About – The full title of the Graphic Novel is “Sam Hades: Memoirs of my curse”. I started working on the script for it three years ago in 2010. Last year I finally completed the script. Fortunately or unfortunately (I feel it was fortunate), when I tried to publish it, the script was too short for a full length novel. So I just kept it aside for a while. Then all of a sudden, I got the idea to publish it as a graphic novel. As I gathered some more ideas as to how to do it, I realized I could just use photographs I took specifically for the book (using models) as part of the visual narrative; but as I started working on it, I realized that it would be too expensive and time consuming to set up the scene and get perfect scheduling with the models even if I managed to pay them somehow. So currently I’m looking for an artist who would like to collaborate with me on this so that together we can develop a style that is very unique and experimental.

Experimental nature – Most comics and graphic novels are just alright. I love the medium itself but a lot of the illustrations are just alright and not very realistic. The drawings are just flat and lack a 3 dimensional space inside each frame, a true representation of reality. There are a few ones that have almost perfect illustration style but still I feel that things can be a lot better and my goal is to use what I know about photography and use my observations of photographs to create a style of illustration whose products mirror the beauty of actual photographs. One of the most important innovations I want to implement is depth of field in the images. Depth of field, as I’ve noticed, adds immediate realism to the images and tricks the mind into thinking that there’s 3D space in a 2D image. Second thing is coloring of the illustrations that would change along with the progression of plot depending on mood and ambiance of the scene. Another thing I want to do is, even though I want realistic effects that mirror photographs, I want to add a dimension of surrealism to the visual narrative. So you will find surreal visual analogies of what is going on in the plot as the characters contemplate the philosophy of their condition. The images won’t be only of the characters performing physical actions and saying things. They will also entail metaphorical or analogical visual representations of the characters’ thought processes. I will try to use the best of my knowledge of how the mind works to accurately and consistently represent these aspects.

Plot Synopsis – Sam Hades is not a super hero. Not even a hero. He’s just an honest man who lived right. Fate sometimes finds the most unlikely of men. For Sam, fate came in the form of a movie DVD. In a flash, it turned his life upside down, tipping him over into a void of hopelessness. How can something as harmless as a movie physically, emotionally and spiritually devastate a person? ‘Sam Hades:Memoirs of my Curse’is one man’s recounting of the chilling events of an ordinary night that would leave even the most well-prepared of men disoriented in his position.

About the script – Since I’m a guy of science, I hate logical inconsistencies within the plot and since I am an artist, I hate cliches. I love my script because it does a great job of pleasing my scientific and artistic tendencies. But just pleasing me is not enough. I want my script to dazzle my readers and so, the novel reads at a riveting pace and there are plenty of unexpected twists from start to end. Again, I’ve made sure that the twists don’t come at a cost of plot holes. In my mind, it’s a perfect story. 

Some things to know about my graphic novel if you’re that ideal artist I’m looking for:-
1) It’s not a fantasy or superhero comic. Almost everything in it is realistic in the sense that it could be set in some part of planet Earth and this requires realistic illustration. No caricatures or exaggerated illustrations.
2) It’s not exceedingly lengthy. There are a total of 30 chapters including the prologue and each chapter is around 15 frames long.
3) I have sequels planned for it, so if our partnership works out, we could be looking at extending this deal to a long-term partnership.
4) I am hoping to get it published by a leading publishing house in the US (initially) that deals with graphic novels. I’d definitely be doing my best to get it published throughout the world.

