Mediocre Writing Crappy Flow by Nihāl Raven - HTML preview

FOR ME

Inverted Crock

The crock resting on my neck is the root of most of my problems. Its inverted mouth remains sealed, nothing can escape from it, except blood, and that will be my end. So, no worries there.

The real problem is the literal mouth and the uncontrollable blabbering it does. My racing thoughts reverberate inside the crock, causing me immense pain, but they lose their energy if I keep mum long enough. That’s why I shall not speak much until this damned spring lasts. Otherwise, they will lock me again and put me on pills.

I hate it when I drool as a rabid dog does, and I sure will do that with a dose of lithium and valproate inside my body and brain.

The king of seasons is making everyone extra energetic. The trees are sending off new offshoots in every direction. Most are flowering, ready to convert the nutrients absorbed over the year into tiny packets of energy—a perfect bait to help spread their progeny far and wide.

Even the animals are being extra chatty. Elephants are drooling, resembling me on medication and langurs are jumping from one branch to another, the same way my thoughts jump from one avenue to another. The macaques are gritting their teeth, induced by a spurt of serotonin in their brains.

My forefathers are horny always, but my foremothers take the pink pill in this season only.

People  are   singing,   dancing,   blowing   trumpets  and beating drums to celebrate the season, most of them harvesting new crops, a lot of them welcoming the New Year, and a few of them remembering their Gods, and their foster children—the Saints.

Painters are sharpening their pencils and readying their colour-trays, and bards are filling inks in their pens and wiping dust off their keyboards to eulogize the season, most of them quoting and drawing inspirations from the dead among their tribe, a lot of them tweaking the old pieces, and a few of them composing unheard and unseen pieces.

And, I am expected  to  stay  mum.  People  tolerate  my company when I am in between, but I speak many uncomfortable truths in spring and then people hate me and then I come to places such as these.

My emotions are powerful and deep in both the stages but they don’t last for long, same as this Kunthi River which covers a scant distance to reach the sea, never to come back. It will ride the water cycle and may fall on Nilgiris again but the hills will not recognize it. The only difference between me and Kunthi is that it never gets muddy and muddled and my thoughts always do.

Shall I dwell on Nilgiris more, since it reminds me of the Nilkanth? The Blue Mountains. Blue neck of Shiva. The neck sealed shut with the inverted crock with a glue of poison extracted along with elixir.

No, I shall not. There is still time for that, otherwise, I may become God too early. How relieved I am that I am an atheist.

What a fool I was, when, like Nehru, I believed the monks lived in a delirium, worshipping their deities of choice, following elaborate rituals, meditating under the influence of marijuana, and eating and wearing whatever the devotees brought them. It’s not my fault when one of them, when pressed hard, said that deep within he knows that death is the full stop; not the semicolon—to body, mind and soul. Nor am I at fault when I felt an enormous surge through my body upon hearing this proclamation. I stripped every piece of clothing from my body and broke into a dance, in a complete trance, oblivious of everyone around me.

Validation is the same as broken pieces of a mirror when it was a rare commodity. You couldn’t throw the mirror away and it slashed through a part of you, the first opportunity it got.

How much distance have I covered? Twelve kilometres is it? The fit-bit shows eleven kilometres and eight hundred metres. Accuracy, agility, and reading other’s emotions are side-effects of my condition. Add to that, the all-knowing smile, and my big brown  eyes  and  they evoke fear in others, lest I see through them. How do I remember names and faces always, is beyond my comprehension. What should I do with this much information when I cannot even process most of it in my tiny brain?

The silent valley does not live up to its name since it’s a hotspot of activities, the biological hotspot. I have not seen such natural beauty packed into so small a place. Wait! Silent valley resembles my mind right now. I cannot fathom all the offerings of the valley in their entirety, the same as I cannot peruse or pursue all of my thoughts, but there are glimpses of beauty which I can savour.

Can I present my thoughts too, like this valley is doing in spring, for people to glance once and then enjoy what catches their attention the most? Yes! I can and wouldn’t it be a delight to follow a train of thoughts, ignoring every other route it can take. That yogi told me, it’s possible to concentrate on just one thought till you reach the end, from where it can go no further. You either find the root or that’s the end, of either the thought or your capability. I will break down an interesting perspective and keep following that until it gives me a choice to stop there itself or to follow another one. From there I will go to another and then another, jumping but not jumping.

