E & E Squared: Matt Beaumont – There’s Never A Dull Byte In The Inbox

A good friend gifted me ‘E Squared‘, a novel about a cutting-edge/crazy-ass advertising agency, entirely told in the form of electronic communication (blogposts, emails, chats and SMSes). I loved that book so much that I couldn’t wait to read the original that sparked off the idea.

E, even better (aren’t the originals always?) is only in the form of emails since it’s set in 2000 before the advent and popularity of some of the other forms of electronic communication. E Squared was spread across a year whereas E deals with solely the first eighteen days of 2000. Admittedly the plot stays a little closer to realistic, with very minor diversions from it for humor value (an employee who is a doppelganger of a TV celebrity sharing a beach with her, hire-and-fire-and-rehire-on-whim practices) and most of the funnies come from extremely believable, if somewhat grisly situations (idea theft from students, leaked sex tapes, assault charges) looked at in a witty manner. In comparison, E Squared really pushes the envelope with bizarre twists (teenagers running away to foreign countries, Nigerian spammer heiresses). And with all these differences, both books were absolutely delightful.

The email/electronic communication only format worked perfectly and never lost the wry wit to confusion or blandness. I’d recommend both books for anybody desperately needing a good laugh about the burdens of the working world. Here’s my Goodreads reviews of E and E Squared.

E. by Matt Beaumont
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Miller Shanks is a fictitious advertising agency whose London arm is depicted as they enter the turn of the millenium. In the first 18 days of 2000, which spans the length of the entire book, the Miller Shanks team deals with embezzled ideas, international diplomatic incidents, a sexual assault case, wrestling secretaries, broken doors, fake suicide attempts and a sex tape. It’s brilliant and funny.

E is a frothy, light look at advertising and modern office life. It also happens to be a novel written entirely in the form of emails. No conversations, no descriptions, no scene-setting; everything from characterisation to dramatic build-up and other plot elements occurs in the timing, from/to people and tone of inter-office emails. Surprisingly, this never gets in the way. It’s really easy to keep the situations and people straight, even with the lack of background information.

This might be because Beaumont puts his finger on the nub with every character he creates – all rib-tickling archetypes of people that everyone experiences in any office in the world. We meet the tyrant boss, the politicking middle manager, the bitchy secretary/receptionist, the distant God-type owner/President, the puritanical/randy client, of course. But there’s also the agenda-pushing headhunter, the utterly-devoid-of-social-skills-but-very-efficient accountant and the much-hated/long-suffering IT department. There are also all the familiar social set-ups of lunchtime buddies, inter-department grapevine and cubicle romances.

There’s never a dull email in the inbox. I loved the book!

~O~O~O~O~O~O~

e Squared by Matt Beaumont
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Bitching about the boss, trying to hook up with the office hottie, watercooler gossip, mad clients, madder colleagues and the maddest workplace of them all – E Squared pulls you into the surreal corporate soap opera of life at ad agency Meerkat360.

The entire novel is in the form of blogposts, chats, text messages and emails. Surprisingly, the novel format doesn’t hurt the reader at all and within minutes you are drawn into the lives of the Meerkat360 staff (and some others). Anyone who has ever worked for an agency, been bullied by a boss (or a junior), juggled a weekend marriage with a demanding career or simply lagged behind their peers in the ratrace, E Squared will feel familiar.

It’s probably telling that the stories of our lives, in the future will be documented in digital mediabytes. It’s a regular Dilbert meets 2 and a 1/2 Men.

View all my reviews

MayShortReads14: The Fad

To: Governing Bodies Incorporated,
Beauty Business Group,
Society for Teenage Unrepresented Politics, Issues & Debate

Subject: The Owner of ‘Anti-Beauty’

In response to your earlier communication, we present a few further comments and evidence.