Skills I’m looking for:-
1) First and foremost, my motive behind this project is to produce something innovative that has a style that is astonishingly original and aesthetically appealing. I’m sure not everybody has this kind of a style but I’m looking for someone who would be willing to be malleable and bend their preexisting skills to match the style that I’m looking for. In short, I want someone who is open to developing their skills through a lot of experimentation.
2) As you may have come to discover through this website, I’m a photographer. I’m really passionate about photography and I want to incorporate elements of photography in this project. So, ideally I want someone with the skills to make each frame have the feel of a photograph. It doesn’t necessarily have to have the details of say HDR Imaging or even normal photography but I want there to be realism and quality lighting effects.
3) My idea of incorporating photography has a real world inspiration – the graphic novel cutscenes in Max Payne 1 and 2. Go here to check out what I’m talking about – http://gldio.com/wrkz/max_payne/ [The frames in Max Payne are photographs taken with filters added on top. I was initially hoping to do the same but it requires models with flexible scheduling which is a luxury I can't afford with my college schedule. Anyways, I linked you to Max Payne only because that's the kind of effect I'm looking for although if we encounter a style through our experimentation that is better, I would be glad to be flexible.]
4) The ability to reproduce different facial expressions on the same character and maintaining the consistency of the look of the characters across the frames is extremely important.
5) Obviously coming up with original styles of illustration needs a great deal of experience in the software you’ll be using. So naturally I’m looking for someone experienced in using whatever software they’ll be using to bring my script to life.
6) Realistic rendering of Perspective and lighting are very important to achieve the effect I’m looking for.

I have a lot of innovative ideas that I will be briefing you about once we have a mutual partnership active. Factors I’ll be considering when I’m choosing the best fit for this project are:-
1) How much I like your existing work/portfolio. I’ll be looking at how innovative your work is and also how well you’ve executed a concept. Naturally these things tell a lot about you as an artist and I’ll be keen to see how original your style is.
2) How much dedication you can offer and also how interested you are in this concept of experimental graphic novel illustration.
3) How much experience you have. I am definitely open to considering someone who is young and in fact, I would encourage someone young since youth comes with the flexibility I’m looking for. However, I do want you to have more than just a few years of experience with illustration.
4) Someone who can follow instructions precisely and has good command over the English language. I have had bad experience with people who speak poor English, so this is another thing I’ll be keen on.
5) One request I want to make is, please don’t apply if you already have a lot of ongoing projects and can’t spend enough time on this one.

I have great ambitions for this project and I’ve worked really hard on the script. The script is really strong and that’s why this is my dream project. So I would really appreciate serious contenders who are passionate about art and creating something innovative. I want someone who would be dedicated to getting this published as much as I am.

Considering all these factors, if you’re interested in partnering up with me, please email samhadesthebook at gmail d.o.t. com with your portfolio.

Go here to see excerpts from the script, character designs and other updates - https://www.facebook.com/MemoirsOfMyCurse

The inadvertent [hidden] objective of education systems around the world is to replenish their workforce and keep the economies running and growing. Imagine the economies as giant intricate systems involving complex machinery. For this machinery to run, it needs to be fed with fresh parts all the time as the other parts die out. The objective of an education system is to make fresh new parts out of all the children so that the older ones may be relieved of their service without effect on the system. This is the most fitting perspective for a better understanding of the frustration around schooling and the true reason for how meaningless it all is. It doesn’t matter what the child wants. In the end, it has to work on a job that is inadvertently driven my market trends and other economic behaviors. This is a very crude way of organizing human potential.

Let’s step away from this and introduce an analogy. Imagine you want to train the most powerful and skilled warriors to protect your people. You’re going to pick the children among your people and make the next wave of warriors to protect yourselves. If that’s all your objective is, you’re going to find the most efficient way to make them warriors and stick to it. But that’s not all the objective is, there’s a political twist. There is a group of masked people among your people who benefit out of crippling the spirit of the future warriors. So these masked people pull the strings and make every one of your people believe that the only way to do it is to cripple the spirit of the future warriors and they do this by guaranteeing the safety and security of your people and throwing in a meager incentive to anyone who converts into a believer. With evangelical enthusiasm, the converts go and spread the belief. Anyone who protests shall be outcast or labeled mad. With every fear of the consequences of not believing, your people turn a blind eye to the big picture and all the consequences and start convincing themselves that it is all for the best. Once they are done getting into the coop, they enthusiastically send their dear dear children to their death beds without resistance.