Oh, Yogis! Sringeri is not far away from here where I ought to go tomorrow, which reminds me of Adi Shankar. He may have been in a depressive phase when he reached Srisailam. When spring came, he composed Soundrya Lehri—the wave of beauty. After that came Shivananda Lehri—the wave of Shiva, the book of Nilkanth, the book of the pure and it changed the Hindu world.

Sun is setting in the Arabian Sea, taking with it the whole imagery of the valley and closing its doors to the human world, for dreaded creatures roam during the night across it, till the sun rises from behind the Nilgiris once again and walkers like me return. A new sun will illuminate my inverted crock too, or so I hope. An illuminated crock doesn’t need the facade of greatness to show the light inside, but wouldn’t it be a delight to have all of it filled with light, making my existence light enough to carry on; without a care in the world.

Mediocre Writing Crappy Flow

FOR SHVAPACH

Chapter 1

Today’s realign of thirty-nine minutes and thirty-five seconds when sol becomes a day again is dedicated to De Jal. To usher in the 80th year of Mars, all De Gehena will be raised, unlike every year when only those who fall below or rise above the Gehena range are raised. Depending on which side they fall, they either will go to Ciel or Enfer, and those within the Gehena range will be put inside again to wait for another chance of salvation.

The first thing that Shvapach does today, after getting out of his bed is to look for the remote of his music system. He has been doing it from the last three days but the remote has eluded him so far. When he was living inside Gehena, he would listen to all kinds of music. The music there only stops when you are sleeping. Otherwise, it goes on and on. They say its good for keeping the brain running and thus keeping the whole body alive. The Ceil has no music, just anthropogenic sounds which most of the time are plain noises. The sound of the planet is heard only by the Enferers, who live outside the colony, and Ceilers when they venture out.

Shvapach feels like having some coffee before getting ready. He opens the kitchenette drawers one by one and finds the coffee jar in the lowest. As he picks up the jar, the remote of his music system glares at him. Chandal must have kept it here. She likes to play with it, he thinks.

Melodious death-metal and coffee smell pervade the cabin. Chandal wakes up. She is sleeping behind the sofa today instead of her mattress, near the window. She is the reason the linen on Shvapach’s side of the bed is crumpled and the other side is as smooth as a face model’s cheeks.

As he gets out of his cabin the siren blows. He hurries past the Valiants on the main gate of the living quarters. He loves the adulterated air of the  garden, instead of the pure one inside the buildings. This one is the oldest garden at Mars and on its periphery, lie the living quarters of guardians of the colony, the dining halls, and the command area.

Shvapach arches his neck to have a look at the dome that covers the garden. He sees a virga right above the dome. He goes inside again, puts on a jacket over his kurta, kisses Chandal on the head, and runs outside. He crosses the garden and enters the command area, whose entrance is heavily fortified. A Valiant frisks him and from the left pocket of his trousers, retrieves a cutter, the kind which is used to sharpen pencils.

‘You always seem to forget keeping it away while coming here’, the Valiant says. ‘You can take it back when you come out’.

Shvapach nods and enters the building. A big hall, enough to assemble the two hundred odd guards of the colony, welcomes him. Its granite floor has been polished by the onslaught of shoes that has crisscrossed it over the years. The meeting room is to his right.

He sees everyone seated, looking at the giant screen with the 3-D logo of De Jal on it. Infinity in turquoise hue with a shadow effect of bright yellow sums up the philosophy of the corporation that owns the colony. The words of Oak De Jal, the founder of the colony are etched on the wall:

We live forever, linking heart to word; hoping to rise once again.

He occupies his chair in the second row. Ron is sitting right before him with his right hand half raised, fiddling with his stylus. Shvapach brings out his notebook and takes the stylus out. Ron looks back and passes a smile.

‘How is your dog’? he whispers.

Shvapach leans forward. ‘You are my dog. You tell me how you are’?

‘Oh, I am sorry. How is your precious Chandal’? ‘She is fine’.

‘That’s good. And remember, I am your senior now. You can be punished for your insulting behaviour’.

‘I will keep that in mind’—he leans back—’Sir’.

Ron winks and turns back to the screen on which now appears Kalmukh’s face, the only face on the colony with smallpox scars.

His voice booms, ‘De Jal, zindabad’.

All the attendees stand up and cross their arms in an X, across their puffed chests and say, ‘Zindabad, zindabad’.

This time the voice is louder than the first time, ‘De Jal, zindabad’.

They imitate the loudness and their chests heave and the X-es of their arms leave their places only to come back as they finish, ‘Zindabad, zindabad’.

