April the 1st: Pineapple Hat

I’ve usually employed this space to announce last acts. Full disclosure – I performed at least six times after my “exit” from comedy. It’s a hard habit to kick. But if I had to label this era, it was The Age of Endings. Along with ‘standup comedian’, I’ve killed off some of my other identities – Bombay resident, agency copywriter, smoker.

Smoker was the easiest to say goodbye to. Once you decide to stop categorising yourself as a smoker, it’s almost second nature to be sanctimonious and say ‘no’ when someone offers you a drag. Besides, the long walk from my new (now former) office to the tapri in Kamala Mill compound simplified the transition. It was a choice between two vices – sloth and addiction. Sloth wins a lot these days.

Comedy compelled me to move back to Bombay last year. Comedy is synonymous with Bombay. Living well, however, is not. Coming home to my crumbling fire hazard of a studio apartment requires motivation. If you’re not striving towards The Dream (see Flite Chappal ad featuring Varun Grover for said Dream), this environment makes you question yourself every day (Where you are, who you are, how you are, why you are-). So I am packing up and going home. For a little while. Until I choose the tier-two town I must work remotely out of. As of today, Jagadhri seems right.

Agency copywriting – what is that like in 2024? Refer Pineapple Hat Meme by cartoonist Alex Krokus. I am the one that places the pineapple on brands. Twenty months down the line, I’ll report if the air in Kalesar (38.3 kilometres from Jagadhri) makes me nostalgic for the time I recreated Moye Moye and Shik Shak Shok for motor oil, beer and jeans.

Clarity

I love spending my afternoons inside J’s study. It’s been my favourite time and place since my tenure as his house guest. Right now, though, I am just a visitor. It’s as fascinating to me as it was the first time he and Kiara took us on a tour of the house. Kiara was the great love of his life until she wasn’t. Relics from their marriage are still on display in their two-storied home on the outskirts of the city, starting right at the driveway lined with white ceramic pots – she was the one with the green thumb. It’s an explosion of Anthuriums, Philendrons and Spider Plants all the way to their verandah with the cane hammock.

I can’t imagine J watering and mulching. Perhaps a gardener swings by every now and then. But I am sure he does it all himself because he can’t keep househelp of any kind around. It’s the nature of his craft. Something about the “psychosphere” within the compound. The realm of consciousness, he says, is a delicate one, and thus, easily disturbed by lingering souls saturating the balance. “If they’re around me, I have to read them to know if they’re ‘clear’. And it’s unethical to pry on one’s employees,” he explained once, casually revealing that all visitors shed their privacy at his doorway.

Despite his professional finesse at it, J doesn’t read souls for a living. He collects them. He is not an exorcist, he insists. I understand why some might say he is one. He draws out the immaterial from its material encasement. His services are usually solicited by bereaved families. They like to make sure their lives are cleared of any residue spirit matter belonging to the departed. His work comes days after the funeral rites, when mourners find bits of otherworldly static interrupting the quiet mundane. But he doesn’t offer safe passage into the afterlife. The powers he commands are limited to trapping the essence, not delivering it from damnation. Here, in this world, it continues to exist in some earthly vessel of his choosing. Beautiful crystal goblets and orbs with tightly screwed caps line the Mahogany shelves of his study, wall to wall. When the light hits them at a certain angle, they’re majestically iridiscent. That’s what makes the afternoons so magical in that room on the roof.

J says he stopped counting after his 365th. But I suspect he lies. There is a ledger that holds a record of every successful trapping. He’s never shown it to me but I deduced that from the serial numbers on each unit. Not all of them are numbers. There are also alphabets and sometimes heiroglyphical scribbles on the labels. They’re not arranged in numerical order either. You’ll see a 76 smushed between an L and a spiral that is either a spider or the Sun. But there must be some order to it. I wonder if he arranges these souls by zodiac. Being curious about his work is natural, but it doesn’t bode well to ask him questions. He is very private about his professional transactions. All I know is that it pays well. And frequently. That’s how many people linger on after death, clinging to their earthly associations.

I never heard Kiara complain about it, perhaps because they both owed their comfortable living to his line of work. She was looking forward to being a mother. But not enough to stay on. She let him keep all the relics of the marriage as long as she could keep the baby. In her third trimester, out of nowhere, she took off. At least that’s what it seemed like considering they never came across as a doomed couple. Last I heard, they were planning names with inside jokes – “If only we were U and V, we’d make a W, but J and K can only bring in L.”

