Death of a Revolutionary

Story I wrote for the Saarang Writing Awards 2011 – Facebook Flash Fiction Competition. The story had to fit in 10 lines and the prompt was, ‘When you have nothing left to burn, you have to set fire to yourself‘.

The revolution had failed. He would never live to see the dawn when his people would walk the streets fearlessly, their heads held high with no muzzles to bow down to. What pained him was that the people didn’t seem to want to. More than the guns of the army or the fear of the tyrant, it was the apathy of the people which had hurt the struggle the most.

At first, he had hoped that the truth would be enough to jolt the people out of their beds. Then, he was sure that the blood of their brothers would push them over the edge. When all else had failed, he had even reluctantly approved a campaign based on lies, magnifying the regime’s atrocities tenfold.

But here they were, the last remnants of the uprising hemmed in by the army on all sides and it was time for the last gamble, the one which he had hoped he would never have to make. He stepped out of his tent to meet his bodyguards dressed in the unfamiliar olive-green of the official forces and the photographer who would beam the graphic pictures of cold-blooded murder of a defenseless prisoner to the outside world. He took a deep breath, searched his mind for appropriately profound last words and said, “Alright, be quick with it.”

Where have all the sperms gone?

A question to which most people reading this will answer ‘Down the drain’, I suppose. But no, it’s not the masturbatory habits of the Indian male that elicits this lament from me, but an increasing number of alarming news articles which gives one the impression that the human sperm is an endangered species, placed somewhere between the Bengal Tiger and the Polar bear in the Red list.

The latest in this series of events happened this morning. Seated lavishly in the BMTC Volvo, the Bengaluru software engineer’s chariot of choice, I took a peek at the ToI the gent who sat ahead of me was skimming through. Regular ToI fare of skimpily clad actresses cribbing about the US Foreign policy and a random astrologer predicting Baby B’s future was snorted at, before my attention was arrested by a heading on the Science page (Yes, ToI has one).

‘Browsing the net on a laptop with wifi will kill sperms’.

ToI headlines being ToI headlines, the first thought you have is that the possibility of a sperm owning a laptop, let alone have a wifi connection is rather negligible. Then, the realisation kicked in. What the fuck. You might as well tell me breathing kills sperms. I mean, I spend more time ‘browsing the net on a laptop with wifi’ more than anything else in my life. Before I could read further, the bus pulled up at Ecospace, and I had to get down, with a disturbing piece of half-baked information. Which is arguably what you get even if you read the ToI in full, but still.

Coming back to the topic, there is no doubt that we are witnessing an alarming trend with respect to sperms. Anything and everything is supposed to make you infertile. Sperms can’t be blamed if they become fucking paranoid and think everybody’s out to get them. Because everybody is.

The first time I noticed this was when I was in school and all of a sudden, there was an alarming lack of eggs in my diet. My mother, who used to take the NECC ad where the scrawny kid breaks Sachin Tendulkar’s- REALLY! – hand very seriously and fed me bulls eye for breakfast, Omelette for lunch and Egg roast for dinner, seemed strangely against eggs all of a sudden. My habit of reading anything and everything strewn around the house, including strict no-nos for gentlemen such as Vanitha and Manorama weekly, was what helped me find out the truth eventually. I read with much amusement and some indignation, a passionate article on the evils of hormone-infested chicken which flooded the market today and laid the hormone-infested eggs which would make our children childless. I shrugged and turned the pages to Dr.Narayana Reddy’s column where he wrote about the curious cases he had come across in his illustrious career. They were, more often than not, well illustrated.

A few years later, I was lounging around in a family wedding, trying to simultaneously avoid annoying uncles who would ask me how my CAT plans were coming along and even more annoying aunties who would ask me to guess their names before soliciting free career advise for Monu and Sonu who would be in 4th and 6th standards, respectively. As always happens, I was discovered lurking before too long and was dragged into a well fed group of aunties who had just finished a hearty lunch and were looking for something juicy to chew on. Cue me.

The usual discussion on how engineering was of no use these days ensued and I stood squirming in the middle, trying to eye some of the more desirable female contingent milling around. In my impatience to get away, I palmed my phone and started fiddling with it. Suddenly, curve ball.