Imagine your people to be your nation. Your warriors are your nation’s leaders and thinkers of tomorrow. The masked people are merely rich private corporations and the education industry itself. Whenever a child submits or is submitted to the rituals of schooling, more often than not it forgoes its right to think for itself and steer its own life. This is particularly true if the education system in question bombards the child with the relentless acquisition of more and more skills in preparation for a wide range of possible uncertain futures. How could this flawless logic be in any way harmful to a child? This makes sense from all angles, right? Well, wrong! This flawless logic is the induced belief given to you by the masked people. The truth is that when a child is relentlessly bombarded with the acquisition of more and more skills, it has neither the time nor the motivation to explore ways in which it could use those skills to advance its own self-exploration. Schooling teaches them how to walk but cripples their ability to know where to go. In other words, the schooled children end up gathering all these skills but gain no insight or wisdom as to how they can apply all that knowledge to advance their own personal growth. This is a juicy prospect for the masked people of our nations.  These large pools of skilled people who have no sense of direction make for great subordinates. For the masked people, this is a juicy prospect since this essentially means they can hold these subordinates by the neck and make them do whatever is needed of them. And after spending a lifetime of following instructions and never having the opportunity to make decisions, the graduates fit the mold of a subordinate perfectly. After all, if you want to progress your cart to your destination, what could be better than a muscular horse wearing blinders?

I don’t claim full understanding of the sentiments of atheists although there was a time when I thought it was “cool” to be an atheist. Now that I’ve outgrown my teenage tendencies, and got some instruction in the way how real science works, I have come to consider Atheism as simply Arrogant theism. I know there are a bunch of people ready to throw the ibombs (i for irrational, ibombs just mean accusations of being irrational) on me, which is the usual defense mechanism for a typical enthusiast atheist. Hold your horses, there’s more to where my view stems from and hopefully, you’ll find some amount of rationality in it.

As far as I’ve come to know from my brief existence in America, which is more home to the whole “theism vs. atheism” debate than India is, a lot of atheists are born out of the pressures of conformity enforced by Christian evangelism. I completely understand how frustrating that must feel and I’d probably be an atheist too if my parents pulled the “burn in hell for eternities” card out on me all the time just to get me to do what they thought was right. Thanks to me growing up in an environment that I did, I have a less passionate view on this whole God issue. And thanks to that, I have a more leveled view on the different isms.

As for theism, I have a much simpler understanding on a theist’s motivations but I have, several times, felt that something is going on around me that I can’t understand or can’t explain and the usual reflex is to just act out of yearning for a fuller explanation of everything. And one of most executed of those acts is the invention of God, or at least it’s the most popular one. The concept of God fulfills the lack of understanding and thus reduces that yearning. It’s quite natural really. But however strong the yearning might be, the most rational thing to do would be to be patient and settle in to the fact that a state of not understanding something is completely natural and is even essential. So pretty much what I’m saying is that theism is born out of premature post-hoc rationalization.

Now let’s get to atheism. If I’m getting it right, the claim of an atheist is that there is no god. Perhaps I’m the only one who sees the lack of logic in this argument, I’m not sure, but if you’re someone who understands atheism, enlighten me. So the theist hypothesizes that there is a god. It’s not a good hypothesis, given that it is neither provable nor disprovable, at least this point in time. Perhaps there will come a day when we’ll be more able and more factually prepared to devise an experiment to test the validity of the hypothesis; but for now, although it’s not a good hypothesis, it is a valid one. So the theist proposes this currently unverifiable hypothesis and chooses one of its possible outcomes, which is that there IS God. This is crazy, at least from the perspective of a scientist, because you don’t conclude a result unless you’ve done an experiment that sufficiently proves one of the outcomes of the proposed hypothesis. What does an atheist do in response to this crazy and scientifically naughty behavior of the theist? Using the logic of “What is right must be the opposite of what is wrong”, the atheist concludes – if these people think that there is God and I know for a fact that they are wrong then it must mean that there IS no God! Brilliant deduction but ultimately incorrect because the atheist is doing just what a theist is doing, at least at the level of scientific activity. They’re both sticking to the outcome of a hypothesis that is not verified. So in essence, both of them are wrong.

