understand how come you're gone, man. I don't understand why half the world is still crying, man, when the other half of the world is still crying too, man, I can't get it together. I mean, if you got a cat for one day, man — I mean, if you, say, say, if you want a cat for 365 days, right — You ain't got him for 365 days, you got him for one day, man. Well I tell you that one day, man, better be your life, man. Because, you know, you can say, oh man, you can cry about the other 364, man, but you're gonna lose that one day, man, and that's all you've got. You gotta call that love, man. That's what it is, man. If you got it today you don't want it tomorrow, man, 'cause you don't need it, 'cause as a matter of fact, as we discovered in the train, tomorrow never happens, man. It's all the same fucking day, man."

- Janis Joplin in a live version of Ball & Chain. Those two minutes are out of this world (,man :)). Rant away, lady!

Celebrity Porn- no kidding!

Visit http://www.schematicheaven.com/ for the hottest stuff you’ve ever seen- circuit schematics for all the amps that have defined the sound of music for the past 50 years. In full glory, down to their basic circuitry. All the stars- Marshall, Fender, Mesa/Boogie, you name it, it’s there. It’s porn, I tell you.

Of course, it requires more than a passing acquaintance with guitars, amplification and electronics (have I ever mentioned that I'm an electronics student and totally nuts about guitars?), but it’s quite a visual treat even for the uninitiated. The flash interface manages to be pretty neat too, with all the flames and everything. Go check it out.

Prime Time Messiah

From high on my pulpit I'll preach you life
I'll show you how to distrust your mind
Pride the culprit and I'll teach you why
In a plastic box comes the truth you find

Misery of man, it never will stop
Only the White Light saves your darkened soul
I'll take you there first if you'll lighten up
God needs the money for a better world

Pride and greed are ragged glory
Obsession is your trial by fire
Clinging need is the holy story
Open your heart to the TV messiah.

I'm Alice Cooper!

Which rockstar are you like?

Alice Cooper....You come across as having a twisted creative mind and a liking for the dark. You are dark and mysterious. You also have a very strong moral outlook on life and are quite smart. Probably a good person with a wild side or a wild person with a good side. Either way. You can be entertaining without using substances either.
Take this quiz!




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Suzanne

Inspired by the Leonard Cohen song of the same name

The mirror was clouded with steam. She wiped it clear and stared hard into the face that did the same right back at her.

It was sculpted like a piece of divinity, the lines sharp and confidently traveling in seemingly random directions, then meeting at improbable angles no mathematician or a mortal sculptor could ever calculate or fathom or even adequately describe, making mockery of all the geometry, poetry, art and music man claimed to understand. Her eyes were a pale hazel, clear, transparent, mysterious. They allowed people to think they could see right through her looking into them, before they realized they couldn’t have been more wrong. She had wavy black hair that reached her shoulders and there rested lightly upon them, defying, or so it seemed, the very idea of gravity.

She turned her gaze lower, at her firm, supple breasts, perfectly rounded. She followed her body down with her eyes, over her slim waistline and slender hips, down her long shapely legs, all the way down to the floor. Then she dried herself, put on her bathrobe, stepped into her bedroom and walked across to her dresser. She briefly reconsidered the red dress, but decided to stick to the black one.

Beauty. She’d had some wonderful arguments about it. She always got the strange eye from anyone she tried to tell about how beauty was only a social stereotype she’d rather not classify herself under. She tried to tell them she hated it when people called her beautiful, and they all smiled incredulously, some even condescendingly.

“Why can’t anyone just want to be with me for me?” she had once tried to tell a girlfriend. “It’s insulting to me when people tell me how beautiful I am, as if that’s all there is to me! I am more than mere flesh, bone and skin- I have a soul, a mind, a heart. I can think, I have ideas, I have feelings. Every time someone comes up to make conversation, no matter what they say, I always hear ‘Hello, I think you are a perfect example of the kind of people we like to call beautiful, and it would be very nice to make your acquaintance because maybe somehow, someday I can hop into bed with you. Of course, I have absolutely no clue about what kind of a person you are, your values and sentiments, but that doesn’t really matter now, does it? We’ll get down to those once we’re through with these more important details.’