There were two very important things that happened to Tania that day. A phone conversation with her best friend and a note that she typed out soon after. Both have been documented as follows:

The first is the transcript of her phone conversation. This has been obtained with permission from her mobile service provider. Tania claimed later that she had not consented to their recording and sharing her conversations, even though her signature appears on the contract as agreeing to these terms. Since her friend Seena, does not subscribe to the same service provider, they are unable to share her contribution to the conversation:

—————————————————————————————————

Document 1: Transcript of Tania’s phone conversation

“No, I’m not hooking up to the bloody call center. It’s a 45 minute waste of time only to listen to a drone who’s probably 20 and has the brains of a 5-year-old.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you. Have you gotten to work as yet?

Ah, you lucky girl! Sorry, I forgot. Don’t let me keep you up at this hour, then.

Already?  It’s only your third day. You still have 11 days left. Why don’t you go to the movies or maybe the salon? They’ll be great on weekdays, no waiting, no loud phone-boors.

Heh, yeah right. Shouting inside my own car does not make a loud phone-boor. Why don’t you catch that new movie then?

Oh, okay. Damn, you make weekday holidays sound bad.

Naw, I wish. I used up all my leave on Kyra. Ungrateful little brat won’t let me have my peace in my own house, even if I take off.

Yes, I do mean that. C’mon, don’t go all judgemental on me. It’s just the two of us talking. It’s bad enough having one foul-tempered teenager at home. But why’d I have to go pick up a job at a ‘young’ company too? I am dying. Dying of youth.

I mean they are killing me, literally. I sound like my mother when I say this and that makes me feel old. But honestly what are kids today thinking??

No, absolutely not. Don’t you remember our fads? Torn denims, those signaled rebellion alright. But what is this with clothes that don’t fit??? This generation wears their jeans so low, their fingers have muscles from the workout of having to constantly pick them off the ground.

It’s not an exaggeration. I think they’re too privileged. They’re begging for misery.

Huh. Yeah, I’m here. I just thought of something.

No, it’s still coming to me. Hey, let me hang up now. I think I have it.

Hmm? Just an idea for the marketing brief I’ve to present tomorrow.

Yeah. I’ll call you tomorrow.

—————————————————————————————————

The second document is a word-processed file that was created by Tania on the same day, estimable at 20 minutes after the phone conversation.

Document 2: Concept Note

Target Audience: 13-22, SEC A, metros

Core Premise: The youth is bored and disengaged from the world. Information overload, over-privileged lifestyles leave them jaded. The beauty myth has been saturated with a cluttered product market, technological advancements in medicine as well as digital touch-up technology.

Also, the influencers in the current social order are proponents of physical perfection. The ones who do not conform to this ideal, lack social currency. This segment is the majority but also under-represented in consumer outlook.

Need Gap: A new aspiration needs to be created for this segment. A guiding philosophy, goals, events and associated products can drive the campaign. We need to oppose beauty as a aspirational standard of appearance.

Key Messages:

1. Anyone who has depth, has problems
2. Perfection is for the last century

Product Range: Anti-beauty product line

• Acne enhancement – to increase pimples & open pores, to convey someone who does not want to be plastic and is proud of it.

• Dirt dust – for smudging on the rear of jeans, to show someone willing to sit anywhere to think and talk on matters of consequence (variant possibilities for eco-friendly consumers).

• Blood paint – for tiny spatters on clothes, to convey being closer to life and away from plastic perfectionism. To be marketed to young women on the lines of menstruation pride and to young men as a return to real manhood.

• Dulling mist – for spraying on face to convey sallow complexion and other conditions associated with working too hard

—————————————————————————————————-

These two documents conclusively prove that Tania Rodrigues is the owner and bears full responsibility for the Anti-Beauty ideology. We believe that she should bear all the damages resulting in this case. We also believe that all the earnings of this campaign should be accrued to Ms.Tania Rodrigues.

We await your thoughts at the earliest.

With regards,

Messrs. Lawyer, Lawyer & Lawyer

Twitter Trending Activities: A Poor Show by Social Media Agencies

Two of today’s trending topics are obviously manufactured social media campaigns. I clicked through not because the tags engaged me but because I’m seeing so many of these, I feel I need to say something. Both use the same shoddy style that people who call themselves professionals, need to reconsider.

Right off the bat, both #LoveAtFirstSniff and #IFeelRoyalWhen put me off because of their sheer length. 140 characters is so little, every single one counts. A hashtag that takes up too space, gives people less space to say what they want. On social media, that means they will not care and hence not participate.