Moral of the story is that both theists and atheists are human beings who’ve just succumbed to their bias and sentiments. What annoys me and acts as a reason for attributing A with Arrogance, with a capital A, is that atheists think that their perspective is the logical one, when it clearly isn’t. I honestly don’t know what the theists are doing, probably having a grin behind their faces thinking how the atheists are going to burn in hell, but to me, they seem a bit more humble and less abusive of real science at least in comparison with the atheists.

So where do I stand? To be honest I would love to consider myself an apatheist, a stance that considers this whole argument pointless and shows apathy to it but I obviously have committed enough care to write up a blog, so I’m just going to settle with agnostic. Whatever. Seems logical at least. BUT, this doesn’t mean I’m always logical and rational. I’m a human being too and I succumb to my sentiments and bias. I have my own guilty pleasures that I enjoy immensely. In fact, the atheists have left a bad taste in my mouth and now I don’t think I consider full-blown rationality is even cool or sexy. The only people who believe that are ones whose core objective that provokes in them this burning desire to be rational is irrational.

If you haven’t watched “Being John Malkovich”, I urge you to watch it as soon as you get the opportunity. It’s the most balls-trippy movie I’ve ever seen. Yes, I had to invent a word to describe it. I want to talk about one of the themes it brings up in particular but before I get there, I will give you a basic outline of the movie without spoiling it. If you’d rather not read anything about the movie before watching it, skip directly to the third paragraph.

The movie starts out with this amazingly realistic puppet show. “Puppet show? Yeah right, that’s lame.” That’s what I would have said to you if you talked about a beautiful puppet show but I personally didn’t even imagine that something like that could even exist. You got to see it to believe it. Anyways, moving on, Craig Schwartz is a puppeteer who loves his art form but doesn’t get a job anywhere doing what he loves to do. His wife is an animal caretaker of sorts and she urges him to seek a job doing something else. He’s good with his hands, so he applies for a job as a file handler. He falls in love with Maxine, a woman at the workplace. It’s instant. She loathes him and doesn’t even treat him like a human being but he still pursues her. One day when he’s filing, he accidentally pushes over a file behind the cabinet. When he tries to get it out, he discovers that there’s a small door behind it. Here’s where it gets trippy – he gets into the door, falls through a hole and sees the world through the eyes of an actor named John Malkovich for 15 minutes, after which he’s teleported to the side of a highway. In those 15 minutes, he can see what John sees, hears, feels, tastes etc. The rest of the story is about how Craig, his wife and Maxine get into a triangle of deadly lust-filled romance that completely transforms their lives. It is so bizarre and genuine that it escapes the treatment of concrete definitions. A must watch movie in my opinion.

The movie is so beautiful that I had to pause it and come here to write my thoughts about it. It is filled with such passionate feelings. I’m talking primarily of Craig’s feelings. The feeling of being pushed into a corner of self-inflicted slavery for the sake of succumbing to anticipated pleasures, the pure feeling of being seduced and realizing that the seduction will yield to no gratification, the feeling of gripping patheticness of such extremes that it hits you consciously and yet you comfortably deny it. I would never go as low as Craig but if I made the wrong and unfulfilling decisions all my life and when I suddenly get hit by the realization of what the right decisions were, I would rather succumb to self-inflicted slavery, lock myself in its cage, throw away the key and be a puppet of my whims than live with regret. Living inside myself is what I have done all my life and I know for a fact that I do not have the power to resist such temptations. It doesn’t make me an especially weak man, for the strongest of men in this regard are few and far apart.