"And even if someone does want to know me for the person I am, they do because of what they see on the surface of me, and that becomes a superficial interest all over again. Why isn’t there someone out there not affected by the way I look, but rather the way I think, the way I am, the odd way I butter my rolls, or the obsession I have with shampoo bottle arrangements? This beauty is more like a curse to me. But I know that if I ever find that someone, I’ve found happiness that’ll last me as long as I permit it to.

"Oh don’t look at me that way, are you trying to tell me I’m wrong? Then how come there isn’t a consistent definition of beauty? A certain African tribe thinks long necks look beautiful so their women wear neck rings to stretch them out. Chinese women wanted small feet, so they bound them so they wouldn't grow. Mediterranean women should have sultry tans, Indian women should be coy, and Americans are obsessed with starving stick figures. How come Paris Hilton is a fashion goddess to some, while some can’t stand the sight of her? How come you had to tie your hair in a bun in the 50s, perm and dye it in the 80s, hairspray it in the 90s, and now all those definitions beauty once had are laughable? Can you explain that? It’s what society decides that they call beautiful. Then they slot people into the stereotype and expect them to behave just the way they want them to.

"Have you ever considered that had that underwear model you saw on the billboard on the way here not been slotted into the stereotype, maybe she’d have gone on to become a Marie Curie or a modern day Saint Joan, for all you know? Have you ever given any thought to have many lives this beauty myth must have ruined?”

Her friend only smiled unfeelingly and spat out “Ingrate!” under her breath.

---

He came carrying flowers and a bottle of champagne. He kissed her lightly at the door as she let him in, and whispered “Happy Birthday, sweetheart,” into her ear.

He followed her into the kitchen and set down the flowers and champagne. “I’ve been starving myself all day for this,” he said, looking into the oven. “I don’t think I’ll regret it, though.”

“Why don’t you go make yourself comfortable?” she said from the sink. “I’ll be right out.”

“Nah, I’m good here,” he replied. “What’s that music? It’s terrible.”

“Leonard Cohen. Used to be my father’s favorite. I like it, and it’s my birthday, not yours, so i get to choose the music. He depresses me just the right way.”

“Oh I’m quite certain he does,” he laughed. “When do we eat? I’m terribly hungry”

“In a moment. Stop being such a pig!”

After dinner they dimmed the lights and sat on the couch with their champagne, where she read to him from a book of poems.

“…One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die,” she finished a John Donne sonnet with a flourish.

“Wow, that’s great, that’s beautiful, really,” he said softly, almost in a daze.

The word hit her hard in the gut. It made her nauseous. She reeled for a moment but recovered quickly. She hadn’t expected it, and today, of all days, when everything seemed so perfect for the first time in years! She had felt the warm glow right up to this moment, and now she was jerked back to reality.

Then suddenly she realized it hadn’t been said about her; it was about the poem. Yes, the poem, the poem was beautiful! It was beautiful, that’s what it was. Of course. That was what beauty meant. That feeling. She closed her eyes and let it wash over her. She had always been right, she did not deserve to be called beautiful. Nobody did. Beauty was ethereal; misunderstood, misused and abused by man in his sightlessness and imperfect perception, peddled on the streets like some sort of cheap commodity, vulgarized by neon signs, ravished by television, prostituted by magazines.

She opened her eyes and studied him a long time before she asked him in what she hoped was a rude tone, “Don’t you think I am beautiful? You haven’t said it once in the two months we’ve been seeing each other. Other men can’t get enough of reminding me about it, so what is the matter with you? Are you blind or just plain stupid?”

He looked at her with a slightly raised left eyebrow and a faint flicker of a smile on his face, and she understood immediately he had seen saw right through that.

“Well for starters, I think your nose is a little too large,” he said, not missing a cue. “And those eyes, set too far apart for my taste. Too small too.”

This was not what she had expected. She felt a sudden stab below her stomach. It was a strange feeling. She wanted more. She didn’t know what it was about this that made her feel this way, only that it did something to her she couldn’t explain.

“Go on,” she said.

“I’m not a big fan of the hairdo either,” he continued, moving in closer to her. “Way too short, and way too black. I like brown hair better.”

She closed her eyes and felt a chill run down her spine. She had goose bumps all over her skin. She was trembling from somewhere deep down inside her, yet she felt an incredible heat come over her, taking over her senses.

His body was almost entirely over hers now.