Kiara is coming over for tea today though. “It’s a clean break, then?” I tried to offer, optimistically. He grunted back a response that summarised she was visiting for some paperwork. Just like the inner workings of his craft, his marriage and its dissolution remain a mystery to me. I don’t ask. He doesn’t tell. We’re friends.

———

Kiara is here. I want to tell her how lovely she looks in her silk skirt and cream blouse. But it’s not going to register. It’s my first time seeing a woman so desperate to look bigger than she really is. But try as she might, the bulk of the generous silhouette doesn’t camouflage the fact that she’s lost the baby. I want to ask her about it, but my propriety gets the better of my curiosity; we’re friends. J hasn’t commented on it either. He is nonplussed in the North American sense of the term, barely touching his cucumber sandwiches and tea.

I am trying to focus on what they’re saying. There is no mention of the unborn, perhaps for my benefit. But they shouldn’t bother because my mind keeps wandering to the study that I love so much with its lusciously curved, almost pregnant glass baubles. Could he have… Is it possible… One can’t say. It hasn’t escaped me that there is an especially voluptuous transcluscent teal jar, about the size of a lemon, bearing a tiny label with a freshly scribbled L. A recent addition.

750 word essay: A eulogy to what I thought was my comedy ‘career’

I’ve been in a tremendously toxic relationship with standup for 8 years now. It had all the makings of emotional abuse – I never felt enough. I didn’t doubt my skills as a ‘Creative’, as a copywriter, a copyeditor. But comedy was my cruel mistress. Egging me on with a promise of reward after every rite of passage. The rites of passage are many – your first open mic, your first open spot (a longer set for veteran comedians), your first hosting, your first paid gig, a Comicstaan auditon, getting screened for the second round of Comicstaan auditions, a stint at a comedy sketch writing room, a slightly expensive Habitat recording, a venue vandalised in your name. Would you consider me entitled to assume that at this point in my life I should be able to command a modest following and spots at a respectable comedy club? That’s the thing with abusive marriages – you’re almost always sure you’re the problem.

At my age, I am apparently past my “shelf life” as a comic. These are not my words but I’ve borrowed them because there is no other way to put it. Not because I am 33 years old in life, but because I am 8 years old in comedy and if I didn’t ‘make it’ yet, I never will. It’s now a vicious circle of ‘I am rusty because I don’t get spots’ and ‘We can’t give her spots, she hasn’t been doing this regularly enough and she is rusty’. I am a ‘has-been’ even before I could ‘be’.

I do not have the strength to research what stage of grief this is. But I know I bawled this morning when I woke up to message from a comedy producer who has convinced me that standup is no longer for me. We were friends. We aren’t anymore. Not because he refused me a spot. But because he Chatgpt-ed his way out of a conversation with a friend. He could have just blocked me like a normal person should.

I don’t actually believe there is any journey really worth navigating through in anonymous mediocrity. I see the thousands of people living their lives devoted to marriages and mortgages and Dmat accounts and appraisals. And now, I’ll have to be one of them. There is content, I’ve heard them say, but I don’t buy it.

I wish I could say it’s been a good ride all along. It wasn’t. The burn of an aftertaste will always remain branded on my tongue.

Yesterday was the first night of grief, washed in Jameson and Marlboro Fine Touches – still reeling from the shock of it all. I’ve to replace the open mic night with something else. As of now it’s a splitting headache and a hangover with eyebags the size of a tote. I wish I could be one of those people with life partners and babies, having a purpose to live for. I don’t have the constitution for it.

Cigarette Break.

• – – – –

The cigarette helped ( “Har Fikr Ko Dhue Mein” for the seventh time since last night).

I’ll be one of those people burying myself in making decks and strategy late into the nights. I will cook French Toast on weekends, take belly dance workshops and write “for myself”. There will be no glory, no respite from that nagging feeling of what “could have been” for this “has been” who could never “be”.

I am back to that first year of standup. I had an open mic night to attend at Toons Bar in Camp, Pune. And just as I was about to leave, a voice whispered, “But you are such a sound writer – shouldn’t you just be writing?” That was my mother. Her words cinged so deep that night, it hurt when I bombed. I had become brazen to bombing regularly because bombing is standard-issue. It doesn’t stop even after you make it. Catch our veterans in a room not filled with stands and you’ll see. Because comedy needs context. Without context on you, it’s hard to win over people. That challenge was what made it all worth it. That was the resilience I believed in. That was the resilience I was proud of.