My experience with social media professionals tells me that many of them do not even think about this. The common refrain is that ‘it has to carry the brand’s message’. Well, social media is not advertising. Imposing a brand’s agenda onto communication channels works against the brand, by generating resentment instead of participation.

I also do not see why social media needs to follow traditional communication’s norms. What’s wrong with abbreviations? The language of social media, especially short-form content requires it. The concern appears to be, ‘How will people know what it is about?’ Simple, they’ll know what it’s about, if the tweets using that hashtag explain it adequately. This requires more thought being put into the content of the tweets than just 140-character shortened general marketing messages.

Neither hashtag was particularly engaging. That’s not very friendly, and on a medium that is by its very name, social. All interest on such activities is generated by offering goodies or contest wins. Why would you need to bribe people to participate in a conversation? If you’re interesting enough, people will want to participate. The wonder of social media is that it makes numbers possible not by bribing but simply understanding, relating and engaging with real people.

Both these hashtags smack of brand agenda as well as an indifference to what people want. On social media, who cares what a brand wants? Other social media users who are the people who make a topic trend, are not marketing channels for the brand. They have no interest in what a brand wants. If a brand is smart, it will understand what these people want and create a conversation that they’ll be drawn to, and aim for that mental association with a consumer requirement. #LoveAtFirstSniff and #IFeelRoyalWhen are both examples of what I call ‘brand-outward’ rather than ‘audience-inward’ communication.

Due to patchy understanding of the medium as well as a need to quantify business actions, most clients either want or are appeased by social media agencies proposing ‘trending activities’. In reality, after the activity is agreed upon, a small group of people spend their efforts pushing out tweets onto the hashtag in an effort to make the numbers required for the tag to trend. What business value does this serve?

The hashtag appears on the ‘trending topics’. If you’re looking for visibility, that’s not particularly relevant visibility since the average Twitter user does not care about a topic that is not relevant to him/her. Participation by a few social media executives and their immediate circle that is being begged, cajoled and bribed to push out tweets isn’t engagement either. In what way does this benefit the brand except to be able to boast that it spent money making noise that nobody listened to or cared about?

If you are a marketing manager, think twice about wasting your budget on activities that do not add any real value. If you are a social media agency, such activities make you come across as an outfit that’s just conning its clients into forking out marketing money for no real value.  As professionals, the onus is on you to understand what role communication plays in your client’s business and how it can best be used & managed on the social media.

MayShortReads12: Pain

Turena wipes the wood-top desk and arranges the white sheet over it. It’s impractical, she has been told, but that’s what an architect would think. No artist would deny the magic of a white surface, the dichotomy of blank or plain, the lure of bleeding the pristine. Funnily enough, that architect would be considered an artist in the important circles, while she would probably not.

The familiar finger of sensation unfolds inside her skin but she doesn’t pay too much attention. It’s gotten to be habit now, managing these impulses. Besides, it’s going to be a busy day and she wants to conserve all her feeling for the appointments.

The first one arrives a little early. They always do, these first-timers, probably standing outside the door till they can’t stand to wait any longer. Well, she can understand the pleasure of deliberate pain, completely. It’s exquisite, the real art, not the patterns and inks that she proceeds to emboss on people’s bodies.

The second one is a girl and Turena has to insist on seeing an identity proof before she takes her over to the chair. Turena doesn’t want any problems with the authorities. It will disturb the delicate balance of her world and chaos scares Turena. It always surprises her younger customers, who imagine her as a gun-wielding, tank-top-6-pocket-jeans-and-boots-wearing heroine of rebellion. Turena’s plain workshirts, neatly buttoned at the cuffs and light blue jeans always throw them off. Most of them ask her how come she doesn’t have a tattoo herself. She usually shows them the ankle quiver. It’s the one that was created for business purposes only. It usually satisfies them.

