A Rather Odd Sort of Play - Scene 1 - The Meeting

SCENE 1

THE MEETING

<Our tale does begin on a dark and stormy night
   A night dark and stormy enough to give Freddy Krueger a fright!
   The scene: a dark street
   One can hear the sound of feet
   A lamppost stands tall
   And illuminates it all
   It is a city far away, quite far, very far
   (Or very, very close; it all depends on where you are)
   The curtain rises
   The audience members of various sizes
   Take their seats and hold their breath
   The air is still; as still as death. 
   We see a man of countenance haughty
   Leading a child, not wicked, but naughty!
   The man huffs and he grumps, looks around him and sighs
   Takes out a pair of glasses, places them over his eyes
   And says- but wait! We haven't revealed yet his name
   Let there be no hassle on that point (a trifling one. But all the same...)
   The name of this gentleman with his hat on his head
    Is Isaac Menander. Let's use IM instead.
    And so this man Menander looks down and he says:->

IM <To his son>: Fear not the dog that bays!
                             For I shall protect you. Protect you...that's right.

<The worthy man shudders in what seems to be fright.
   He clasps the poor boy's hand with all of his might.
   When a vision in red sweeps into his sight.>

IM <To himself>: My God, that's pretty!
                              Come now Menander, think of something that's witty.

The lady: Oh sir!

IM <stupidly>: Derrrrrrr.....
                          Are you talking to me?

The lady: Why yes. You see
                 I seem to have lost my way.
                Could you do me a favour this fine sunny day?

IM: It's night.

The lady: Is that right?
               I could have sworn it was sunny.

IM <To himself>: Now that is most funny.
                              This lady is obviously not right in her mind.
                              But oh sweet Moses! What a behind!
    <To the lady>: Allow me to lend you my hand.
                             My name is Menander of Menander's Marching Band.
                             Perhaps you have heard of us? There's me, Larry, Curly, Mo...

The lady: I'm quite sorry but my answer is no.
                I do not believe I have heard of you lot.

IM <To himself>: The nerve! Oh well, she's hot.
     <To the lady>: I apologize. I didn't catch your name.

The lady: Elizabeth Brewitt. Formerly Dame.

IM: Formerly?

The lady: Yes. My husband recently died.

IM: Dear dear!

<And he sat down and cried>

EB: But Mr. M! Good heavens! What's the matter?
       Your behaviour does deem you as mad as a hatter.

IM: Do forgive me. The thing is my wife
       Recently died too after much pain and much strife
       Leaving me this boy that I named Master Bill
       A common enough name, quite common, but still...

EB: Oh you poor man! Do not say a word.
       For my heart has been melted from what I just heard.
       Pray tell which illness was it that finally nabbed her?

IM: Beg your pardon Miss Brewitt. You misunderstand. I stabbed her.

EB: Stabbed her you say!

IM: Yes. That was the way
       I finally rid her of her miserable life.

EB: Excuse me. I believe you mentioned much strife.
       But a stabbing is swift. So I must ask you, you see...

IM: Say no more! All the strife was for me.

EB: How so?

IM: She was a nag.

EB: Oh.

IM: So tell me, my dear, where is it that you live?

EB: Beg your pardon Mr. M. but I'm not inclined to give
       You my address after hearing a history like that.

<So saying she lifted her skirts and like a bat
   Out of hell she was gone when the bright morning came
   IM gazed wistfully after the scurrying ex-Dame.>

IM: Such a pity! She had a beautiful bod.

His son: Ah, shut it you slimy old sod.  

<Exeunt>

No 1 Fan - Part 6 - The End

<Well, here we are. Finally we reach the end of the Author's Tale. It took me one hell of a time to finish, but it's done. Give me a moment, I'm just so friggin' relieved. I've been working on this for almost a year now and I've gone from having a story to tell to getting sick of it and then picking it up again. Finally, it's through. I hope you've been reading the earlier installments. If not, here's a list, so you can read the whole story at an entire sitting. Enjoy:

No 1 Fan - Part 1 - The Author
No 1 Fan - Part 2 - Just Checking
No 1 Fan - Part 3 - The Book
No 1 Fan - Part 4 - The Reason
No 1 Fan - Part 5 - The Gist


