On Formlessness

“Life is warfare and a journey far from home.” 

- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

It is assumed that man, by his very nature, attempts to impose his will upon his environment and meets a resistance at some point leading to a conflict of interests. This is where he strategises to meet his goals, negotiates his interests, compromises his advances, or tries to neutralize the opposition altogether. The modern nation-states too are like the man, and therefore Cebrowski and Garstka have rightly remarked that they make war the same way they make wealth.

In 18^th century, Pierre-Joseph Bourcet had conceptualized the war machine as something which flows. This fluidity, he had remarked, was essential and directly proportional to this machine’s maneuverability.

Discussions on warfare must begin with the minds that conduct the conflict. Though there are many aspects of the mind, the psychological property which concerns us most is Intelligence, for that alone primarily concerns displaying advantageous behavior over competition. Wars are won by superior decisions, and better intelligence breeds better decisions.

It is said that intelligence evolved in the ocean when a tiny bag of saltwater known today as a neuron, sparked of electric current upon facing danger. This meta-primitive event gives a very thorough insight into the phenomenon of war for it marks the beginning of the precarious relationship between hunting, warfare and survival, also producing an insight into the perpetuity of war.

Man fought with and alongside horses and elephants, and now he fights alongside machines. Hobbes had said, it is every man against every man. That is his nature after all, that of a competitive animal - from which arises the need to cooperate, giving him his social nature. This self-competing attribute also leads to the adaptive and evolutionary nature of his intelligence.

Assuming that war is the engine which makes the state, the state deploys a system using which it can execute this “formlessness” - or rather a system of systems that allows reconnaissance, manipulation, denial and retaliation. Very much how any self-preserving and self-interested entity would function.

War making is an existential enterprise and utterly devastating to say the least, but even man’s search for meaning goes a lot into why having meaning is important, he does not simply stop himself at the threat of destruction. The ruminations of military philosophers have taught us that the more destructive a military action the less strategic it is, to the extent that it is safely hypothesized that the art-and-craft of war lies in pursuing victory while causing minimum harm.

Formlessness, as some say, is the way that causes the least harm.

Once upon a time near the river by the woods...

Once upon a time, an afternoon near the river by the woods, a beast and a man crossed eachother's paths. The beast was heavy and swift. He had eaten many men and women and their children. He was no ordinary beast and he was so notorious that there was even a reward on his head. He had terrorized many a villages across the territories of many who used to call themselves kings but could not have had this maneater killed yet. 

 

The beast too, was a bit mad for beasts' standard, he would search for food at odd hours, and would vanish so quietly and skillfully that some even feared if he was a beast of some yet unknown or mythical kind. If a child vanished at night, everybody said it was the beast.

Now the beast had not had a nice meal since quite a few days. It was walking leisurely back into the woods after drinking from the river when he saw that man taking the road not taken and stopped, rrrrrrrrrrrrrrring softly. Neither the man moved moved nor the beast. 

 

Now this man too, was a bit mad for man's standards. He would sometimes leave his house and go around on a horse, stabbing men and taking their money, and sometimes their women too. His whole clan did the same. And like the beast, he too had terrorised many a villages across the territories of many kings who could not have had him killed yet. 

The man too was as notorious as the beast and there was a reward on his head also. However it was a little less than the beast for the beasts' skin was adored very dearly by many kings and their queens and concubines.

Well, so anyways, that afternoon near the river by the woods when a man and a beast crossed eachother's paths, and the beast could not resist the promise of some warm salty flesh, he rrrrrrrrrrrrrred again, a little louder this time turning towards the man who had moved only slightly. For a long time, the beast kept staring at the man. The beast would come very fast and there was no point trying to run away from it. If the man won the fight, and win he must, he would become a legend bigger than he was now, bigger than even the beast. If the beast devoured the man, even the beast's legend would outgrow its current status. Though the beast couldn't care less.

When the beast locked eyes with the man, he saw another beast. In fact they both were beasts but of very different kinds, yet both unkind and unflinching, little apprehensive of eachother's bestiality but very sure of their own.   When the beast jumped over the man, the man was ready. He was an uncouth man with dirty big nails and the reflexes of a beast itself. 