Even louder than before, ‘De Jal, zindabad’.

‘Zindabad, zindabad’, the attendees scream at the top of their lungs.

As they sit down, the Valiants get out of the chamber and close the gates.

‘You, the guardians of the colony have been entrusted with carrying out the orders of De Jal and, I, Kalmukh, am the relayer of those orders. Dazzle De Jal, in honour of her late father Oak De Jal’s curious nature, has decided to make an exception when we raise De Gehena, except for the exception, we are making to mark the 80th year of Mars. We are selecting a few to go to Earth’.

All the attendees want to see each other’s faces but don’t.

‘We have got the signal from there that it is settling down earlier than we expected and as terra-forming of mars is taking longer than previously thought, we are exploring the possibility of the return of the mankind to earth and for this, some of our people who are going to be raised are to be sent to earth. Seven people, both Ceilers and Enferers will go to investigate the conditions on Earth’.

The room which was silent till now except the sound of Kalmukh’s voice subduing the sound of the breathing of the guardians falls silent like a class of whispering kids does on hearing the announcement of a surprise test. Till now everyone was expecting that the terra-forming will be completed in the next half a Martian century or so. They have even embarked on starting the core of the planet to form the dynamo that will build a magnetic field around the planet, to counter the biggest hurdle in terra-forming. What is the need of returning to Earth? But, there is no way anyone is going to ask what happened to the plan. De Jal’s word is the final authority and Kalmukh her voice.

Maybe Inder will ask something about it. Shvapach looks at Indra who is among the few people close to the power centre, concentrated in the hands of De Jal, Kalamukh, and Gehena. Shvapach would never have expected someone to question De Jal, but his loyalty started to waver after the incident that led to his demotion from being the head of guardians.

Inder stands up and says, ‘What about the time they will take to come out of the Gehena’?

That’s what you have to say, thinks Shvapach expecting Ron to turn around so that he can share his disappointment with him but Ron keeps his gaze fixed at the screen.

‘Gehena has been training them through the Earth and Mars sims from the last six months. Their brains are well acquainted with a post-Gehna life’.

‘So how many Cielers and how many Enferers?’

He is just asking this to salvage his reputation. They have been preparing since last six months and he, the head of guardians, gets to know it with us.

‘There is no way for us to know that, or for the people who are being raised. Only De Jal knows that’.

‘I am sure all are Enferers’. Shvapach stands up.

‘Oh, I was waiting for you to chip in with your wisdom. Shvapach, you are the one who will lead them. You will have ample time to find out what they are’, Kalmukh says. ‘And Inder, send Shavpach’s dog to me while he is away’.

Shvapach’s fists tighten on the mention of his dog. Ron turns back. The others turn towards Shavapach from all sides.

I will have to find a way, thinks Shavapch. ‘Kalamukh, I would like to go back to become De Gehena or you can rather make me an Enferer again but I won’t let anyone have my dog’.

He knows he is indispensable to the colony and now this mission. Except for Ron and Inder, no one else is capable of going to Earth with a bunch of Enferers.

‘Well, in that case, you’ll have to stay in Enfer for three days to account for accosting me. As a reward for surviving, we will allow your dog to go with you. I think you understand that Earth is not too different from Enfer, so it will give you good practice before embarking on the mission’.

‘Yes, given that I have been to earth more times than anyone present here and if you combine my Enfer visits, they exceed the combined visits of all’, Shvapach says while moving his gaze from the screen to each of the faces looking at him. All the faces agree. But they also agreed when he was demoted from the head of guardians to the second level.

He sits down and the logo appears on the screen again signalling the end of the meeting. A thin murmur starts but is soon turns into a discussion under the direction of Indra. Ron looks at Shvapach till he is ready to take part in the proceedings that will culminate in the raising of De Gehena.

Inder stops Shvapach in the garden after the shift gets over. They both have the same physique, the standard guardian physique. Buff shoulders, chiselled jaws, prominent noses, thick necks, and long arms. Their dhoti-kurtas are different, with Shvapach’s set in greyish blue like the other guardians and Indra’s set in maroon.

‘Shvapach, it has been my pride to serve under you and I will happily do that again if you can take back your rank. We were after all raised to serve the colony. It is our honour that we have been made the guardians of this colony. We have to keep the system running until we find a way out of it’.

‘Do you think the Earth is ready’? ‘That’s your job to find out’.

‘Any idea which part are we going to’?

