THE DIARY OF AN UNREASONABLE MAN

by MADHAV MATHUR

  ‘We’ll see …’

  There was a brief silence.

  ‘You don’t seem to be cooking any more,’ I said with a smile.

  He was holding the pot in his hand and staring intently at the rice. He looked back at me.

  ‘Wanna get some dosas in the system?’ he asked, giving up on the sambhar–rice plan.

  ‘Sure, let’s go.’

  He loved this little place round the block that he claimed served authentic south Indian food that wasn’t adulterated for the north Indian palate. It was good stuff.

  We talked some more through dinner. Discussing a long list of diverse unrelated incidents from days long gone. The night ended in laughter, a light drizzle and the lonely crooning of our neighbourhood paanwallah’s radio.

  I went to bed early. Tomorrow was going to be an important day.

  7. THE PUBLISHERS

  It was a clean-looking office. The reception was well lit and surprisingly packed for a Wednesday afternoon. Some of the people waiting in the hall had manuscripts clutched in their hands. We were all waiting for some kind of light to shine through, and be seen and heard above the crowd. It hadn’t happened for me till now. But I was still hopeful. This was my fourth office today. I was hungry. I was a little tired. I looked down at the floor, resting till my turn came. An editor at a publishing house I had approached earlier in the day had directed me to this publisher. I had read about this place in the paper. It was one of the few small publishing houses that accepted unsolicited work. They preferred to be approached via email. But from the looks of the aspiring authors sitting in the hall, they sometimes bent the rules. I had called the office an hour ago to set up a meeting with Mr Malhotra, the editor I had been referred to. After much hemming and hawing about schedules being full, Mr Malhotra gave me fifteen minutes from his busy day.

  ‘People will understand,’ I told myself as I was called in for the meeting with Mr Malhotra.

  I was led to a brightly lit but small meeting room with a glass table and two chairs. I pulled a chair close to the table and sat down, going over my synopsis one last time while I waited for Mr Malhotra. A few minutes later the door opened, and he entered and sat down in the chair before me, without a word. He was clearly annoyed at having to meet me at such short notice. It was immediately apparent that he was only obliging me because of his friend who had referred me to him. Tersely he asked for a description of the work I was pitching. I had to make this gentleman of fifty see my point and explain why my book was going to be the ‘next big thing’. He scratched his head peering through the sheets that I handed him and asked, ‘What’s the story?’

  ‘Well, there isn’t really a story, it’s a compilation of essays and poems about our collective desperation and need to draw a line to differentiate between what matters in our lives and what shouldn’t.’

  As I heard myself talk I realized I sounded too well rehearsed.

  ‘Really? Interesting. Can you tell me a little more?’ he asked dryly.

  ‘I’ve written about things that bother me. I’ve expressed my grief and anger towards problems like prostitution, consumerism, environmental issues and a general sense of apathy that I see as common today.’

  He didn’t look impressed. Maybe I was in the wrong place. Maybe there wasn’t a right place.

  ‘So it’s more like a commentary as opposed to a story.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you could say that it’s a commentary showing how we’ve all been moulded to think in a particular way.’

  ‘Are you a social worker or a professor?’

  ‘No, no I’m not.’ I was a little confused.

  Patronizingly he added, ‘I was just wondering whether you had some background like a degree in sociology or maybe you’ve got field experience, maybe you’ve done something that would lend a greater degree of credibility to your theories and ideas.’

  ‘I see,’ I said. What the fuck?

  ‘Tell you what, why don’t you leave your essays with us and we’ll get back to you.’

  ‘Do you like the concept?’