She didn't even pause. Just went on about how a typo in his third book was actually a Freudian slip revealing that he had an untamed fear of heights. "I'm guessing she has a degree in psycho as well," he thought. And he didn't mean psychology.
Finally he stood up as if to leave. That got her attention.
"Where are you going?"
"Nowhere. But I've had enough. I'm telling you for the last time, I do not put hidden messages in my books. None whatsoever. Not even a hint of a hint. And if you're finding them, lady, you have some serious problems which you should probably look into."
She stared.
"You mean..."
"Yes."
"...not a single..."
"Not even half."
"Well, what about...."
"No."
"Or the time you wrote..."
"Absolutely not."
"But how about-"
"NO!"
"Oh."
She looked at her hands for a while. He noticed she was nodding very slowly. Her lower lip started trembling and her upper one almost disappeared behind it. He thought she might cry. For the first time, he realised just how important it was for her to find meaning in something, even in his writing. Perhaps it was easier because it was so simple and saccharine. It's easy to draw your own images on a blank, extremely bland slate. This was probably the one big thing in her life, the one thing that made her feel special. And he had just taken it away from her. For a minute, he almost felt sorry for her.
Just for a minute.
Suddenly, she seemed to come to a decision. Her head snapped up and once again her eyes were cold and emotionless.
"Well then I gues you really are just a talentless hack."

And she picked up her jhola and walked the fuck out of his life.

He would have been slightly pissed if he wasn't so grateful to see her walk away.

***

Later, as he sat in his study, he looked back on the whole episode and smiled. it was all so bizarre. And now that it was over, it even seemed funny. He realized that it was probably the first truly unusual thing that had ever happened to him in his entire life. His life had always been so humdrum, so boring that he had sought refuge in the magical worlds he created, not literally of course, but enough to keep him insulated from the outside world. His worlds were unusual because his World was mundane. But his work was terrible because deep down he knew his life was terrible. But now, something had happened, something strange and unusual and it had set him...free.

He switched on his computer and logged on to a Tarun Rai fan page forum. But strangely enough, he couldn't think of any insults to hurl against himself. He couldn't stop thinking about his No 1 Fan.

He logged out and opened up a Word document instead. Outside, the rain had just begun. The rumbling thunder had given way to the hiss of the raindrops falling on the trees, the quiet yet forceful sound of the breeze. The night was awakening as the world went to sleep. But alone in a room that smelled of wet feet, hunched in front of a computer screen, he typed and he typed until there was nothing left. And then he began to read. He read about his encounter with a delusional fan, his discomfort, her obsession, his embarassment. He wrote about trying to get a word in in vain. And the joy that he felt when she left. Perhaps he embellished or even made up some of the things that were now on the screen. Had she really chased him home? Was her jhola really filled with cigarettes? Was the tea he was sipping before she came really the best he had ever had?

Probably not, but he had reached the point where fact and fiction had become inseparable; where the truth flows seemlessy into the product of his imagination; in other words, that grey zone where real stories are born.

The minute he wrote the words 'The End' at the bottom of the document, he felt an unaccustomed surge of accomplishment. One that he had never felt before, but needed to feel again. So he wrote another story. And another one. Every time, he felt a rush the moment he completed a plotline and like a junkie, he needed to feel that rush over and over again. And each time, he needed to write more and more to get that rush. Unbeknownst to him, his fiction was maturing before his very eyes. What astonished him was the fact that each and every story he wrote was born from a memory, a memory belonging to the recollection of his uninspiring, humdrum life. But as if his No 1 Fan was a catalyst, he transformed the recollections of his past into finely crafted tales, the like of which had never flowd from his keyboard before. He reached the point where he could even include veiled references to individuals and incidents. At that point, he stopped. The echo of words long forgotten rang in his ears. A woman trying to pick out secrets from the pages of a battered old book with his name on the cover. He giggled hysteically the moment he realised that this was exactly what she had been looking for. He giggled but he typed on.

The sun rose on a dingy room that still smelled of feet. But they were dry feet now and a different man was sitting in the lone chair in front of a glowing computer screen. A pair of eyes read and re-read the lines before them while a pair of ears heard the familiar noises of the old lady downstairs getting up out of bed, stumbling over her cat and cursing. Still the eyes read.

This was it.

This was what he needed. He knew that this was going to be different. He knew it was going to work. He got up, shaved, brushed his teeth, combed his hair, put on his clothes, hit print, and walked out of the house towards his publishers'. They were going to love this.