His lips at her ear, he whispered, “Your skin is entirely the wrong complexion, and I can barely stand the way you smell.” She felt the warmth between her thighs rise, getting harder to bear with every word that he spoke. His hands were on her neck now, rubbing, caressing her into a frenzy as she breathed laboriously.

“Don’t stop talking,” she urged in between gasps.

“I hate your voice too,” he obliged. “You pronounce my name the wrong way; you always inflect on all the wrong syllables...”

His hand was at her breast, unfastening the little clasps that held the black dress in place.

“…You walk like you’re trying to balance yourself all the time...”

It slid in under the fabric. Her chest heaved violently in time with her breath.

“..And your lips are too thick...”

The feeling between her legs was alarming. She had never felt anything like this before, nobody had ever taken her this far. This was a whole new world she was exploring; a whole new level she had never known existed. She was wet the way she never had been.

She grabbed him by the back of his head and pulled his face to hers. For a long lingering moment they paused, their lips tantalizingly brushing against each others’. It felt like eternity.

“Shut up,” she whispered and bit into his lower lip.

The Leonard Cohen CD she had on looped play sang softly into the room, unnoticed.
“…And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind…”

Excerpts from:
Sonnet #10 from Holy Sonnets by John Donne.
“Suzanne” by Leonard Cohen from Songs of Leonard Cohen.

Half A Memory

"You" doesn't necessarily mean a woman here. It could be family, god, a city, whatever- and yes, even a woman.

Headlights on high, the world passes by
Think I must be drunk again
Leaving behind what they said wasn't mine
Now I'm driving alone in the rain
I've seen the last of the ghosts of my past
The midnight hour's my friend
Spinning wheels and camera reels
Forgotten on some other bend

[chorus]Half a memory, a picture of you
Stuck on the windshield at the edge of my sight
Half a life as one half of you
Leaving tonight, I'll be gone before light
Just an empty suitcase, and half a memory of you

The wounds that hurt, bleeding paper cuts
On your wrist already scarred by time
To hurt is to feel, to love is to kneel
To be alive is part of the crime
So I'm moving on, I hope you'll notice I'm gone
I hope you'll remember me another day
While nomad at heart, I play my part
And by morning I shall have lost my way.

[rep chorus]

Of Nero And Heroes

He lit another cigarette and took a long drag. He looked over at the figure lying prone next to him. He admired the slender curves of her body, the way her shoulder blades melted into her back, how the contours of her spine accentuated her shapeliness. He was almost tempted to ask her her name, but didn’t, upon precept. Principles, ha! Here he was in bed with a woman whose name he didn’t know, and he was on moral high ground. He chuckled at the irony.

She stirred beside him and turned her face towards him. He loved the way her makeup was smudged all over her face. He loved it when that happened. He loved it when they got drunk senseless on the drinks he bought them. How easy it was. He knew he couldn’t live without it. He thrived on the self-loathing he felt every time he went to bed with a complete stranger. They made him feel like scum, inconsequential, dispensable, part of the cancer the world suffered from. He was addicted.

He wanted to hate them. But to hate them would amount to righteousness, and that left him no room, no room at all. That was not a price he was willing to pay.

He reached under his bed and pulled out the bottle of Scotch he always kept there, and poured himself a stiff drink into a glass from the bedside table. He took a sip and swung himself out of bed. Not bothering to pull a nightgown over himself, he walked naked to the next room.

He couldn’t sleep again, just like every other night.

He rummaged through a box of cds and found an old Bob Dylan cd that he put into the player. The music pervaded the apartment softly and hung in the air, playing games with the smoke rings he blew overhead, darting in and out of the patterns it resolved into, dancing with the barely discernible dust particles floating in the air, melting into the soft diffused panel lighting from the walls, becoming one with everything it touched, coming off them, as if every alive or dead being in the room was helping it make itself heard, as if every single thing in the room were playing this music right at him.

He hated Bob Dylan. That was the only reason he listened to his self-righteous, self-indulgent overrated nasal delivery. It gave him strange comfort.

He walked back into his bedroom and stood by the bay window that opened out into the city far below. He imagined this window to be the border between his world and the real one. He often sat by it all night and watched the world. He watched the car lights scuttle by in the streets below, he watched the neon glow of the city, he watched the lights of thousands of people- nameless, faceless. Wasn’t insomnia supposed to be a disorder? What were all these people doing up at this time of the night?