  ‘It’s different in my opinion, but honestly I can’t think of many people who would like to read this. Maybe if you tried publishing it in an academic paper or magazine it would work, but there are very few takers for this kind of stuff.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong now. I am sure your ideas are fascinating, but no one is interested in reading this kind of writing. It just won’t sell. Especially since you don’t really have a locus standi. I mean, the question really is: who are you? Why should people take you seriously and why should they read about your ideas and theories for the world? What have you done? If I were you, I would work on trying to answer those questions convincingly. Anyway, I don’t mean to be rude but I do have another appointment, so I have to go. It’s been nice meeting you and good luck with your career as a writer,’ he said and stood up, clearly indicating that the meeting was over. I thanked him and walked out of the room.

  ‘That ended well,’ I muttered. But even my sarcasm didn’t work to cheer me up any more.

  As I walked out of the office, the receptionist smiled kindly at me. My dejection grew. What was I thinking? What was I expecting to have changed since the last time I banged on their doors looking for an opportunity? My work had always been ‘too niche’, ‘too amateur’, ‘without mass appeal’. I wasn’t a name and if no one knew who I was, my thoughts weren’t important.

  I wished that an apple would fall for me. I wished that three life-defining visions would reveal themselves to me, completing me and showing me the way forward. I’d make do with two.

  Give me something! Anything! I thought.

  Newton and the Buddha were indeed lucky. Do common men have defining moments?

  I put in a call to Abhay and told him that things were not working out on the writing front. He claimed that he had told me this would happen, he said that I should have expected nothing else. Even my parents had told me through my early years that what I wrote was largely commercially unviable.

  ‘Fuck it.’

  I got myself some filter coffee at the dosa place. It started raining mildly and pedestrians outside the restaurant started moving faster. The road in front of the place grew chaotic as the rain became more intense. Resting my chin on my hand, I watched the smoke from my cigarette hug the steel glass that I drank from before it disappeared into the humid air. Puddles formed and tempers flared. I felt ill. Nothing was going to work out. No one was going to read my stuff. Ever.

  I walked home and found the couch. In true loser fashion I reached for the remote to let the box speak. Somewhere amidst the commercials I fell asleep.

  It was a darkened stage. I knew there were people watching. I looked around to see if there were others with me. There was no one to turn to. I stood confused, staring out into the nothingness before me. I heard a voice call out from the distance.

  ‘Come on now, show Uncle how you recite your poem!’

  I felt like I was three again, a child who had accidentally walked into a room full of adults being playfully coerced into performing for them by proud family members. This was a little different though.

  The voice continued. It was a baritone, growing in strength, booming louder now.

  ‘Dance! Dance! Dance!’

  It was a compelling order. Out of fear I did a few steps of a Charlie Chaplin tap dance. I had the maudlin face and everything.

  ‘More! Do more!’

  ‘Who is out there?’

  It was as though someone had let the sun in. An angry sun that had been waiting outside impatiently, growing hotter and increasing in rage. It had become vengeful and was out to blind us all. It was an enormous spotlight. The sound of the switch that had been flicked to turn it on still echoed in the arena. I stood there in its beam, covering my eyes and trying hard to see what was before me as I writhed in immense discomfort. It followed me when I ran around the stage to get rid of it. Soon I realized that the chase wou
ld end in my defeat. I fell to the floor of the stage and looked down.

  ‘No more?’ the voice enquired.

  ‘Fuck you!’ I shouted back in anger. I didn’t want to remain an animal in this strange circus of blinding lights.

  The voice grew hushed and sounded hurt this time.

  ‘Fuck us? Surely you don’t mean that, my boy …’

  The lights came on again and right in front of me there stood a marching band, dressed in orange and white. Behind them sat an audience. We were all in an amphitheatre.

  ‘We only want what’s best for you!’

  ‘Oh no …’ I muttered at the thought of the inevitable and started to run.

  The band started playing as they marched towards me, following me around as the spotlight did. They weren’t as nimble as the spotlight was, but they frightened me more. I ended up getting swept up by them, much to my dismay. I rolled off trombones and bumped into tubas, I was mistaken for a bass drum. I tried to fight my way out of the throng but there were too many of them and they were too strong. I was like a reluctant rock star riding a human wave. They carried me. I kicked and screamed trying to break free. And then suddenly, we came to a halt. The band stopped playing. I clambered off them. With military precision, they backed away and started marking time.