I speak not through armchair reasoning but the personal experience I’ve had in this regard. There have been times when I’ve been pulled into an expanding void that might just have started off as a pinhole. This cancerous void of temptations has the capacity to pull you inside as it parasitically feeds on your mind thought by thought. Once you fall the full depth of the pit, you realize you’ve just put yourself in the cage and thrown away the key. A man can spend many years trying to take his mind out of that pit, using tooth and nail to gnaw and claw through the dirty walls to build an escape. What do you think would happen to him when he comes out? Would he be a fuller man? A wiser person? Or would he be struck by the trauma of the pit so much so that he would have fallen into another one – the invisible and fatal pit of learned helplessness? The answer is easy for someone who has had to deal with trauma, especially the kind of emotional trauma inflicted by another human being. What your escape from the pit essentially does is use your reserve of trust to pave the way such that when you’re done getting out of the pit, you will have depleted it and will no longer have any trust to put on others. It would turn you into an empty shell, a cynic, a person incapable of exploring human relationships with optimism and open-mindedness.

That was an exploration of Craig’s state, what about Maxine? She’s an A-grade bitch right? I wouldn’t completely agree with such an accusation. I feel that the idea of antagonizing Maxine comes from partial understanding of the situation. Yes, Maxine is selfish, un-empathetic and manipulative, but she’s this hot femme fatale who represents the image of a typical, pleasure-seeking person. She’s definitely not going to feel attracted to someone like Craig who is extremely unconventional and has all his strengths hidden from plain view. From the outside, he just looks like a who-gives-a-shit-about-this-guy kind of a guy. Besides, Maxine is an attractive woman and she obviously has her own cult following of men who want to get into her pants. So it pays her to be cynical about the intentions of people (men). Personally, I’ve met a lot of women who do this i.e. take abstract cues such as the second look at them or a smile and use it to assume ulterior motives even when no such motives exist. That makes them a total bitch but I feel that it’s very natural for any person in their position to do this. In a way, I pity Maxine and women as cynical as her because they don’t give Craig and men like Craig a chance. Not to be preachy, but I feel that a little bit of open-mindedness, humility and resistance to things like instant generalizations and baseless assumptions can go a long way in improving anyone’s lives.

I know I’ve taken a little bit of the movie and stretched it out here. The movie is about a lot more of such interesting and unique themes. Especially watch out for the scene involving the Malkoviches. Balls-trippy I say. ‘Nuff said, now go watch it!

I think Sexism is a juicy topic. Ever woman wants to know how sexist any influential man is, just so that she can calibrate her levels of hatred towards that man. Of course I’m not that influential but since this is my blog and you’re there sitting and expecting to read my thoughts, I have decided to delve into this most interesting topic. My views on women are a bit controversial¹. I want to talk first about what I feel about women, what I think of their stand on this issue and also, just to add some spice, I’ll talk about what sort of women are attractive to me.

My feeling is that women are beautiful. I have a sister and a mother and I can’t live without their love and warmth. I think, more than an issue of sexism, this is a case to be solved of the west’s obsession with intellectualism. Intellectualism is not women’s natural strength². Ladies, please understand that this isn’t meant to insult you but I just feel that intellectualism is overprized and the other of women’s natural strengths are downplayed. I hate to see women who, with the best of intentions, try to claim equality with men by suggesting that we are all the same³, but that stand is very misguided. Bear with me and allow me to explain before you hate me to the fullest. Women are great with a lot of things devoid of which the world would be so terrible that I wouldn’t live here anymore. You’re a whole another species and yet you complete mankind. There would be no love in this world without you. There would be no mothers, the most amazing of human beings.

I do rather fervently support equality in rights of men and women but I do not encourage or support women who try to do everything that a man does⁴. I believe this sort of a behavior comes out of insecurity and neediness. Women should be proud to be who they are and have their own distinct identity, not emulate that of a man’s. That’s what empowerment means to me, not the point where there is no distinction between men and women besides biological ones. I do understand where some women’s idea of being the same as men comes from. It’s the same feeling that a younger child may have about more mature children who get better privileges like getting to stay up late or having different toys or what have you. That child might feel that he wants to be just like that older kid. But we all know that there is more to do right now than to wait for that day to come so that you can emulate someone you think is better than yourself. Beauty is within and it only needs seeking.