What am I going to call myself now. It’s not a skin I can shed or slip out of. I have to surgically remove it from within, it’s embedded deep inside my veins. I remember what I was like with a mic. I am hoping to forget it soon. You’ll see me at the Karaoke at Den. I’ll hold the mic like someone who was made for it. I’ll lie to myself again.

मोहब्बत करने वाले कम न होंगे 
तेरी महफ़िल मे लेकिन ह्म ना होंगे | 
जमाने भर के गम या इक तेरा गम. . .

750 words: How I fix ‘productivity’ anxiety

"I am a master of my craft, a master craftsman, 
Respectable in my field, a masterclass on pen,
But interest in my words is scant among men,
Snatch their attention, in nine seconds, maybe ten,
Plagiarised bit of poetry can make them content,
Words can't heal like time, so I doctor scripts till then."

I am a writer. I make things up. Even my afflictions are invented.

I’ve called myself a writer for about 13 years. It started right here. I wrote things. People read what I wrote. I made some money from it. I will continue to carry that tag to my grave despite the fact that I spend more time writing about being a writer than writing fiction. I don’t write fiction at work. I just write untruths there – No I don’t really believe that your micro loan is a responsible decision or that high-end chocolate boxes are “thoughtful” gifting. But 125 characters are not enough for me to include admonitions and personal opinions on Wonka Celebration Hampers. Yes, Hemmingway and I – same.

I do insert little nuggets of truth into the comedy writing. Much to the dismay and shock of the spare audience members who still frequent open mics. All three of them are uncomfortable with my revealting my favourite narcissist – they want me to say <insert politician name> and instead I disappoint them by saying it’s my mother. Even stand-up comedy, despite its political freedom, whatever little is left of it, draws boundaries. You can say ‘my boss’, ‘my buaji’, ‘my father’ even – but God forbid you attack all of motherhood. It takes discipline and devotion for those 10 – 12 minutes of stage time to stick to a subject nobody wants to hear about. I persevere most days. Writing that bit, however, is challenging. Because, here, sitting far away from the source of my chagrin and dispiritedness, my thoughts are washed in nostalgia and pity. It’s a writer’s block and a daughter’s love and a little bit of amnesia. “She didn’t really call me a whore, she just asked me if I was one – I shouldn’t be harsh on my mother, she has had a hard life – and nobody in the audience will relate to it. They are men. Men love their moms. You don’t want to be the unlikeable woman on stage droning on about that thing they don’t like to hear about.”
OK, that is enough stream of consciousness for now.

Which brings me back to my subject line – not a click bait. I am never really on vacation even when I am on vacation because that’s how much writing I am supposed to catch up on. I have to do something concrete even when I am on a break. I am crippled by the anxiety that the window on my ‘creative age’ is closing and if I don’t create what I was supposed to now, I never will. A faint outline of a web series continues to feel stupider and stupider as it lies drawn out in a pink floral cover diary I purchased from ‘Marry Me’ – that store inside Candies, Pali Hill. And I am afraid that tiny universe I invented will die unlived inside those handmade pages scribbled with turquoise ink. So I must replace this fear with a little ‘something’ that must be done. I am writer, I invent. So I’ve invented little tasks that simulate productivity. This 750-word essay is one such exercise. It’s the feeling of having completed something that drops the Dopamine.

Crafting words together in short sprints is also rewarding. Crafting those words with rules and restrictions is somehow quicker and releases you from the burden of freedom. I use a random word generator to put together words. I do a reset first – a brief mediation, a page of reading and then, I allow the writing prompts to guide me through structuring a complete story, haiku what-have-you. That strange verse right on top is an example woven from words arbitrarily picked from me by an Artificial Intelligence. I’ve underlined them. I’d like to title it or improve upon it. There is always room for improvement. But right now I want to let it be a relic from my Writer’s Block Era. It won’t last, I hope. When it’s over, I’ll come back to all of these bits and pieces of purging. Perhaps use them as supers on opening slates for films and web series. I take comfort in knowing that the original True Detective wasn’t even supposed to be a procedural. Nic Pizzolatto wanted to create a story about two men driving around Louisiana, discussing Nietzsche and Thomas Ligotti. Pray that my universe in that pink Marry Me diary evolves just like that.

750 Word Essay: My Least Favourite Workplaces

And yet again, this little pocket of the Internet I call “my blog” will be my undoing.