He wanted to throw open the windows and shout at them, “Go back home, motherfuckers!! Go back home, tuck yourselves in bed, your wives will make you a hot cup of cocoa and maybe she’ll let you fuck her later! Go lead normal lives; leave the balancing act to screwups like me!!”

He didn’t.

He just stood there watching the world.

She was out there somewhere. He could feel her. He could sense her in the jagged shape of the skyline; he could see her in the lights that lit up the city at this ungodly hour. She was out there, living her life, another life, one in which he had no role. And she’d be just fine. She was probably at this very moment riding that guy just the way she had ridden him a year ago.

He flung his cigarette stub to the window, where it erupted in a red shower of spent ashes, all the life burned and sucked out of them, now left to mingle with the dirt, left to pollute the air, to become part of the cancer.

Somewhere deep down he wished that butt could burn the whole world down, while he watched from high up here, his personal throne. Yes, that would be the day he was king, some kind of a new age Nero. He would burn this city down, and the next, and all of existence. He would burn her down with it all. He would watch her while she watched the flames surrounding her in horror. And he would kiss her their last kiss. And then he would watch.

He remembered the favorite fantasy he had with her. They would pretend it was apocalypse and everything outside of their room was falling, being torn down by an irrevocable tide of annihilation that would eventually wash over them too. The buildings would go down one after the other, the rivers would break their banks, the ocean would spill over to land. Their ceiling would fall on them, the walls would cave in and the floor would crack. There would be debris flying everywhere, the fear of impending doom, the sweet smell of panic heavy in the air, and the two of them twisting and turning in bed, only the more passionate for it all. That was always the best sex. They saved it only for the most special occasions. He wondered if she had shared it with anyone else yet. They had promised each other it belonged to only them, but in the wake in a million other broken promises this had seemed insignificant.

His thoughts strayed to his private drawer where he kept his .45 Colt. One leaden bullet through his mouth and he wouldn’t even realize it. But that was the easy way out. That gave him no pain. He felt no rush through his head as he thought of it. No, life was better. Much better. It gave him a high. And he hated it too much to let go of it.

He went back to bed and lit the last cigarette from the pack. He drained his whiskey glass and put it on the table beside the telephone. He had unhooked his answering machine a month back. Just last week the phone had rung itself hoarse, or maybe he’d just imagined it so. Either way, it had rung for a good ten minutes before the caller gave up. Bill collectors. He wondered how many of them actually paid their own bills in time.

He finished his cigarette in a few long drags and stubbed it out. Then he stared vacantly at his apartment, his expensive apartment tastefully furnished, now falling apart in a sorry state of disrepair. He stared out of the window, into the darkness of the night sky.

He had his life, yes he still had his life. He has his job that paid him enough to keep him going through his shameless shenanigans. It was enough. It was all he wanted, all he needed, all he desired. He would live his life just the way he did, letting it batter him and taking it all, not as a show of courage or strength or stoicism, but for the perversion of the pleasure he felt when its horns gored through him. He would go down fighting, not a hero, but a self-indulgent masochistic hedonist. He hoped the final blow would hurt the most.

He shook the woman beside him roughly, grabbing her arm so hard he could see his imprints on her perfect flesh. “Wake up, the night is far from over,” he said. “I’m not even close to being done yet.” With that he turned her over onto her back and climbed on her, making sure she felt all his weight.

Why I Should Never Blog Again

There is no reason I should put my feelings up on the internet for the whole world to see. Whether they do or not is entirely another matter (okay, so they don’t- that doesn’t change a thing).

There is no reason I should give anybody who accidentally stumbles upon it or the few people who know of its existence any right to judge me or form opinions about me from reading a few paragraphs of writing.

There is no reason I should pour my deepest darkest self into lines of ASCII characters that will suffer markup language tags wrapped around them, like it was any other bit of text, any random Lorem Ipsum.

There is no reason I should choose a color scheme or a layout scheme to present my feelings in an aesthetically pleasing form, like I was decorating a platter for the hungry businessman who sits at the table waiting to be served.

There is no reason my blog should represent my soul.

There is no reason I should put up my true identity, yet there is no reason I should crave anonymity and hide behind the veil of an obscure epithetic agnomen.

There is no reason I should write.

Which is exactly why I love doing each one of those things.