Talking about beauty, to me, the most attractive of women are the ones who don’t just have the physique of a siren but also the twist of irrationality. Most men, most commonly unconsciously, crave for the spark that women who submerge themselves in the mystery of irrationality have. It drives him nuts to not know what she’s thinking and regardless of how rapidly he fires the missiles of using consistent logic to figure her out, he wouldn’t succeed because she doesn’t use consistent logic to do what she does. Of course not all women are like this but the ones who are, often find them surrounded by men. There are women who make intellectual sense, who take a firm unwavering stand and do all of those other lofty things. Any man would respect her but when it comes primarily to attraction, the animal inside comes out and makes the decisions. The animal can scent mystery and the mystery is caused by her unpredictable pushes and pulls which in turn are consequences of her irrationality⁵. To the animal, this is a joyous and inexplicably attractive prospect  Of course it can’t be a kind of irrationality that is so close to insanity that it reeks. It must be masked, be a distant mirage that another person (usually a man) can know exists but can neither reach nor describe. I can admire and respect a woman whose mind I can decipher and see to have great substance but would I be attracted to her? Probably not.

If you’re a woman who considers herself a feminist, you might be sitting there thinking you’ve reached this year’s quota of reading the thoughts of another sexist asshole, but this is what I feel, this is what I genuinely think and the only reason I’m even putting this up here and jeopardizing my status is that if there’s one principle I go by, it is the explication of my honest thoughts and feelings regardless of the cost. I can completely imagine me sounding ignorant and being oblivious to the sensitivities of women because obviously I’m neither a woman nor am I blessed with telepathic skills. If you think I am ignorant about what women truly feel, I apologize profusely. I could always use some schooling on what women think because most often than not, I find their kind out of my grasp of understanding.

Clarifications:-

I’ve been getting feedback about this and it’s helping me learn where I fit in with regards to views on this issue. However I feel that I didn’t convey my views well enough and that there are some misunderstandings. So the following are my clarifications on the points of interest.

• My views on women are a bit controversial¹ – Before my revision, this was “unconventional” but after the feedback I received, I figured controversial is a better term. I found out from a female friend of mine that most of what I said here are pretty sexist and patriarchal even though I don’t believe them to be very traditional. Either it was really because I am ignorant and backwards or it is because I didn’t state my views well enough. That’s why I’m even doing this clarification section. Please read on.
• Intellectualism is not women’s natural strength² – This didn’t translate my thoughts well. I don’t think women are dumb or that they can’t reach the status of elite thinkers. What I meant by “natural strength” is that it is not their strongest points when looked at from probabilistic measurements from statistics around the globe. I’m not saying I have facts or figures establishing this but it’s merely an observation that I think we can all agree on if we’re all being honest. We may not understand the reasons for this. It could be genetic or merely a social conditioning aspect that creates a barrier that prevents women from progressing. Also this doesn’t mean that all women are intellectually weak, that would be a stretch. I’ve actually met a lot of women whose intellectual caliber I envy. In summarizing, what I really meant was that Intellectual superiority is not the best of most women’s strengths and also that their other strengths such as those concerning emotional intelligence and whatnot are downplayed by the society in general.
• We are [not] all the same³ – This was a bold statement, I agree. What I truly meant was just that we’re not all the same. My honest belief is that men and women are indeed different. This does not go to say that I think men are superior to women. We are of course all at the same hierarchical level but just that we are both different, differing in our strengths and weaknesses. The solution to this difference is not homogenization but rather appreciation of diversity and the prospect of a union of our strengths and weaknesses so that together we’ll make a better whole.
• [Women who] try to do everything that a man does⁴ – I can completely understand how this could sound rather ignorant and offensive but what I really meant here was that I discourage women from trying to be a man and rather attain actualization in whoever they end up being in their highest form. If they do whatever they do based on their true feelings and it happens to be what a man does, then there’s nothing unpleasant about it but emulation of the opposite sex is not the best idea. The emulation aspect shouldn’t have social causes or peer pressure. It’s a totally different story if it has biological reasons behind it though.
• Her irrationality⁵ – I always have trouble conveying exactly what I mean in intellectual conversations because I attach descriptive meaning to the words I’m using and not a meaning that is based on its position in the positive-negative spectrum like most others are used to using. Irrationality, in this case, is a word that I don’t associate with inferiority or other negative attributes. I honestly believe that every one of us is irrational to one extend or another. The ones who are not irrational are the ones nobody cares about, because it takes irrationality to be human. In this particular case, by irrationality I meant less mechanical and more interesting. I know it seems like a big leap but I definitely didn’t mean anything negative with it.