“Mone, Where do you keep your phone?”

“Uh? In my pocket.”

“Which pocket?”

Somehow, I had a hunch of what was coming.

“Shirt pocket.”

”Atha nallath. Don’t use your pant’s pocket, okay?”

Huge laughter ensues. I manage a weak smile and slink away as a new victim is ushered in. He is older and closer to marriage, so his ordeal would be longer and more terrible to behold.

Again, a year or two later, during my brief dabble with cigarettes, I’ve been told, “Never mind your lungs, kuttikalundavilla ketta?”. Least of my concerns by the time really.

So, there you have it – mobile phones, laptops, chicken, eggs, cigarettes, alcohol – everything – only has one agenda. Killing sperms. If half of what you hear is true, then half of my generation will not father kids. The next generation might as well not bother to try at all.

Of course, there is a bright side to all of this. Once you are sure every last little bugger has been killed, you can bonk away to kingdom come without any fear of accidents whatsoever.
So there. We still win.

Happiness

I was talking to M one of these days, and we were on an unusual subject for us, Writing. I told her how I write, rewrite and abandon posts because I don’t feel I’m writing good enough. I also told her about Heinlein’s rules of writing which I’m blatantly violating. She replied, “Whoever this guy is, he’s my God” – or something in a similar vein. And how she starts writing something only if she’s sure she’ll finish it. How to just write and get it out of your system and not worry about constructing sentences and replacing words and getting THAT word you’re looking for.

So I just went along to her blog and found this post. On what makes her happy. She got the inspiration to write it , quoting her, from “sucking on a lollipop, sitting in my veranda and watching it rain cats and dogs”. So, I decide to have a shot at it, the way she does it. Write, write and write without thinking too much about it. I am lying on my bed, listening to Noel Gallagher serenely belting out Don’t Look Back in Anger and pounding on my keyboard, with an open copy of ‘A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian’ lying beside me. I’ve promised to help 2 people with 2 different things tonight – to write an SoP for Sandhu and to read through a PDF on Air Law for V, both of which are open and half done on 2 windows.

Now, the song has switched to Engine Driver by The Decemberists. I’m still happy, it’s a song I’ve recently loved.

SO, here goes, the things which make me happy.

Aasiya – For being a cute sister who make me look forward to going home every time, from Bangalore of all places. For calling the purdah-clad extremist who teaches her Quran a crackpot.

Vaappa – For bringing me up mostly by himself when I was a toddler, and for realising the benefits of the hands-off approach when it was time for it.

Umma – For worrying about me.

Oh fuck. There is a Light That Never Goes Out. Not the happiest of songs.

Quizzing – For the thrill of – quoting the supreme authority – random, half-forgotten details combining to offer a ‘Eureka!’ moment.

Liverpool FC – For giving me something to be unabashedly passionate about.

Football – For giving me the some of the highest of highs and some of the lowest of lows in my life. For a lot of intelligent friends online.

V – For being the other source of highest of highs and the lowest of lows. For being the most random incredible piece of luck ever.

Friends – In particular, 2 from school, 4 from college, 2 from the interwebz and 1 from quizzing for being generally awesome company.

Now it’s Long as I can see the Light . Hope. Happiness. Good shit. Thanks to Arun & Raju for introducing me to CCR.

Bangalore Pubs – For being the scene of some of the most illuminating discussions I’ve sat through in my life. Honorable mention to Hotel Prince in Trivandrum and Venugopal Sir.

Spotify – For being a simply brilliant app which knows what to play, when. Thanks again to Raju for more awesomeness.

Accenture – For being generally cool with me. I would rather slave for you American bastards than country Indians like TCS or Infy.

Books & the WWW – For helping me stay the pseudo-intellectual I am, through the years.

100% Good human beings – For Anand and Kiran for restoring my faith in humanity, that humans can be wholly unselfish and good.

Chicken, Beef & Fish – For survival.

Why am I thinking about happy things? Because I spent nearly 6 hours on the phone today and it made me happy. Sad, I know, but I needed it, somehow.

Raindrops are Falling on my Head. How fitting.