 

He poked his fingers in the beast's eyes and the beast moved back quickly, slightly blinded for a little while. The man got long deep scratches from the claws of the beast, first of its kind on his body. Angry, the beast roared like a thunder. The beast did not like to play games with men. He pounced again quickly. The man was quick to move, throwing dust and punching the beast's nose. This time the man was not hurt at all. And just as he began to bask in the glory of his bravado, the beast pounced again, grabbing the man, neck above, inside his mouth.

The beast won. Many a villages across the territories of many a kings would celebrate the death of that dacoit. The beast may or may not be actively pursued, if it could be contained within the woods, for it had now killed a very notorious man whose lonely carcass lay miserably at the shore. The wolves and the hyenas and the vultures shall compete for the remains. The beast was gone already, in the woods near the river, waiting for another man to take the road less traveled.  

 

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Keshavan Sadasivam

His name is Keshavan Sadasivam. He has taken an early retirement, very early. He was given that on a platter. People call him K. Short and sweet, so unlike him. K is tall, dark and bald. He lives in Dharamshala, and for a monk, K knows way too much about fighter planes and bothers too much about his mustache.

Nobody can tell that K is a south Indian until they know his real name. Very few people know his real name, mostly those who keep changing theirs.

Her name is Usha. She is a cook. K calls her Ushi. She calls him Kushi-Kushi, she used to at least. Then one day while she was cooking, she told him of a particularly troubling backache. K said to her, he gives great massages. She shyly laughed him off.

The next day onwards she started teasing him every day about her back. So much aching, she would say rubbing her hands over her waist so much that her maxi would swing about cupping her buttocks. So like a good man that K was known to be, one day he simply got up and started massaging her back as she kept peeling the eggs and boiling the milk. 

She did not ask him to move away. And he did not ask her where the pain was, progressing slowly as if he’d cover each inch of her body. One thing led to another, and before Ushi could say anything, K had pulled up her maxi and pulled down his pants. She quickly shut the stove and quietly waited for him to finish, Kushi-Kushi, moaning slowly until he was done.

She also cooks for Dudeji and tells him stories of K, not the massage one, that one is told only by K, who sometimes misses her and says that he should stop massaging his maids. The writer reminds him that after all he is a monk, but then again twirling his mustache, K starts talking about the fighter planes.
_ _

कौन सा ख्वाब?

थोड़ी अजीब सी रात है आज,
एक अंजान सी मायूसी है,
अब किसके ख्वाब देखें?
ऐसे किस साये में,
जो ना उससे टकराए कभी?
उसको तो हमने अपने काले दिल को नंगा कर के दे दिया था,
उसने देखा तो पहले कहा की उफ्फ, ये कितना काला है!
फिर यही कहकर की कितना काला है, कूच दिया कचरे में। 
उफ्फ, हम करते रह गए!
अब कौन सी चादर डालें और कौन सी ताबीज पहनें?
किस कशिश के मातम में नाचें?
आखिर ऐसा कौन सा ख्वाब देखें?
की सवेरे मायूसी भले ही बची रहे,
आखिर रखैल है हमारी-तुम्हारी,
पर अंजान सी ना हो। 
जहाँ ना इंतजार हो,
और ना ही हो उसकी फरेबी फितरत और झूठे वादे। 
जहाँ हो तो बस ऊपर बैठे खानसामे की बेशर्मी,
और अपनी लजीज आशिकी।
ऐसा कौन सा ख्वाब देखें?
किस छोर की ओर देखें?
और किस उम्मीद से आखिर?
की दिन भी गुजर जाये जो,
और दर्द भी ना हो;
की रात भी थम जाये अगर,
तो खबर भी ना हो। 
आखिर अब हम ऐसा कौन सा, कौन सा ख्वाब देखें?

_ _

In The Park

There is a park in my neighbourhood, opens at 5 AM and shuts down at 8 PM. Being an injured man these days, I have nothing better to do than take never-ending walks in the park. Big trees, trimmed grass, flowery plants, fountains, benches, and a bit of unavoidable voyeurism – that’s the order of the day, on a good day.  And there is no bad day in the park.