  ‘About turn!’

  They turned and marched away.

  I lay there in the dark watching them go off the stage. I felt that there was more though. I wanted desperately to wake up. I just couldn’t.

  Another bar of light clicked on, behind me this time. I saw my shadow before me. The light moved and my shadow shrank. I heard the crisp ominous steps of a man in boots walking behind me. I flipped around and there he was. A large man, stout and round, in a suit and a bowler hat. They were about to ruin Magritte for me. He held an apple in his hand. It was green. Was this going to be a lecture ensuring my obedience, instilling the need to march with the demented band?

  No.

  He moved the apple and revealed his face. It was Roshan Abbas, the game show king. Long before movie stars and box office gods had made the game show their realm, this man was the king. He was his usual smiling self. Only now I could see fangs when he smiled. He waved his hands with a flourish, pointing to his right. He then threw the green apple into the distance, it disappeared from the light, and went flying into the unknown.

  ‘Ouch! Bastard!’ a man shouted from beyond. The unknown became less so. It was a game show audience that started clapping and the house lights illuminated them in their excitement.

  I stood up and leaned towards Roshan. ‘What the fuck is going on?’

  He spoke in a stentorian voice. ‘You don’t want to play fetch it seems.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘You ought to. There’s a lot out there to fetch. Ladies and gentlemen, our participant is out of place! He doesn’t want to play …’

  The boos and awws sounded canned. They were tight and right on cue. He walked towards them.

  ‘Everyone must play!’ He turned to me and called me closer. I obliged. I felt like a moron in a cage with curious onlookers poking me with sticks to make me dance.

  ‘Look now, you have three doors …’

  We turned around. Glorious orange curtains spread wide and opened before my overawed eyes. My underwhelmed soul looked for exits. There were bouncers twice my size at each exit. Were they holding Kalashnikovs? I wondered disbelievingly.

  Roshan pulled out a cigar and tried to light it a few times. Apparently his lighter was giving way.

  ‘Unreliable piece of shit,’ he exclaimed.

  Immediately a man appeared, running out of the wings on the right side of the stage. He was on fire. This man was actually on fire. I stepped forward to see if I could help him out with the orange curtains, douse the flames a bit. He shrieked. Roshan pulled me back. He walked to the man on fire and nonchalantly bent forward, lighting his Cuban. He then kicked the man away, who ran off without a word.

  ‘That was the last guy who refused to play. Pick a door, Pranav. Pick it now.’

  That’s when my eyes opened.

  8. STEEL OUT OF A LIFE OF LARD

  Hours went by as I sat in my balcony staring out at the street. The nightmare had struck me to the core. An aura of gloom cloaked me, grey clouds above, rusty grey gutters beneath. Even the kids playing on the roadside seemed listless and bored.

  I had this recurring vision. I’d be sitting at my desk at work. The boss’s secretary would slide up to me and say, ‘We’re ready for you.’ I would then reach into the third or fourth drawer of my desk and pull out a little handgun. Next, I would press the gun to my temple and pull the trigger. Over and over again, I had the same vision, starting at different times in the story. Sometimes I would just be reaching for the gun, at others I’d be on my desk in a pool of blood, the fluorescent bulbs above me flickering. There’s nothing more liberating than coming to terms with your own death. It empowered me and made me think that I could do anything. I wouldn’t necessarily get away with it, but I would certainly make it happen.

  I wanted to shout out to the people in front of me. I wanted them to know who I was. I wanted to talk to them in a language that they understood and appreciated, bringing them up to speed with all that was amiss.