At the risk of disaffecting future employers, I am going to do a very public (if you can call my 3 readers that) break-down of why I disliked two of the many workspaces I’ve been, over this decade. Not that I’ve worked in the decade previous to that. I have never worked at a sweatshop that employs minors. The sweatshops I worked at were for adults only. Still sweatshops.

“People leave managers, not companies” is such terrible, misleading oversimplification that completely discounts the role of the overall culture of the workplace that dictates your manager’s mode of operation. That’s right, managers are people too. (Next: HR is human afterall). Digression averted, back to why “some” (and by that I mean nearly all) Indian workplaces fail the ‘safe space’ test. I say ‘safe space’ because that is the absolute minimum requirement for me – that when I walk in here, I feel ‘safe’. I do not ask for happiness, I do not ask for peace (“peace of mind is overrated” is an actual thing Hustle-core Gen-X-ers believe). I do not even ask for minimum industry standard wage (which, I believe, is a collective lie workspaces in the “content” department tend to propagate in order to keep their main source of product – the writers – compliant). I simply ask that it be declared ‘safe’ for me to express ideas and concerns pertaining to my work. And sometimes, those ideas may not be related to my work, but it shouldn’t be “unsafe” for me to ask and check. For instance, expressing my personal distrust of Akshay Kumar might just help my coworkers understand why I would not want him to be the face of Google Pay. As a Creative, being dispassionately rational is not an option. It’s your personal biases and anecdotal evidence that you bring to the table and cross-check with the research to finally craft a piece of work that moves people into feeling something for an inanimate <insert product here>. And if it does not move me, I won’t write it well enough to move people. And what is the point of us as Creative if we create something that doesn’t move people. You can’t move product unless your story moves people. So you can tell that it is extremely important for me to live and breathe in a space where it’s safe to dislike Akshay Kumar.

That, I learnt the hard way, is apparently, too much to ask for.

I’ve had good managers. Great managers, in fact. I’d just say that they’re victims of abuse that flows from the top. And it’s not because they do not own the business. There is an ecosystem that dictates heirarchy and just like the conscious observer to the Big Bang, there is indeed an originator of this chain of disgruntlement that flows from manager to managee, even if your manager is the business owner. I am pretty sure some junior copywriter or art executive somewhere is posting that ‘people leave bad managers’ meme-quote-moye-moye, alluding to me.

My least favourite place to work at was the one where Akshay Kumar was sacred. Just replace Akshay Kumar with a certain triple Amazon Comedy Special star and that would be an accurate description of that workspace. I always steer back to professional comedy writing as the gold standard of poorly paid abusive gigs. Sorry for the reiteration but it really is. “Always punch up” says the comedy star on stage as he mentally strikes his junior offenders off the sketchwriting team – without investigation or room for protest. And he is not your manager, he is the star right at the top of the psychosphere. He currently holds the subconscious of an entire subcontinent hostage. And there will be no end to his reign because he is just the prototype. There are more like him, incubating at the open mics. Bros and bhais of the mediocrity that is the average comedy-sketch audience. There used to be a time someone wrote elaborate jokes on nailcutters and pomegranate and introduced craft to stagecraft. It was good while it lasted.

That’s not the only contendor for ‘worst workplaces in my career’. But the other one wasn’t Creative so it doesn’t feel personal. I’ll tell you about it anyway.

Safety includes caffeine. As Switchgear Design engineers, contracting and expanding 3D visuals on Pro-E and CATIA all day long, we were subject to the draconian law of Caffeine Restricted To Twice A Day. Because it was cheaper to have people not at their optimal best during office hours than to just keep the coffee machine running. Now, I am not saying this was the Gulag. But is that normal for you? To feel safe in a place because at least it’s not labour camp? I overshot my 750 words. Goodbye.

750 word essay: How to find my people in a comedy audience

If you find them first, let them know I am looking for them.

I refuse to believe that this is my lot. If I did believe it, I’d have very little to live for. What’s the point of standup if I am not allowed to indulge in a little melodrama of my own making. Where is the fun in jumping to the cold conclusion that my time is up. Technically, it never started. But something has shifted in the three-year gap during which we starved for stage time. “Old men come and go, but the world keeps going round (True Detective, season 1 – all my literary references are three TV shows).” Here, “old men” is me and “the world” is the brand new standup comedy stage that’s currently home to people who I firmly believe belong on YouTube. As viners (homophone – make what you will of that.)