Another note I want to make is that I know I’ve engaged in the banal act of associating stereotypical attributes to gender specific identities even though I sound like I’m trying to make it look positive. I can completely see that. But like I said, honesty is my priority here. I use my consciousness to realize what I truly feel and my principles make it my duty to give whatever I find due importance and let it all out. Maybe I really am a sexist by the strictest definitions, not unlike most men. I strongly believe that I’m not alone in having such vague feelings of whatever this is that might be construed as sexism and that I’m made by the society I live in and not just a purely self-built system of thoughts. And in a case such as that it is highly probable that a lot of others, both men and women, are infected with it as well. But whatever the reason for my potential sexism is, be it social conditioning or personal fervor, I know that it exists and I’m never going to hide it, camouflage it, sugarcoat it, lie about it or admit myself to fakery because I know that that can never be the path to personal growth or self-realization.

PS – In retrospect, if this blog post gives me nothing else positive, I would at least have the consolation that this is a lesson in linguistic misrepresentation of thoughts. 

I’ve never actually felt such powerful melancholy as I did when a girl that I greatly admired told me she can’t like me because I’m not white. It was a sting that made me stop in my tracks and actually think. I realized that all this while, I’ve been thinking that if I pretended long enough, I’d become one among them. “After all, I am beautiful in my own ways. Maybe I will be seen for who I am and accepted as beautiful.” I was a fool. I was just thinking wishfully. I’ve been blind to the truth. The truth is that there’s a barrier. And it’s just skin deep. But that’s all it takes to keep “us” from “them”.

My principles have always made me blind to this thin veil of a barrier. I thought we were all one. I thought racism was a thing of the past. A past when barbarism was tolerated. I thought my perspective and morals would shield me from being offended by someone ignorant enough to use my race to offend me. But what happens when that ignorant person is someone you admire and they do it without even intending to or realizing it? Would it be possible to get over it with just a shrug and a simple act of brushing aside? No, the magnitude of disillusionment is too much to just subside without causing turbulence in your mind and heart. This kind of a disillusionment has the power to elicit such deep realizations that the strongest of your principles could vaporize at the very moment of exposure to these hard hitting facts of reality. The facts that tell you that that barbarism wasn’t a trend that vanished but a monster that’s been contained. It is still alive. It still exists, albeit in a stunted form.

What seems most amazing to me is that what happened to me is not the biggest offence. Not even close. There are more tangible, more proactive and more real ways to enforce the barrier than to just passively be told that you can’t be liked. There are people out there being murdered, mutilated, molested, enslaved and separated from their near and dear ones because of who they are; and even worse, who the enforcers think they’re supposed to be. When I see such events through the media, it makes me swell with tears for I know that we’re all meant to be human beings with beating hearts and real feelings and yet, their pain is so much more enormous than what I can ever experience.

What would you ever be able to do if men representing a bigger force than yourself came and took away your wife, molested your daughters and mutilated you and left you in your burning hut for you to die crying your lungs out as you remember your bygone family? What could you ever do? What will there be to do when post-hoc intellectual rationalization, such as the one I’m engaging in right now, can offer neither escape nor consolation? I do not know the answers to these questions and I sincerely hope no one has to be put in a situation where they would have to find the answers firsthand.