The girl has asked for a butterfly on her left breast. A romantic, Turena judges and smiles inwardly. If it had been the right breast, she’d have known the girl was an attention-seeker, a tease even. Women’s clothes button right over left and a tattoo on the right side is a better option for peek-a-boo games. The ease with which the girl takes off her shirt and then her bra, tells Turena something more. She is sure she got chosen, not for her steady hand but for her gender. But the girl isn’t coy about shedding her clothes and when she turns around, Turena’s notions are confirmed. A fading, almost not-there dark patch marks the area a little north-west of her areola. A love-bite. The girl expects more and she’d like camouflage. Perhaps even an invitation for the future.

She sees that Turena has noticed and starts to say something. Turena interrupts her and tells her that a tattoo must not be touched too much or even brushed hard for at least a month and would she like to reconsider the location? To ease her discomfiture, Turena tells her bra-straps can be painful on a fresh, sore tattoo. The girl considers for a whole minute and then shakes her head and lies back. The canvas is ready. Turena’s fingers are already tingling and she mentally thanks the person whose lips left that mark on the girl’s body. It gives added impetus to her work.

By the time she is done with her appointments, the tablecloth is splashed with colour flecks and an occasional red-brown spot that only Turena knows isn’t colour. She picks it up and tosses it into the laundry bag behind the door. Then she sits back in the chair and opens her cuff buttons, folding up her sleeves neatly.

On her left arm, just above the inside of her elbow, a long vine creeps up and turns around to the front, ending three inches under her wrist. Turena admires the leaves and scrutinizes the colour, with a professional eye to check if it needs retouching. Then she runs a finger along the vine, stopping mid-way. The finger feels it, even if the eye doesn’t – the scar and a memory of a time past. She leaves her finger where it is and looks up, thinking.

She can still hear the screaming. The colours are very bright and blurred, sunlight streaming in through a window and diffused all over her eyeball by salt water. The screaming turns to loud, unpleasant wailing. It hurts her throat and her chest too, to make that sound. But it is not enough. Her right hand reaches out and closes over something small, cold and metallic. Dimly, she registers it as the bronze statuette she bought on their honeymoon. He hasn’t noticed, his face is still cold with disgust and indifference, egging her on to make him care. The hand moves quickly and begins to carve her story out. It stings, the cool air burning as it touches torn flesh. It feels so good. So damn good. Then it’s being pulled away from her and in the scuffle that ensues, a little rip of flesh tears itself out of her arm. And there’s red everywhere.

Turena looks away and her eyes fall on her table. Thank God, she whispers. She looks down at her left arm again. It’s beautiful. A story of pain. She created that grapevine herself, to hide back then. But with it, she created art. She dwells on that thought for a full minute. Then she contemplates whether she needs to open a few more buttons to remind herself. Her hand rises slowly to her midriff but she stops there, letting her palm rest over the masterpiece on her stomach that tells about one of the greater tragedies of her life. That’s all she needs. It’s not that bad today. She smoothes the shirt down and just then her stomach rumbles. Turena feels quite proud of herself for being able to manage her pain so well.

Life is pain, this is true. But the world looks to the artist to look that pain in the eye and fall in love with it. There is a smiling glimmer inside her as she gets up. Dark feelings always feel acute, sharp and defined while good feelings are more like a gentle glow. Turena dwells on that thought for a brief second as she turns out the lights.

Then she locks the door to ‘Turena’s Tattoos’ and she goes home.

English: Auschwitz survivor Sam Rosenzweig displays his identification tattoo. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

MayShortReads11: The Belief Artist

“You’re a con. None of these things work.”

said Shayla shaking the tiny glass bell with the silver heart for a clapper. It was pretty but Shayla wouldn’t admit that. She settled for holding it with the tips of her manicured fingers.

“That’s not true. I don’t lie.”

Deerun replied, unfazed.

“Don’t put on that benevolent holy being act with me. I know you think it’ll sell more of these…things…”

Shayla gestured to the tray of coins and medallions

“…but it irritates me.”

Her leather briefcase bumped the table and the coins clattered to the floor in a rain of metallic sound and plinking glass.

She stared at Deerun, horrified but his expression didn’t change. Taking her briefcase from her, he set it down carefully behind the counter. And they began picking up the pieces.

“It’s not an act but you’re not going to believe that, are you? Why do you have a problem with what I do?”