I grew old. But not old enough to discount the merits of countless “Moye Moye” memers who’re holding my hypothetical audience hostage. That’s my tribe. They never leave their homes. The ones who do – I know those men and women, currently buying tickets to the open mic – not my people. They never will be. They were cultivated on a steady diet of “hmm… ahaan… achhaa… samajh gaya” – they’re hoping to catch a cult of personality in the making.

Something shifted since we saw Shashank Arora in Titli. I can’t put a finger on it but was the last time there was a sense of hope - I think it was in every time YRF took a risk. The death of mainstream-propped indie cinema coincides with the death of Indian Standup Comedy. There will be comedy – no doubt. But not on the live stage. Just like, there will be more Titlis – just not in the cinema hall. You’ll see it on OTT. Similarly, comedy has been demoted from one-hour specials to chewable 15-second tablets that I think are hilarious. Some of the best joke writing appears after the customary colon of the static meme couplets (“My back after 8 hours of sleep: Congrats but you did it wrong”).

Vibe change. This is depressing shit and it makes me feel old.

Switch to something lighter until the 750 words are complete. This is now my new obession. I must, I must draw out three quarters of a kilo of words to feel like I accomplished something. This is my peak at 33. I have unwashed utensils lying in the kitchen, forms that need to be filled, vacation packing – but this, over here, this is my priority. And I am not even doing it well. And for who? For what?

275 words more to go.

I took my meds early because I want to take my sleep cycle up a few notches. It is a competition. I am fighting against daylight “SUCCESS MINDSET”.

These last couple of hundred words will be the death of me. Think of something fun and inspiring that makes you want to live to see another day. I was microdosing on a French indie film this entire time. I’d inhale 15 minutes of it in one sitting because I couldn’t take more of “so did she kill him or is their child really not blind”? I am labouring through acclaimed works of art. 300 pages of Satanic Verses. All 100 minutes and 90020204 years of Anatomy of a Fall. Disliked every character in the film, including the blind kid who I think has just been faking it since the accident.

Switch switch switch to happier thoughts.

Ok let’s try “facts, no feelings.” That’s a fairly simple exercise. You have to record only what your five senses take in. No emotion-letting (like blood-letting).

I feel nothing. Zilch. Nada.

At this point you should have stopped reading, fam. Ugh, I can taste your disgust. Even I didn’t like me saying “fam”. It felt wrong, Like watching two of your best friends make out. I said “make out”. I am 33. I don’t know I should stop. I have written car reviews without a driver’s licence but churning out the second installment of my 750-word whatevers has been the hardest writing and I am glad it’s poor so I won’t read it tomorrow. At this point it’s just thoughts on autopilot. Does Fawad Khan — don’t know, lost that train of thought. This typing practice garbage at best. I am no longer motivated to be coherent. I take a yellow pill every morning to be that way and I refuse to bend to its will right now. Good night this is 761 words or more. Sigh.

750 word essay: Should you disclose your mental health issues at your agency?

The jury is out on whether it is in your best interests to share what medications you’re on with your workplace. Like most people crippled by anxiety and debilitating depression, I have been on Flunil (which is Indian for Prozac), Clonazepam and a few drugs in between. Waklert was the one my workspace should have been thrilled for. It would pop me open at first light and for those few empty hours at dawn, I used to be “productive”. I’d take my coffee on time, I cram in my breakfast and jump into a cab at work. But it wasn’t for long. You know how they clock would strike 12 and Cinderella’s chariot would turn back into pumpkin and rats. That’s how it’d be at around 4pm. And that was three and a half hours before I could swipe out. But for me, the day’d be over. I was out of juice long before it was time to hit the open mics.

Now, open mics are a thing you have to subject yourself to if you are any kind of comedian. It’s batting practice. You bat some ideas at an empty wall of belligerant audience until something sticks. Then you go home and rewrite until you turn those grimful disgruntled tight lips into at least one begrudged smile in that same room. Far from the ideal response (full throated, unabashed laughter). But this is comedy. It’s a slow and painful tragedy to be replayed day after day because the audience has seen it all and there is nothing you can do to surprise them into mirth. This is the process and you have no choice but to run with the motions.

My employers ask me why I do this. I do not owe them an explanation as long as I swipe in and swipe out for the hours I am paid to be at work.