***

They hated it. Or, to be precise, they found it quite an interesting bunch of stories, but not quite what they were expecting out of him, thank you very much, after all he had a formula going and they really didn't want to lose (so sorry, they meant disappoint) their core demographic, now did they, and they weren't quite sure this...manuscript really appealed to that demographic and surely he could nip on home and write the final installment to his Conqueror of Crowp series of young adult novels, after all so many people were waiting for it with bated breath and of course he understood, didn't he?

He understood. He tore up his contract with them that very day, legality be damned. Thankfully, his successful career of peddling bullshit to kids had earned him a pretty little sum which had been careful to keep stored away in the bank, living frugally and withdrawing it in small amounts so that one day he could afford that trip to Vegas and watch Love.

All thoughts of Vegas forgotten, he decided to take out all the money in his account and use it to publish his book independently. It was a gamble, but he hoped it would pay off.

Did it? Well that's another story. It's set to come out this November. We'll see if fortune really does favour the bold.

Two last loose ends to tie up before we leave Tarun Rai to his future, whatever it may be.

First, Anita Sen had left her copy of  The Red Door on the table in front of Tarun Rai. He found a name and address scrawled on the first page in a green pen and so decided to send it back to her, even though she probably wouldn't want it. Sure enough, it wound up in the trash with its pages ripped out and the cover defaced the very next morning. Anita never read another word written by Tarun rai. According to her, she was done with 'no-good talentless hacks'.

And finally, Tarun thought long and hard and decided that his upcoming book, his collection of short stories would be named after the two words which had driven him to keep writing right after he typed them out at the bottom of each story; had pushed him to finish an entire 500 page collection in a single night. Those words and the name of the book they inspired were:

THE END

No 1 Fan - Part 5 - The Gist

"My mother used to read your book to my little sister every night before she went to sleep. So every night, I'd hear your words, ringing in my ears. To be honest, I didn't think very much of your writing at first. I used to make fun of my mother and sister for reading what I thought was trash. Slowly though, as I listened to your words instead of just hearing them, I realized that there was more, so much more, just lying beneath the surface, just waiting for a discerning reader to come along. The first time I actually read one of your books, I read it cover to cover. It was an epiphany. Suddenly I'd found what I had been looking for for so many years, though I didn't know that I was looking for it. It was like your book just fit somewhere...somewhere deep inside me, in a place where neither man nor God has been, a place where there was nothing but is now so full of your brilliance; full like our plumbing after my Uncle Avranav pays a visit on Pujo."
He watched her rhapsodize in front of him with a mixture of uneasiness and amusement. Never before had he struggled to contain his laughter while desperately searching for a cop, just in case she acted as crazy as she sounded. What made it even more surreal was the fact that she was talking about him like that with...oh good God, she actually had tears in her eyes.
He suddenly noticed that she had finished and was looking expectantly at him. The old uneasiness set in.
"Er... listen...Anita. I really don't know what you're talking about. The truth is, my books don't have any kind of hidden meaning in them at all. See--"
"I knew you'd be humble."
"Um...excuse me?"
"I knew you'd try to downplay your magnificence. I knew it the minute I read Chapter Three: The Rocking-Horse of Enki-Boo."
"And, um, what about  Chapter Three: The Rocking-Horse of Enki-Boo?"