There is an old woman, comes at sharp 7 AM. I hear that her name is Hope. She looks like she could die any minute, but never does. She does her laughing alone. I think she could use a trainer. ‘How does the air taste?’ I jokingly asked her once as she laughed gaspingly beside me. And staring back at my newly refurbished soul, she murmured, ‘Bitter’. Since then I avoid talking to her.

But everybody loves a bit of Hope in the park. Especially the couples and the police guard.

While the elders jog, some children sing Twinkle-Twinkle as they play games. There is a separate arena for them, and other performers and practitioners alike. Games have changed. Some joggers are reluctant, especially the one that I call Dudeji. He is from Patna and has grown up in Bangalore. He has got many friends, two cars, and a girlfriend of ten years that his life revolves around. 

They are going to get married next year. That’s eleven years before marriage. He tells me that they had met in the same park. She also used to jog then. I immediately imagined a fitter version of her. But my imagination is very wild, so I stopped. Eleven years is a long time to process, I wasn’t even the same man eleven months ago.

Sometimes Dudeji likes to share a spliff in the park. I am reluctant but fundamentalist. The police guard knows me, let’s not get into how. Me and police go back long before you learnt to read or I learnt to write. He is a cool guy, wears civilian clothes and does not bother those people who do not bother others. I’m one of those people, but not Dudeji. 

Dudeji is what Hope calls an exhibitionist. He plays Michael Jackson in the car parked outside the park so that he could hear it while sitting inside near the fence. Beat it. Hope is inside the park on most days. I have not seen her much outside the park. I wonder if she has a family, people who care for her even if the old pouty woman wouldn’t give a pigeon a grain.

It seems to me that Hope wakes up every morning completely lost. And then she finds the park, every single day. And in the park she finds a new favourite spot for herself every day. And thereafter this mad woman finds all these people to gesture, smile, and stare down at. And then she laughs till her heart rate does not pull her blood circulation out of danger for that day, every single day, till Dudeji takes her home, till there isn’t a bad day in the park.

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Knocking on Heaven's Door

After having spent a lifetime wading through the monstrosity of human struggle for nothing, Anwar stood at the gates of heaven. Finally, the final home was here. But where that man was, Rizwan, the gatekeeper, or was it Chitragupta? Anwar couldn’t care less. The gates shall open soon and there shall be his interminable supply of wine and virgins. Knock. Knock. Knock. 

Will he have a new name? Having a right name, and the surname most importantly, was good. Because having the wrong one was horrible, Anwar had known, little love & too much politics. He stretched his neck. The stiletto that was stabbed in his neck was still there. There was no pain, no blood, but just the bloody stiletto which had travelled to the gates of heaven with the naked man. He wondered if that too will be answerable for his death. Knock. Knock. Knock.

He still had memories. Not so fond ones. There was no spotless mind, alas, but why. There was peace but no chaos to look for it in the first place. No death. No birth. And hopefully, no rebirth either. No sunshine. No moonlit trails by the river. No morning azan. No chai. Knock. Knock. Knock.

Rizwan! Anwar shouted. Chitraguptaji!

Once upon a time while replying to another of the stupid fucking journalists, Bruce Lee had said – If I am pointing at the moon, do not look at my fucking finger. But why was Anwar thinking of that now? He looked at his fucking finger. There was no moon, of course. Shit. Knock. Knock. Knock.

May be Bruce Lee will be there. He looked around but there was nothing apart from that gate. But this was certainly not that nothing which that Baba was talking about while sucking up Anwar’s consciousness through his chillum over a boat in the middle of Ganges in Shiva’s own city. Shiva was smart. Stoner city for the devotees, and himself in the hills… Cool, very cool… Like daddy cool, made Anwar crazy like a fool. Knock. Knock. Knock. 

And suddenly he could see more gates. And more people. Where were they coming from and where did they want to go? Their halo of social validation was shining bright. There were no animals at the gates of heaven, all of them stayed back with Shiva in the hills. Nobody was looking for God at the gates of heaven. Privileged motherfuckers! Anwar suddenly started to look for God. 