But if you’re interested, I’d like you to know that if you are any kind of writer (and I am a bad one, because I lean on paranthesis, but I am still a writer) – If you are any kind of writer… You cannot afford the luxury of questioning the purpose of it all. There is really no reason to be doing any of this. If you write copy (and I do write copy, poorly sometimes), you know that the world moves without you labouring over the keyboard. As Don Draper put it in one of the later seasons of Mad Men (I must mention “later” because you’ll say you don’t remember it but the reality is you just watched the first two seasons you pleb and now I am making at reference three people reading this will get and my writing, just like my comedy, will sink into oblivion) – Don Draper said, about copywriting at an ad agency is “the least important most important thing.” It’s going to die a well-timed death in the sinkhole of metrics and analytics and AI and Chatgpt. And this job and this title you hold – Creative Lead, Creative Director, Assistant (To The) Creative Director – you can gentrify it all you want. Will there be another Piyush Pandey? Industry grapevine tells me, he was once bitten on the face at a party. That should tell you everything you need to know about what we are expected to survive past. Because that face-biting incident is the (chef’s kiss) pinacle of the Great Golden Age of Indian Adverstising. Not the Cadbury Girl, not the Amul Butter Girl, not the Parle-G Girl. It’s some guy who bit his CD’s face.

But I digress. I warned you – I am a bad writer. I have no focus. No discipline. I don’t write. I channel the fullstream of my consciousness and I REFUSE TO REWRITE. This is the only space where I don’t have to tune myself to “client feedback”. Work. Comedy club. It’s all the same – someone very disappointed leaning back in his chair (it’s almost always a he), completely convinced that if he had the mic or the keyboard, he’d do better than the monkeys taking stage, presenting, pitching.

Did they send the face-biter to therapy? I don’t know. All I know is that he was back at work like nothing happened. And that is, to this day, lauded as peak ‘success mindset’. It’s a glorious Linkedin anecdote. An unrule team member and his magnanimous leader who had the grace to accept ki “aise badi badi agencies mein, aisi chhoti chhoti baatein hoti rehti hai.”

I’d tell you what I think of it but my 750 words are over.

Thank you for coming this far with me. I’ll see you tomorrow.

750 words: Day 7 – Chapter 4 (The hybrid)

Before you start, I recommend you read the first three chapters:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

The hybrid: Possession

I think about Shaam Faeraoh* a lot. I thought of him a lot less when he made the news though, almost a decade ago. Nightwalkers rarely ever made it to high positions in the Authority. Fewer still from the darkest place under the Union – Moonland, where the night never ends. He was ancient but his youthful face didn’t carry the gravity of the decorated scholar he was. Perhaps that’s why he wore the square, black-rimmed spectacles – that lent him the more officious air of a public servant, granted immense power by none other than the Authority itself. He wielded that power, not just in the land of eternal night, but even in the sunlit parts, by the plains and the coasts. The glasses also helped him blend among the mortals, glossing over his unmistakably Moonlandish features – light eyes and a high-bridged nose.

I never paid attention to the little pieces about his public statements highlighting the failures of the Authority. Bureaucrats weren’t given to criticising their employers. I didn’t pay these headlines any heed until the day he announced his retirement from public service, citing the “incessant killings” at home. A litany of interviews followed. I recalled his most memorable one from a radio programme. I didn’t trust my ears so I got the transcript from the Moonlander station – and there it was, faithful to my memory. “These people [in the Authority], they ‘re not people… they are not even human. They suck your soul dry. They have no empathy, remorse, compassion. There is unspeakable evil carried out with impunity. Soon you’ll know. You’ll all know soon.”

Soon after, his public statements stopped. The killings didn’t.

All those months, Faeraoh’s silence lived louder in my consciousness. I waited for him to rise up again to address it all. I woke up everyday to refresh all his public accounts to see if he’d returned. I was a man obsessed. Was he jailed? Was he detained? Every time I put out an enquiry to get in touch with him, I received the same answer – that Shaam Faeraoh was on an academic hiatus.

It wasn’t until a few weeks back that Shaam Faeraoh’s timeline lit up again. It started small – whatever “it” was. His first post after the dry spell was a link to an article about the sanctity of Elk blood, the main sustenance for nightwalkers. Elk lives were part of the “homecoming” campaign, publicly endorsed by the Authority. Homecoming is the mythical, unscientific belief that, given the right diet and exposure to sunlight, nightwalkers could be “turned back”. There were rumours of “homecoming” camps where they planned to “rehabilitate” the whole population of them within the union. Whatever fellow scribes reported of those camps was not rehabilitation. It was torture. There is no way to confirm what they wrote. Those stories were never published.