‘I am also waiting for the proper orders to come in. Get ready for a ride to Enfer, here and then there’, Inder says pointing to the blue planet that is visible after the dust storm has settled down.

‘I am always ready to take a trip to my favourite place’.

***

Chandal lifts her eyes keeping her face stuck on the floor. Shvapach lies on his stomach in front of her and starts running his fingers over her head. She closes her eyes when Shvapach cups her face in his hands and blows on her forehead.

‘Why did you have to choose this? Heaven is what you wanted but I didn’t know this was your definition of heaven’.

The music system is on. The song, ‘Show me how to live’, blares in full volume. A full-size mirror is to the right of Shvapach, a short distance from where they are lying. Looking at Chandal and himself in the mirror, Shvapch sees his beard waving with each breath of Chandal, showing the white strands. He doesn’t remember the last time he had applied colour to his greying hair.

Must have been before my demotion, he thinks while taking his hands off of Chandal’s face.

As he stands up he sees only Chandal’s face in the mirror: Jet Black with greys showing in between, just like her master and lover. They are looking at each other in the mirror and Shvapach’s eyes start watering. Even the snake slithers straight when entering its home and Shvapach’s home was the memories of the time spent with Chandal when she was Lotus. Lotus De Valiant.

He decides to leave his beard the way it is. Walking a few steps away from Chandal, he places himself in front of the mirror and starts counting the whites in his beard.

‘One, two, three—’

‘Seventeen’, comes the voice from behind him, the owner of which he can recognize even in his sleep.

‘—four, five . . . seventeen it is’, he says before turning to face Ron. ‘My time has come’.

‘You think too much. You are not the messiah, you think you are’.

‘Contrary to what you believe I feel I am the devil’.

‘You were that inside Gehena. Outside, you are nothing. Nothing. Like the rest of us’.

Ron lifts Chandal and starts for the sofa placed near the window. Shvapach sees this in the mirror and turns away from it. He takes a few steps forward in quick motion behind Ron. As he reaches there, Ron turns and sits on the sofa. He lifts Ron’s arms off of Chandal.

‘Chandal, get down’! The dog jumps from Ron’s lap and takes her former place away from both of them. ‘How many times do I have to tell you not to touch her’?

Ron stands up. ‘She is a dog now. Accept it. We all are lonely in his world but love, enmity and marriage ought to be between people of equal standing or at least people in your case’.

‘Look, Ron, I had given up on relationships even within Gehena and you are talking about them in the real world’.

‘You are not an Enferer anymore. You have free-will now. You were not born a Ceiler but you are the first one to transition from that side to this. People fall in love, make enemies and take vows to be with each other for their entire lives, inside Gehena and out of it, if they are Ceilers. Don’t they?

‘Then you can say that I am still an Enferer in love with a Valiant’.

‘But, she is not Lotus anymore. You are hopeless. I wish you die in Enfer and spare me all the troubles of being your friend. Alas, I know you won’t die’.

‘Yes, I won’t die. And yes, I am hopeless because the heaven we were promised is not this Ceil. I feel De Jal has betrayed us’.

‘Blasphemous’! Ron stands up. ‘That’s why you are being put through Enfer again. You will appreciate Ceil after going through it this time, I hope’.

The Conch blows, indicating the start of the realign. Their eardrums vibrate and Shvapach feels a little water breaching his right eardrum from inside. He puts his little finger inside to give his ear a good shaking. When he sees his finger after taking it out, the tip is red. The same colour when he had looked at Mars, during his last visit to Earth, as the new home of humanity. Today’s meeting has changed it all.

‘Time for De Gehena to rise’, Ron says and puts his mindy-bindy on, which connects him to the minds of the other guardians and guards. ‘Come on in. It’s time’.

The door to Shvapach’s cabin opens and two Valiants come inside. One of them is carrying a suit, Shvapch has put on the majority of the time outside Gehena. before. It protects against the low atmospheric pressure, connects the wearer to an oxygen supply, and provided warmth, barely enough to keep you alive in Enfer. Ron gets near Shavpach and injects him, saying, ‘This will make you remember and accentuate all your guilts for three days, the essence of Enfer’.

***

Deep inside the volcanic tubes, the chambers of De Gehena are bristling with activity. The pitch dark environ, maintained to conserve power, is a perfect place to keep them sleeping in their gooey coffins made of nano-carbon fibre. The Valiants and the Travails are wearing night-vision goggles and oxygen suits.