“Justify selling junk to people in the name of good luck.”

Shayla glared at Deerun as he set the try back upright. He took his time arranging all the objects just right before he turned.

“I don’t need to.”

he said finally.

Shayla wanted to throw something at him. He was so infuriatingly calm!

“But..”

he turned,

“…to you, I will.  Faith gives people the means to deal with their lives. Everybody needs some reference point in their minds. Something that binds them to the idea that world is not a series of random events over which they have no control. And having tangible tokens, pretty trinkets if you will, reminds them.”

“You’re still toying with people’s beliefs.”

“I’m fulfilling a need for it. There is a difference. How am I any different from your clients who sell food products? You have a problem with the term ‘good luck’ but that’s just the name of my shop. None of the objects in the store claim to bring good luck.”

“You don’t exactly discourage people from thinking they do, do you?”

said Shayla sinking into the armchair by the window and safely away breakable objects.

“I let people persist in their stories. It comforts them, entertains them, makes them feel better. How am I different from a movie maker?”

Shayla chewed her lip, trying to think of a comeback. Then Deerun’s long hair and flowing shirt caught her attention.

“So you admit you’re nothing more than a cheap entertainer? That it’s all an act?”

Deerun smile took a few seconds to materialize and Shayla knew she had hit the chink.

“I’m not going to argue with me if you insist on denigrating me. Beliefs are stories. This is no more or no less an act than any author, artist or movie maker. And there is nothing cheap about entertainment.”

“That’s true. Today’s movie tickets plus popcorn and snacks have set me back for all of the weekend.”

Shayla replied as she breezed out to the entrance.

Deerun chuckled. He knew that was her way of apologizing. He checked the jewelery cases, shut the display cabinets and walked out to lock the store. Shayla was already hailing a cab. As they got in, he handed her a little red velvet pouch.

“What..?”

The little glass bell charm lay in the palm of Shayla’s hand.

“You wanted it.”

said Deerun.

“No, but…heh, me? I never..”

“Be quiet. Just keep it. Wear it, carry it around or toss it into your drawer if you want.”

said Deerun and he shut the cab door.

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll break it?”

“No. I believe you’ll take care of it.”

Deerun replied.

On their next date, as Shayla opened her front door, a light caught Deerun’s eye briefly. He chose not to comment on the glass bell dangling from her key ring.

English: An old iron wind chime in the shape of a horseshoe with 3 bells. Used as a good luck charm. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

MayShortReads10: A Hard Night’s Work

Inspector Jigaboo growled. The spirit seated on the bench plopped in the air slightly, like a little splash of water when a fish jumps out and back in. It was one of the new-dead, still unused to Feardom. Jiggs, (he hated the name but knew his deputies call him that behind his back), knew that on this planet, the living expected only monsters to growl while unsubstantials like him weren’t associated with any sound. He was a kind soul so he shut up immediately.

Spirit 2X04 had arrived at an unfortunate hour – right in the middle of the rush hour night. He’d materialized right into the peaktime traffic of ghouls making their way to under children’s beds and set off an entire street of dogs baying when he shrieked. That damn Netherworld pass was jammed again and the poor souls ghosting them would have to stay back early to clean up the mess.

Jiggs drifted up and waved to 2X04. He’d recognize only living human gestures at this point of time and Jiggs had had to deal with enough of disoriented new-dead to learn a bit of the local lingo. He was gesturing for him to come along. There were his usual rounds so he decided to drop the kid at the Netherworld pass, instead of letting him make a nuisance of himself to the Feardom watch staff.

Ideally the orientation officers would take charge the minute new-dead crossed over and assign them to the appropriate journeys. This one may not even be slated for Feardom but had materialized through the cracks. Jiggs knew he wouldn’t be rerouted, not immediately. There was no room for one more bureaucratic nightmare. There were too many of them on this planet already and they were notoriously territorial.

They drifted along and Jiggs began his usual tour-operater speech that he gave to the new-dead that seemed to fall into his lap every couple of months or so.

“That’s the Factory.”

he said, gesturing to his right. Jiggs could see the kid’s thoughts running in the direction of tall buildings spewing black smoke.