The week after that, Faeroah, who’d majored in literature across multiple languages, posted bad poetry about the Sun and the Moon belonging to the same sky; reminiscent of Unionist propaganda to fight the Moonlanders’ demand for autonomy. Their propaganda, just like the poetry, isn’t very sophisticated. But then again, they know their soft-headed audience, fed on bite-sized misinformation, that belies history, geography and science. Shaam, with all his decades of interdisciplinary research, regurgitating it was impossible. But here it was, his account, blue tick and all.

“Are you OK?” I felt stupid typing into his inbox but it seemed kinder than “What did they do to you, Shaam?” or “Are you possessed?”. I sent it half-heartedly, resigned to the idea that I wasn’t going to get a reply. But a little part of me hoped I would. I rationalised that he wasn’t going to see it in the day. I was so restless I opened my inbox as soon as it was dusk to see if he’d replied.

He did. I stared at the reply lying in my unread folder, like a message from the beyond. I hurriedly opened it like it was an explosive that would go off if I didn’t read it in time.

“Hi ________, I am good. Thanks. How r u doing?”

He took my name. It felt more personal because he took my name. Like he knew me. Or whatever it was that had taken over – it knew me.

*Ancient nightwalker names are often references to “night” in other languages. Their second names are aristocratic titles [in this case, ‘pharoah’], rooted in a historically inaccurate belief that they are blue-blooded.

750 words: Day 6 – Chapter 3

For chapter 1, click here

For chapter 2, click here

No. 26

He considered himself a good detective. Neutral, methodical, efficient. Not like the others – quick to judge, building full-fledged cases on evidence as feeble as text messages. He didn’t blame them. There were sizeable rewards and media attention extended to officers for detaining suspicious individuals under The Statute of Unity. It was a tricky law. From smuggling arms across the Frontier to making incendiary speeches, anything could be deemed a threat to the Union. It took a discerning, unbiased investigator to filter out the genuine cases from a sea of trifling complaints – anonymous tips, mostly by zealous volunteers who scanned the Interweb for any activity unfavourable to the Union or the Authority running it.

Which is why a “good” detective had to examine every case carefully by running a background checks, rather than directly bringing in all suspected individuals for questioning. His full list of suspects, right now, were the attendees of a meeting. They were students at a local university – a mixed group comprising Hybrids and even Nightwalkers. That was enough to bring it on the radar. But the detective was thorough. He’d been sitting on his desk, for about 9 hours straight, striking off each suspect off the list with a thick-tipped black pen, if no alarming information about them surfaced. Nightwalkers often went back to university for fresh starts. Their presence at campus wasn’t cause for worry – not for him at least. He was sure he’d get weary of police work too if he had to do it for a 100 years. 25 of the participants were crossed off the list so far.

Feeding No. 26’s full name into the system, however, produced a complaint, not older than four years. Relief washed over the detective, followed by the tiniest surge of excitement lighting up his senses, dulled by hours of paperwork and uneventful months without incident. He hungrily tapped, clicked and keyed in passwords to unlock the full report.

The mugshot on the record mirrored the gaunt, brooding, pale-faced quality from the suspect’s social media pictures. Age of turning, was noted as 20. To the detective, he looked like the world’s grimmest 20-year-old. As was the custom for nightwalkers, photos of his prior selves from different decades were attached too. Some of them were black and white. Across all eras, he maintained a clean-shave and an overgrown crew cut further emphasising his sunken eyes and narrow, angular nose. Sharply dressed too. There was a Karakul hat in one of the pictures.

The complainant was Human. Female. She testified to being forcefully drained by the accused. The detective was not naïve. Human blood drinking had been made illegal, but many practised it with the consent of willing donors. The Authority had been coming down hard on even consensual arrangements like this. The charge should have made Union-wide headlines, even if it was disproved later. The detective was surprised that it didn’t. Perhaps because the complainant chose to stay anonymous. The matter was closed when she ultimately withdrew the complaint.

There wasn’t much heft in the evidence that was submitted or at least, available in the case files. There were extracts from long text messages. A lot of them were risqué exchanges establishing that there was indeed an arrangement, which by itself was criminal. The illegal “blood-bag” slur came up frequently. It was actually listed under ‘outrages upon human dignity‘. The detective printed it all out and made notes along the margins with his thick black pen. The chat records ended abruptly over a dialogue that seemed bitter but somewhat sober, for this dynamic.