"Well it's obvious once you think about it. That's the Chapter in which you introduce Gilheridas the squirrel. The very fact that you compare Gilheridas' tail to a quill is very telling. Clearly, Gilheridas himself is an allegory for Tarun Rai, the author. You. The tail doesn't just look like a quill, it is a quill, wielded by you, the bard, the storyteller. The fact that you say Gilheridas is little is evidence that you have a tendency to belittle yourself. Gilheridas' voice is soft; in other words, you do not like to proclaim your greatnes in a loud voice. And the final stroke was when you didn't make Gilheridas a primary character, but an inconsequential one. I mean, he gets eaten by a rabid gorilla three sentences after he's introduced, for Christ's sake! Clearly you are secondary to your story, or at least you think you are. If that isn't humility, I don't know what is."
"Actually I said Gilheridas' tail looks like a quill because...well... I've always thought squirrel tails look like feathers. And I made him little because...well...squirrels are little."
"Oh come on now. You don't actually expect me to believe that, do you?"
"I really really do."
"Fine. What about Bawarchi, hmm? Don't tell me he isn't a atheistic metaphor."
"What?"
"A king who became a chef? Clear reference to the Bible where God is referred to as a divine monarch. At the same time there are frequent references to a 'heavenly banquet'. By making Bawarchi a king turned chef, someone who would be expected to prepare banquets, you clearly set him up to represent the Almighty. However, the story dwells on how powerless he is and how he can do nothing without the help of children. Children. A clear indication that you believe in the theory that God is a creation of Man and not vice versa; that without Man, God has no meaning."
"Are you serious?! I haven't even read the Bible! And don't go calling me an atheist in front of my mom, she'll kill me! She already makes me spend an hour at the temple everyday ever since that time she caught me reading..I am not...not...an atheist. I make donations to the local pundit, I fast every Tuesday, I-I-."
"Mr. Rai?"
"Yes?"
You're rambling."
"Sorry."
"Now let's talk about Neha. Obviously a personification of the emancipation of the Modern Indian Woman who isn't afraid to try new sexual experiences and indulge in deviant behaiour."
"What?! She's seven frikkin' years old!"
"Interesting choice of numbers. Seven deadly sins anyone? Anyway, that one's pretty much a certainty. After all, she is riding a centaur on the cover. Half-man, half-horse? And you're telling me that isn't a fetish?"
"Yes, she's riding on a centaur, but she's also riding with her brother."
"Don't even get me started on that. Plus, in the book, she gets a magic staff. Magic staff? Could that be any more Freudian?"
"You. Are. SICK!"
"Her mother's name is Savita? Come on. Does that ring a bell?"
He then sat in stunned silence while Anita proceeded to link the fact that his second book was called Indian Fairy Tales to homoeroticism, the colour of one of his character's eyes to the rampant corruption in the current government and the names of a group of crickets in his latest book to his (supposed) hatred for the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
For a while, he listened to her occasionally throwing in horrified interjections and corrections which she listened to patiently and then completely ignored. Then, when the constant stream of deductions became no more than a meaningless flow of words (turtle...Impressionism...dwarf....freedom of press), he started toying with the idea of pretending that his works really were insightful and full of undiscovered worth. But he'd been raised to be honest and, more importantly, he was reasonably certain that if he played along with this girl, his situation might change from that of any B-grade rom-com to something along the lines of Misery.
So it was around the point that she definitively proved that his desciption of a lake in his short story The First Gnome of Chlork was proof of his secret Communist beliefs that he said:
"Stop."