  The phone rang. It had been ringing incessantly since I had informed my parents about my unemployed state. I could bet it was my father calling. Again. Poor old man, he had called more than three times that day. He told me that he was disappointed and that he wanted me to get back on my feet again. All I could say was that I was ‘fine’.

  It continued to ring, loud and shrill, piercing through the apartment. I reached out to the receiver and lifted it, expecting another lecture on life and how I had angered and let down my parents, my boss, the IRS and my aunty in Pune.

  ‘Mr Kumar?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m calling from the office of Gupta & Sons Publishers; did you leave us your card earlier today?’

  ‘Yes, yes I did.’ A sense of hope rippled up my spine as I sat up straighter, holding the phone just a little tighter in my hand. I was trying to keep the hope out of my voice. Trying to be cool.

  ‘Are you the guy who wanted to extend?’

  ‘Err, no …’

  ‘Wait …’ he thought he had cupped the phone as he yelled across to his colleague.

  I could hear angry cries of ‘Hang up, hang up … you called the wrong number.’

  And: static.

  The call ended abruptly and with it died my last hope of getting published. There weren’t many people that I knew who could have had such a bad day, careerwise.

  I walked over to the couch and lay down on it again.

  ‘How am I going to get the stuff out? How much am I going to rework it?’ I asked myself aloud.

  There were bundles of paper on the coffee table beside me. The evening breeze ruffled them desultorily as it blew threw the apartment.

  Should I be a ranting madman sending out an endless stream of Letters to the Editor complaining about complacency and our state of constant neediness? Should I head out and start an NGO of my own? Working in slums with poor children, educating them and teaching them not to listen to the channels that are trying to gift them with goals?

  It stared me in the face again. My hopelessness. My derision. What would the impact be? Who would I reach? Who do I want to reach?

  Everybody, I thought, I want everyone to know. My essays lay before me. And suddenly I knew what I had to do. The blood coursing through my veins had never felt so warm. I had never been so aware of my own state of being alive.

  I began a letter:

  If I had my way, this place would be a lot like a Rage against the Machine concert. Thousands shouting, ‘Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!’ That would indeed be precious. But it can’t happen.

  We needed a monumental gesture that stands tall in the minds of men and women for years to come. We needed a Bugs Bunny piano scene, a
t the end of which Fudd doesn’t die but certainly learns to respect the rabbit.

  I now knew what to do. I had to take their war to them. For far too long had I been a part of the system. For far too long had I warmed and greased its hinges. I knew how it worked. I knew the oil that it ran on.

  9. REMEMBER WHEN THEORY MET ACTION?

  Now think of a primate. Perhaps a fuzzy rust orangutan set in his monkey ways of conducting business. Our monkey subject is really special. He has the unique distinction of being brought up on pumpkin pies alone. Ever since he was a little tree-swinger, he’s been brought up on a steady, tasty but ultimately deadly diet of pumpkin pies. He has a very limited history with bananas. If he were given one today, he may not accept it immediately. He may not like it at first. But he will know that such a fruit exists. He will learn a new flavour. If the introduction is done well enough, through an incident that will make an impression on him, he shall ‘know’ about the banana. He shall know what he was meant to eat.

  All I want is for the monkey to know the banana. I can’t force him to eat it forever. I can’t make him believe that pumpkin pies are fundamentally bad for him. That’s for him to understand. It has to be his decision. The poor chap just needs to see that life could be simpler. That all he needs is a fucking banana; and television, magazines, movies, parents, the government and all his friends have been fooling him with propaganda related to pumpkin pies. Perhaps I deviated a little with that last analogy.

  It was a painful realization that my writing and ideas were largely boring, the way they had been packaged. For people to take notice and for there to be any action somebody had to provide a much-needed impetus.

  Abhay walked in.

  ‘What are you so pleased about?’ There was a touch of disbelief in his voice.

  ‘Nothing,’ I answered as nonchalantly as I could.

  ‘What happened? Did someone finally say they’d publish your work?’

  ‘Not exactly.’