Arise, oh Tamil Nation
Today a grave injustice has been done unto you. Today, the name of the Tamils has been sullied. Our great culture, our ancient way of life, our 1,00,000 year old civilisation has been smeared with mud.
Germaine Greer, that ignorant, racist individual has called Shilpa Shetty a Tamil.
No!
No!
I understand your anger. I understand your sentiment. But just decapitating Greer’s head with our world-famous Arivaal will not help. Today a Greer. Tomorrow a Peer. No. As I said, we need to rise up as one, and end this once and for all.
India shall burn for such gross injustice! This is not an isolated incident, my dear blood-of-my-blood. This is a vast Hindi conspiracy to dumb down the razor-sharp tamil brain, and to steal our IT and ITES skills. A war on our literature, on our way of life.
Even as I speak, my trusted lieutenant, Chenthil is drawing up the plans for the resurgence. The great Tamil Nation will once again rule the world.
First stop, Mangalore.
For better, or for verse
[I was so severely bereft of inspiration, I asked Chenthil to help. He asked me to try verse. I am. In the meanwhile, you have this.]
Glee,
oh glee!
I found me
a beach, empty.
On the beach,
just out of reach
two little rafts, bleach
as the sun pours. Gulls screech.
I stay, sit, stretch.
the sands, my hands sketch
faces unknown, figures out of fetch
Ebbin’ and risin’
the rafts go fishin’.
The waves it be ridin’
wash my feet where I’m lazin’.
Why do hack writers try
One of the ways I’ve handled writer’s block earlier was – hack at it. Not fuss over style, substance and syntax. Just, put pen to paper and drone on. The resultant prose read difficult. Heck, it even appeared to the eye difficult. Ugly wads of text. Punctuated by ugly wads of silence. But, that was the only way out. Well, the only way out I knew of. After the fourth such draft of hacked words, the block would show signs of relenting. Somewhere, somehow, inspiration to write better prose.
This bout of block has showed no such cracks. What worsens matters, I have even lost the drive to force it.[1] Four posts were started, four abandoned. Stories fast reaching half-life stage on my hard-disk.
As to the title – I now realise why writers and film directors, and in some cases, both, write or do the things they do. It’s one of the ways to get out of the rut. Just – beat the thing out into half-recognisable shapes. Hack. Hack. Hack. Bent over the typewriter or keyboard, forcing letters on to the page.
Hoping, against hope, that the promised land is not far away.
________________________
[1] Unfortunately, this still reads like the second draft.
Quadrant, by Puja
A long time, jealousy inducing, awe-inspiring photographer on Flickr, is Puja. Her photos are quite – erm – kooky. People jumping and floating on air. And staying suspended there for inordinate amounts of time. 
And having a ball that way.
Surely, Seattle must be one awesome place to visit if all its citizens were that way.
When she isn’t photographing strange air-borne people and their dogs, Puja does some awesome compositions of glass doors, photo-booths, shop windows and taxis.
Cool colours, awesome lines, and one sexy little flip. Art doesn’t imitate life, Life imitates art. Well, Puja’s does.
SuperCommieBastard
A question on Ask Yahoo goes, ‘Superman stood for “truth, justice, and the American way,” so did he ever have a communist equivalent in the Soviet Union or China?’
My answer – Superman was a commie bastard, through and through. Here’s why.
- He’s a man of steel. Which goes perfectly with the whole Iron Curtain thing.
(Plus, Stalin means Man of steel, says Anand. What more do you want as proof?) - He’s is always rushing to help the poor, little man on the street. Beat that, you capitalist pigs.
- He has a thing for red – red underwear, red cape, red heads for girlfriends.
- He can’t not fight for injustice and the suppressed.
- He comes from a strange planet where everybody’s name has a K in it, like Karl MarKs, EKta Kapoor, Noam ChomsKy, Anna KourniKova, ArundKati RKoy, FredriK EngKels, KAnand Krishnamoorthi, N. RaKm, Katrina Kaif…and to top it all – Krish! Do I need give more?
- He has a dog names Krypton. Like, seriously! Have you ever heard of an American/Capitalist naming their dog Krypton?
- I thought I had one more reason, but turns out I don’t. But you just have to take my word for it. Superman was a Commie Bastard
There you have it.
Fervent request.
People,
Please decide on the pronunciation of the word Genre soon.
Thank you.
C
About
Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan is a copywriter, photographer and goofball from Chennai. He is also an archaeologist, historian and a city lover. He is currently a documentary film-maker and desk-monkey for a film production house.
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