Each chamber houses five to seven rows stacked in columns of eleven coffins each, connected to oxygen pipes that are in turn connected the main supply line, passing over each column. The coffins are designed to slow the breathing rate to compensate for the meagre supply of it on Mars. The ceilings are shotcreted to bolster the structural integrity of the chambers. For emergencies, each row is connected to rails on which the coffins can fall and be transported outside for safe removal. This ensures that the coffins are not harmed in any way, though an emergency of such magnitude has never occurred until now. There was a partial evacuation a few years back when due to a mild earthquake, the ceiling of one of the chambers fell  down but not before the coffins were removed by the automated system.

After Inder authorises the system to proceed with the three-tiered security protocol involving eye, finger and tongue recognition, it wheels into action. Horn sound fills the chambers vibrating the entire place.

The system hoists the assigned coffins from their respective positions and puts them on separate tracks leading to Ceil and Enfer chambers. Inder puts the system to a stop after the last coffin enters the chambers. Kalmukh’s voice comes on the PA system, ‘Send in the Travails to each chamber and haul the earth-going party from each’.

Inder puts on his mindy-bindy and instructs the Travails to feed the serial numbers of the coffins belonging to the selected group. Two Travails go to the heaven chamber and two to the hell chamber. Inder turns off his mindy-bindy losing his ability to see through the eyes of the Travails. Only De Jal can see what they see inside the chambers.

The Travails put the chosen coffins one by one on the same track that had led them inside the chambers. The track starts again but not before Kalmukh reassigns the serial numbers of all the coffins present in Gehena. The serial number screens on the chosen coffins are blank now. Instead, they have earth written on them. They are led to a waiting chamber to await the end of Shvapach’s three-day stint in Enfer.

The Ceilers rise first. The goo is drained and the lids open. Some of the De Gehena have been inside the coffins since the beginning of the colony. Others are as young as twelve which is the minimum age requirement to come out of Gehena.

As they come out most struggle to stand on their feet. The only exercise they got inside Gehena was when the fortnightly realign of the day and sol, flexed their limbs inside the coffins, their minds remaining inside the simulation created by Gehena to keep them alive.

Combined with the slippery floor, resulting from dripping goo from their bodies, the weak limbs make a lot of them fall and others to struggle standing up. The mess created by the dripping goo is then sucked by the floor, making some of the Ceilers stick to the floor in varying positions, ranging from half-standing to lying on their backs and chests.

The Travails instruct them to make a queue after the drying process is completed and they can wrest themselves free of the suckers and stand up. The more able-bodied assist the weak ones to stand up and help in making the rank as straight as possible facing the light coming from three different doors leading out of the chamber.

As they trickle out, they cling to the railings that run on both sides. At the head of the first row is a woman. When she reaches the middle of the room, a machine picks her up, as gentle air picks up a feather. Her supine body is held with the aid of straps on a platform, steel grey, glistening like metal, but instead of being rigid, it adjusts itself according to the contours of her body. Her hair cascade down the platform and her legs dangle from the other end of the platform.

A syringe appears above the platform coming right at the navel of the woman. He blue eyes widen in proportion to the diminishing distance between her navel and the syringe. As it goes in, she lets out an orgasmic shriek and her heads and legs straighten up with such a force that if the straps were not in place, she would have doubled up.

As soon as the syringe retracts to its original position the woman starts giggling and her body colour turns  healthy. A glow comes to her cheeks. The veins show up but only for a moment before her body buffs up to become that of a Greek goddess of the yore. A gentle smile adorns her mouth.

Kalmukh’s voice christens her Yukta De Gentil. She will join the people responsible for providing food to the colony. The machine unclasps her. She jumps from the platform on the other side where white robes await her. She picks one hanging near her and gets dressed. Her hips and bosom take to the thigh-length, one shoulder, robe as if it was waiting for her body to get into it.

The same process repeats for the others in this row and other two rows until the last one of the Ceilers are given a shot of the syringe and dressed up. The second-row people are De Valiants who get red camouflaged uniforms. They will maintain law and order in the colony.

The longest row belonging to De Travails, responsible for the smooth functioning of all the systems of the colony, are given blue overalls.

The best among these three groups are chosen by De Jal to become guardians, the administrative body of the colony.

They put the Enferers in suits without cleaning them and lead them outside the colony where Shvapch is sitting with his back resting on a rock. De Gehena has deemed them beyond salvation, based on their deeds inside the simulation. All they will do will be to atone for their sins under the influence of a concoction, administered