Knock. Knock. Knock.

If you are knocking at my door, do not point your fucking fist at me. Bruce Lee shouted. Anwar had tried to do things right. Treat people right. Do good, as his mama had told him, and people will do well to you too. That was not true. She must be in hell. Could he go there instead?

Rizwan! Anwar shouted. Chitraguptaji!   

Where was Rizwan? Where was Chitragupta? Knock. Knock. Knock. Where was death? Here. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. What would he ask of them? Hopefully, rebirth.

--

Lovely Madam

Lovely Madam likes to swim, in the sea. The last time she did that, she was fourteen years old. Now she is about to get married next to a little pond and is loving it just as much. You see, after all finding happiness is her passion.

She is a teacher in a private university. An assistant professor, as she likes to put it. She has recently joined and has undoubtedly brought a new life to an otherwise stifling place. All men love her and all women envy her. Lovely Madam loves some men and envies most women, married women especially, as she thinks that they have what she does not, love that is. Unknown to her, many women envy her for the same reasons, thinking that she has what they do not, attention that is, and lovers. Lovely Madam certainly has a plenty of the former. She does not talk about the lovers.

 

Strange world, Lovely Madam still does not think it is. She wants it all, the world, a piece of the moon and a few of the stars. But who is going to give it to her? Certainly not the writer, a poor jobless man that he is. But Lovely Madam likes men with broken hearts as she feels that she can stich those pieces back together, a la Fevicol Se, makes her feel all motherly and shit, you see.

 

But she is no Kareena. And he is no Ghalib.

She likes the shrieking quiet of the jungles, the wilderness of human soul, the lovers they could be, the madness of her hopes, the clear sky and a long stretch of an empty road. She wants to live in a palace, her palace, away from the profound emptiness she feels all the time, away, far away, where there is just them and hoards of colorful exotic birds chirping over a large beautiful fountain of scented waters and fireflies lighting up the pathways to the majestic bed of flowers… 

There is one such palace, apparently haunted, which strangely wonders whether it is any real at all. The writer does not like that, but we will talk about it later.    

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New Business

I and my cousin have started a new business. We kidnap cute kittens off the streets and sell them on the internet. It is fantastic. The first kitten we sold was for twenty six thousand rupees where our cost was just thirty rupees if we considered the auto fare. An equally cute woman in her thirties bought it. It is crazy, but we broke even within an hour of starting the business.

We went to meet Babuji Smartass. He said we can not use the word ‘kidnap’. We are sourcing these, giving the cats shelter, we were told to speak. It would give a nice socially benevolent touch to the business he said. He also asked us to check if the cats have any rights we should know about. My cousin does not like cat rights and I do not like cats. They do not like the fact that they are smaller. Had they been as big as dogs, they’d have surely hatched a plan to get some of theirs to democratically live in Rashtrapati Bhawan.

Babuji Smartass also wanted a cat, for free. He said we should write a business plan so that we could set up a cat breading facility. We don’t have to kidnap each and every kitten, he said. Sure man, my cousin let him know.

The business is good. While working too much with cats, I think we too have become a bit cuter. My cousin says the cats talk to him. I understand. He has been spending much time with the clients. There are so many ladies who have found a Superman in him for rescuing free cats. I am astonished how the cats never tell him otherwise.

After much heated discussion over what could be a good advertisement for us, I put the posters of Cats’ Jurassic Park everywhere. Some people find a jurassic pussy very funny. When the kingdom comes, they’ll be the first to die. Chill man, my cousin lets me know, that this kitten meat is amazing. Apparently Babuji Smartass cooked it. Try some man, he tells me again. I'm planning to go off the grid for kingdom come.

_

Babuji Smartass

The Indian Psychiatric Society has recently announced a strange new illness. They have termed it as a historic development in the field of psychiatry. The illness, based upon the name of the first person diagnosed, has been called BSC – The Babuji Smartass Complex. 

 

Babuji Smartass was an Investment Analyst in a venture capital firm. There were two women in his life – his wife and her sister. They both lived away from each other, but they both lived with Babuji Smartass. And Babuji Smartass lived with no one but himself.

