Project Pulp Fiction

During the course of commenting on my last post titled "One, Two, Three Mike Testing", my sister pointed out how good a natural (photo?)copier I was and how the post reminded her of Nirmal Verma's writing style. While flattered, I vehemently deny this particular observation while agreeing with the overall allegation of being a shameless imitator. SatyaVrat was also quick to remark how hard the post sucked and how ignorant I was in making the errors that he alleged I did make.

The last post was meant to be a guinea pig. That it turned out more pig than guinea was just the way the world works. That guinea pigs are not pigs and have no connection to The Republic of Guinea is also just the way the world works.

But very consciously, I had started out to recreate (in Hindi) the broke-cynical-Raskolnikov that Dostoyevsky had described in his Crime and Punishment and given him Holden Caulfield's voice. Set this guy up in a dystopic SF in a future Lucknow engulfed by smog and snow, add a touch of black humour of the kind found in the pages of The Gulag Archipelago and I would've given myself the biggest self inflicted orgasm theoretically possible.

This is all imitation and I would want it to be a homage to the great masters (mostly Russian and Hindi) that I have had the pleasure of reading. However, Nirmal Verma will never figure in this list of people whom I give 'tribute' to (read imitate), simply because I think that writing the way he did is beyond even a super-enhanced-mega-ass-kicking-Cyborg Nanga Fakir high on drugs.

More achievable is the Raskolnikov-Holden Caulfield meets Neuromancer project I outlined above but that is also ultra non trivial and so the chances are that I will never attempt it.

I remember Sahil (henceforth referred to as Chief), making fun of the legendary Donny Alex (did I get the spelling right?) for harbouring literary aspirations. Donny had become a sort of a common inside joke we Wagoners kept coming back to -- both in our conversations and in the NewsWagon issues we came out with. We did this not because we hated people who harbour literary ambitions (indeed, we were all philosopher-writers ourselves and had women swooning all over us in a parallel universe), but because all of us, down to the last man felt, in a really deep way, how such posturing tries to trivialise something that is so fundamentally non trivial. This was one of our reasons for being skeptical of lit wannabes. For some of us, this skepticism manifested as hatred and disgust for lit imposters. But that, however, is a different story altogether.

What however I can do well is writing pulp fiction in Hindi (if it turns out that I suck at that too, then I will probably remain mentally scarred for the rest of my life) of the kind sold at bus stations and train stations featuring stories where world weary film noirish detectives save the day and end up fucking a lot of hot chicks. I even have a name for my hero -- Jasoos Vijay who introduces himself as "My name is Vijay...Jasoos Vijay". Who knows, perhaps Ghongha Basant will make a surprise entry in the Jasoos Vijay universe.

However, much to Subbu's disappointment, the series will be in Hindi and will be sold on train stations in the Hindi speaking heartlands of India. I will have huge fan following in places like Ajamgadh, Basti, Gonda, Devaria and the planet Tau Tau where I will be awarded the Order of Tau Tau Empire First Class.

God don't let me suck at this thing...please!