It is humbling to realize that there exist things so powerful that they are literally beyond your capacity to imagine. From what I have come to experience in life,  I can comfortably assert that impossibility is something that arises from your inability to imagine it. Impossibility is a human construct that acts like a bag into which you can lazily put those things that you don’t want to do, or in this case, things that you don’t want to see happen to you. In a way, this laziness, this refusal to imagine and to accept something as a possibility is what your ego feeds on. Imagine if just before your wife was separated from you, when your daughters and your limbs were intact, there was a time when you were out there, living with respect, dignity and a name; a time when you thought you would die a happy man, a time when life was promising. Would it have occurred to you at all that you will one day lose all that just to satisfy the massive hunger of savagery in a minor way? That none of what you can do at a given point could actually translate to permanence of what you cherish?

My point is not to wander away dropping amusing questions as I lead you nowhere. If I had one strong purpose in writing this, it would be to convince you and if possible, myself, that regardless of what might have happened in the past, there’s always something to cherish. It’s never impossible. And if it does become impossible, you’ll have nothing to lose because you’d have already lost everything.

Back then I used to be perfection personified in every worthy woman’s eyes. I was in the height of my manhood. I met a lot of women both in the outside and in the inside. But I never thought I’d meet anyone as kind or as filled with richness and intricacy as Margaret. I was vain but I was never unfair, I always had the flair for being understanding and insightful. I saw what was in her the moment I got to know her intimately. We were just friends to begin with and I never thought much of her in the beginning. But it was little things that bit by bit blew the cover off and revealed her inner beauty. She was never shy in showing love. It shocked me to know how much she loved me when I didn’t even think enough of her. Of course I was never so unkind that I showed her what I felt of her then. Little by little, her magic spread and diffused into me and I began seeing that not everything needs to be perfect to be beautiful. I stopped meeting women and married Maggie. It’s been thirty sweet years and we still live like we just discovered each other and saw what we mean to each other. 

Today the little shop that I run provides amply for our extremely ordinary lifestyle. Ever since I remember this old hut of a shop, I’ve had a photo hanging on the wall of me and Maggie having a personal moment that means what it does only to us. I never thought I would but I realized that all it would take is a little shift in my perspective to realize that this photo and its subjects could look ugly to someone. The young fellow standing in front of me waiting for me to finish ruffling with his change didn’t even willingly express it. He was polite enough but I knew what his thoughts were when I spotted the look in his eyes as he stared at the photo on the wall. In the photo I looked rather old and it didn’t help to have all that weight that I put on after the age when appearance no longer related to beauty. But the face I was making was the killer; and Maggie, well, she was never beautiful at first sight. I’m glad I lived through that initial phase with her though. 

It made me smile to remember such young naiveté in myself. I looked at the young man and told him this and only this – “not everything needs to be perfect to be beautiful.”

21st November 2012, 5:48PM 

She stood there in her plain brown shirt and beige skirt and watched as the coroners took Bobby away. A teardrop rolled down her cheek. 

21st November 2012, 12:32PM 

Bobby was running for his life. He was being chased by a car of hitmen. They were Carlos’ men. It didn’t take long before the scorching tires ran over Bobby’s head and crushed it. 

19th November 2012, 11:09AM 

Carlos just finished pleasing Bobby and asked him if he needed some more. Bobby was completely satiated and said no. The moment was tender. Carlos had been waiting for this moment. Carlos went behind Bobby and gently massaged Bobby’s head. After a minute, Carlos slowly reached his lips towards Bobby’s ear and said in a sexy voice – I want Martha out of our lives. 

20th November 2012, 5:15AM 

I can’t believe you asked me to get rid of my dear Martha. Carlos, you know how this place is. I wouldn’t last here in this society if you and I went public. If it’s going to be a choice between you and her, I am sorry to say it has to be Martha. – - Bobby