There was a repelling magnet in his charming aura which made him mysterious to everyone. He himself was addicted to it. Whenever his mind found him to be happy, it promptly created imagery suitable to turn him distant. Not everyone could fathom it. People thought that it was a kind of loneliness that poets write about. But it was not the case and only Babuji Smartass knew so.

The problem for Babuji Smartass began when his office computer was intercepted by the cyber crime police for planning an attack on a famous historical mosque of the city – because, as he mentioned in his chats – there were terrorists hiding underneath the mosque. Police was sure that this was the case of a raving madman. 

They had to take steps to avoid any accidental tragedy and embarrassment. So they put Babuji Smartass on surveillance, and that’s how the process of BS Complex’s discovery began.

Police was stunned by his demeanor. They just couldn’t categorize it. He was otherwise a healthy man living the life a lot of people dreamed of. But something was amiss. The officer in-charge of the surveillance was taken aback by Babuji Smartass’ nature. Babuji Smartass was an expert at delegating work. Babuji Smartass never did anything himself, but still, all the credit went to him for all the things that were done in his vicinity. He disowned any association with anything remotely unsuccessful. And thus, Babuji Smartass was a very successful man. 

Sometimes, he passed lewd comments on hot women passing by while he smoked cigarettes outside his office. He made most calls outside the office. Inside, he checked on what others were doing. Other people are working very hard, he’d often remark to other people. Think Bigger was his favorite phrase, hiring his favorite hobby, and politics his favorite sport.

He had hired a prospective detective to help him execute his plan. He was spending a fortune on this plan – the money he had told his wife he was saving for their own house – and her sister that he was saving for the divorce with her sister – the money, most of which he had used to order a lot of RDX from an underground online market, and for a later getaway to Hawaii.

A week before his planned attack, the police picked him up from outside his office for indecent behavior in public. He was then brought before the doctors from the Indian Psychiatric Society. Weeks went by. His wife thought he had died somewhere. She filled a police complain too. Her sister left the country. The detective he had hired joined the police.

Babuji Smartass emerged after three months, still as much a smartass as before. But people didn’t like it anymore. They avoided him altogether. And the parasite in him was frustrated without a society to feed on. Only his wife grew much closer to him than before and he too grew more dependent over her than before. He was arrested again in a matter of few months on the charges of killing his wife.

Babuji Smartass died in prison of pneumonia. But Babuji Smartass Complex lives on.

_ _

The Omelet Incident

Mrs. Batra made omelets every morning at 6 o’clock. Mr. Batra came home at around 7 o’clock after his night shift and went to sleep immediately after savouring whatever eggs he was served. Mrs. Batra then woke up the son, who apparently finished his nap in the toilet. The grandmother generally lay awake most of the time, moving only on a need to basis. The grandfather went out to play tennis. The dog barked after the newspaper arrived, and the morning as it came, came expectedly.

There was a milkman, obviously. He came on the right time, although not fixed time. Neither was he any Ravan, nor was Mrs. Batra any Sita. Neither could he fly away with her, nor did she wish for anything otherwise. So it was all good, life as it is. Until one day, when the cooking gas got over. And there were no omelets for Mr. Batra.

Mr. Batra worked through all night sitting inside the AC cabin of a chemical factory. He thought of the omelets in the pie charts and the glass windows of his world. There was little thought to it than a mere reflex. So when Mr. Batra could not have the omelets, he decided to start putting things on fire. Starting with the curtains in which was hiding the poor milkman. So much drama followed.

The milkman shouted for quite a bit but all the neighbors only looked up and around their roofs searching for a source of the sound. Few increased the volume of their radio or television. Mrs. Batra could never work in the kitchen without a radio playing in the background. She also upped the volume. The milkman said before dying, that the day was his most unlucky one.

So then it was all good, life as it is. They packed up the body into pockets and threw it away one by one, and by the evening it was all was gone. The only difference the omelet incident has ever made is that the grandfather now does not go out to play tennis. Also Mr. Batra said he was looking for a day job. And the rest is all good, life as it is.

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