Why?

I know you think you're better than me
And I know I think you're not
I know the things they say about me
They mean nothing, but at the same time, a lot.
I know the words you expect from me
And I know they're what I can't say
I know I've got to cheat to win
I know crime doesn't pay
Like a tight-fisted parent whose face means nothing to you
You look around and then look within
For a sign of the greater things you know are to come
But like an imprisoned, impotent old djinn
Your rage wells up inside you
And I see it in your eyes
I eat but I can't think about you
I see truth in your lies
I know there isn't a ray of sunshine to break
Through me, not this time around
I know that you have been looking desperately for
Those things you wished you hadn't found
I know these words mean nothing to him
That my eyes turn away from hers
I know the evil that lies, lies within
The Ma'ams and the Dudes and the Sirs
I know they can't hear me when I cry in the night
I know it's the day that has dawned
I know you could try but you'd never convince her
That your uncle lies under that pond
She doesn't believe you
Deceive her instead
She's not going to see you
With that chip on your head
Your shoulder is bare, do you know it? I do.
I see it all day in the glass
That looks back at me with tears in its eyes
And whispers to me as it laughs
"What demon possessed you?
What have you done?"
Are questions that are never asked
But all the same
They're the questions that last.

The Tombstone Talks

Here lies the body of Jimmy I. Hives
Kept twenty-four people from ending their lives
Listened to arguments and worries, complaints
That could try the patience of the holiest saints
With his cap on his head and umbrella in hand
Old Jimmy never shirked from lending a hand
When Billy Jean cocked a gun to his own head
"Don't do it" was what Jimmy's soft voice said
When Ricky Burrito said he'd jump from a cliff
Only Jimmy could keep him from becoming a stiff
Nancy Parker slit her wrists at six by the clock
And woke up to find Jimmy had brought her the Doc
Harry Paulson's wife Linda ran off to Rome
It was Jimmy's persuasion that brought her back home
Just in time to see Harry, in his hand was a knife
No doubt about it, Jimmy saved Harry's life
Candice DeMorgan, alone at eighty-two
Says she'd have just given up if it wasn't for you know who
He visited her in hospital, sat by her white bed
Jimmy I. Hives brought her back from the dead
He argued Arnold Van Dyke's case in court like heck
And kept the hangman's noose away from an innocent man's neck
Seventeen hostages owed their very lives
To that passionate negotiator, Jimmy I. Hives
He convinced the lone gunman to lay down his gun
And let them out of that bank, one by one
On his 50th birthday, Jim was in for a treat
Those twenty-four people went over to meet
The hero, their angel who had saved all their lives
They arrived at the home of Jimmy I. Hives
They knocked and they hollered, they rang and they frowned
And finally they got Little Bobby Brown
(Who'd been snatched from in front of a speeding car
By Jimmy Boy who saw it rush at the kid from afar)
To open a window, crawl in and unlock
The door upon which twenty-four people had knocked
He did so, they came in and rushed upstairs
To the bedroom where they stopped, they stood and they stared
Until someone in quivering, grief-stricken voice said
"It's Jimmy...Old Jimmy...Jimmy Hives is dead!"
They rushed him to the hospital where the Doc sadly said:
"Cause of death: overdosed while lying in bed."
You see, poor Jimmy had always fought depression,
He fought a lone battle without any mode of expression
'Cause Jimmy had always been alone
He never ever had someone to call his own
No friends, no family, no wife, no son
Jimmy I. Hives had nobody, no one
So he tried to help others and he never complained
Although in Jimmy's life, it had always rained
But though he saved lives and became a hero to all
That didn't ease his burden, for still no one called
Him while he sat at home, alone, all alone
Staring with dull eyes at the ever-silent phone
So he wrote an apology and paid all his bills
Then lay down in bed and downed a bottle of pills
And so here lies his body, alone on a hill
Undisturbed all year long, that is until
The 31st of December, his birthday comes 'round
And twenty-four people all crowd around
And lay twenty-four roses on that single grave
For the twenty-fifth life that Jimmy I. Hives couldn't save.
   

Welcome

I know I'm interrupting No 1 Fan's plotline (again!) but I thought this was worth a mention.
I'd like to welcome to this blog a certain Ms. Dipin Kaur, who has recently started following it. Why is this of any significance you might ask? Quite simply, she is the first follower of this blog who I do not know personally! Seriously. Yeah, I know, it's kinda sad but hopefully this is a sign of things to come. So I'd like to thank Ms. Kaur for making my day and I hope to get some feedback from her. I also hope you won't tire of my inconsistency and bear with me which seems to have become the most often used phrase in this blog.
Oh and if by any chance you accidentally pressed the follow button and were planning to correct that but won't do so now because you feel it would be embarassing....meh, I'll take what I can get. A pity follower's better than no followers, right?

No 1 Fan - Part 4 - The Reason

<Sorry it took so long people, my exams were on and I kinda lost interest in this plotline. But never fear! I am back on track and hopefully I'll be able to finish this thing soon. Please excuse the brevity of this next part, but it takes a while for me to get back in the groove. Bear with me!>



He looked at the book with disgust. Then he looked back up at her.
"This is why you're here?"
"Of course."
"But it's trash."
"I know it is..."
He relaxed. She was insulting the book. All was right with the universe again.
"...as compared to your later work."
He coughed. His later work? The Red Door was a steaming pile of cowdung, but it was only marginally worse than the rest of his books. As one reviewer put it, "Tarun Rai's one admirable trait is his consistency. Possibly no other writer has managed to continuously and dilligently churn out as much nauseating material as Tarun Rai."
He decided to ask her outright.
"What exactly do you like about the book?"
She thought for a minute.
"Well... I like the subtle way in which you mock democracy's shortcomings. Oh, and the veiled references to your contemporaries is pretty entertaining as well. But what really impressed me was the absolutely unassuming way in which you tackle the subject of your own mortality whilst highlighting the futility of resisting the temptations that come our way everyday."
He smiled. And then he nodded. And then smiled again. He looked into her chestnut eyes, past the lenses of the round spectacles perched on the bridge of her nose. And then he asked her:
"What the hell are you talking about?"