[Him]:

I know you're here. See me.

[Her]:

If I needed to see you, I'd have personally informed you that I was here. I didn't. Because we know longer share that kind of relationship - there was none to begin with. I thought I made it clear enough. The deal's off.

[Him]: Did you think I wouldn't find out you were here?

[Her]:

I didn't care if you found out.

[Him]:

Open the door. I am right outside.

[Her]:

Jesus, fuck, what the fuck. Why do you know where I am put up? Are you spying on me.

[Him]:

Don't flatter yourself [PROFANITY]

Vedaham samatitani vartamanani charjuna
bhavishyani cha bhutani mam tu veda na kashchana

“I know of the the past, present, and future, and I also know all living beings; but me no one knows.” The detecive Googled the translation. He wasn’t certain if No. 26 was guilty. But he did not like this guy. That, he was sure of.

750 words: Day 5 – Chapter 2

To read Chapter 1, click here

Persuasion

“So what is it that you do again?”

“I told you. I am a re-writer. Mind if I smoke?”
She didn’t wait for her date to respond as she casually pulled out a cigarette and a lighter from her shirt pocket. Rolled up sleeves and a button down shirt tucked into a grey pencil skirt and her long hair tied tensely at the back, hinted she’d just been relieved from work. They sat outdoors on a cool night so perhaps she wasn’t feeling warm enough to wear a sundress like the other girls at the bar. She looked a little older than the pictures on her profile, which stated she was 28. Perhaps it was the bags under her eyes – common for those who worked night shifts, at open-minded workplaces that made provisions for nightwalkers.

“For a ‘writer’, you’re very, very vague about your job,” he continued probing in a tone he hoped sounded good-humoured.

“For a musician, you’re very, very curious,” she mimicked him crudely. To his relief, she smiled this time. “And my job is very dull, in comparison to yours. Wait, let me try explaining it in a way that sounds fun… Yeah, ok got it. I am something of a script doctor. I’m hired by clients to recycle someone’s image or an incident by rewording the inconvenient stuff and spinning it into something positive. I’d revise a bad memory into a good one. It’s sort of a persuasive skill.”

“Like PR.”

“Not exactly. I do it on a more… private level. Not all my clients need rewriting of their public image. Sometimes it’s real personal stuff.”

“So what, people actually pay you to paint them in better light for exes who’ve blocked them.”

She took a longer drag, like she was tasting a memory. “You’d be surprised at how many requests are for just that. But they are mostly business partnerships going sour, disgruntled employees about to press charges, family feuds – usually parents who don’t want their love-struck kids marrying outside the sect.”

“And these are consenting adults you meddle with-“

“If you’re a lawyer, you defend who you’re hired to defend.”

“You plant false memories in people’s heads.”

“Are we playing judge tonight? Come, let’s listen to all your music and I’ll judge your work too,” she squeaked girlishly, as she stubbed her cigarette and pulled out her phone to search for his discography. He yelled a theatric “No,” and protested feebly, but she’d already plugged in her earphones, holding a finger to her lips and jokingly mouthing, “Shh.. I’m listening.”

She listened for a few more minutes, while he ordered their second round of beers. “OK, I tried being hard on you, but I just can’t – this was actually nice.” She took just the right length of pause before stating the verdict, looking moved enough by the music as she held his gaze.

And just like that, she’d changed the conversation. The rest of the night, he spoke about his passion, his tastes and what he liked most about her – her eyes (“There’s too much honesty in there, man. They can’t lie even if YOU do that for a living.”) and her hair. She untied and let her hair down so he could see it better. He said it reminded him of his ex. She’d cheated on him and he wasn’t quite over it, he confessed. It’s amazing what people are willing to ignore or divulge to you as long as you let them talk about themselves and seem interested. She wasn’t on the clock but the instincts she’d honed for her craft kicked in at all hours.

Two hours later, he offered to drop her home. She had just had the two beers but he insisted. He was being a gentleman. She let him play the part so he’d leave pleased with himself – he’d be more amenable to a second date if he felt that way. She liked him

She was home just in time to be picked up for work, which she’d had the good sense to be dressed for. She had five hours before dawn – enough to get a confession; a sign on the rewrite. Hopefully, they wouldn’t need to bring in torturers at sunrise this time. She kept the silver rings on. Removing them in front of the undertrials when inside the cell was a good way to earn their trust. All persuasion begins with trust. She won’t smoke in front of them this time – it hurt their eyes.