“No, not that kind of Factory. Well, the same kind. It’s the only Factory in Feardom. They make raw fear.”

“Raw fear??”

Jiggs thanked Ixtra spirit that new dead didn’t have working bladders or 2X04 would have voided his. Embarassment would dilute fear and hence his fear-creating potential. If the kid was to fit into Feardom, he’d have to learn to curb those.

“Yes. Mostly they use it to make Fog-of-fear that the government sprays on the living to keep them indoors, asleep and manageable during heavy traffic. Look, there’s a fear dispenser going by after his nightly rounds. Every street gets one whiff, some high population ones get an entire canister.”

The fear dispenser whizzed by, obviously in a hurry to finish up late. Then he abruptly darted back and sprayed a multi-coloured wisp into the air and zoomed off.

“Religious fear”

said Jiggs, a disapproving clink in his voice. And sure enough, there was a worship place on the horizon. The fear dispensing had eased up considerably around these places in the past century. This particular one must be a new sect and have requested a special, fresh Fear Fog every night.

“Being dead is very different from what I thought.”

said 2X04.

“Don’t worry. Feardom is a jolly old place once you get used to it.”

“It sounds horrible. Fearsome.”

“It’s supposed to. Fear runs our economy, you know. We sleep in comfortable coffins and cupboards and bed bottoms during the day because of the bounty it brings us.”

That’s wasn’t quite true, Jiggs knew but he was the face of Feardom to these newbies after all. No point indulging their foolish notions. Feardom wasn’t a rich state but it got by fine and there were jobs to be had for the hardworking ghoul, for the spirited spirit and even for the occasional unsubstantial like him, struck with wanderlust.

They passed the graveyard and unsurprisingly 2X04 slowed down to watch. The new-dead were so fascinated with their deaths. Jiggs growled again and the spirit jumped. In a kindler tone than his growl, Jiggs explained,

“That’s just the nightly bone market. If you ever take up special spook assignments, you can come rent a couple of bones or even a whole skeleton here. Be careful with your spirit though, these hawkers are thieves.”

Jiggs pulled the kid behind a parked car and they watched. Two ghouls seemed deep in conversation and after a lot of plopping and gesturing, one handed over a bone to another.

“It’s completely clean. Maggot-certified. Look, there isn’t even a trace of blood.”

Jiggs harrumped, which to the kid would have sounded like a snort.

“Maggot-certified, my painted pineapple. That one’s been stolen from a dog’s dinner and stuck into the ground.”

The buying ghoul didn’t seem to know or care though and it departed with the bone.

They turned and rose into the air when the kid nearly flew right through something.

“Officer Koriko!”

Jiggs exclaimed, spotting his old friend.

“Jiggs, thank grishooms it’s you!”

“What’s up, Koriko? You here to bust that fake bone hawker?”

Koriko frowned across its round yellow face and looked towards the kid.

“No, not tonight. Listen, I’ll take over from here. I need to take this one back.”

“Why, what’s he done? He’s barely been dead 3 hours now.”

“Three hours?!! Oh my dear dashing demons! Jigaboo, he’s not new-dead. He’s near-death.”

Jiggs understood Koriko’s unease. The near-death experiences were expensive mistakes that had to be covered up with elaborate stories, not to mention the gargantuan paperwork. The kid had seen too much. What would they do with him now? They couldn’t send him back without a very expensive memory-wipe. And that might erase his brain and keep him in vegetable state for years. It would be a bureaucratic nightmare of monstrous proportions.

He looked at Koriko’s worried face and the kid’s bewildered one. Grunting to himself, he turned.

“Relax, Koriko. He ran right into a Fog of Fear trail. He’s been neutralized already. Just take him back and tell them he’s only been around a couple of minutes. That’s as much as he’ll remember anyway.”

Koriko nodded and his face relaxed into its usual jovial grimace. Taking the near-dead spirit by its hind wisp, he glided away. Jiggs growled at how easy it was. Fear arose from the unknown, after all. Why not use it occasionally to make life in Feardom a little easier?

It’s a ghost! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

MayShortReads 09: The Beautiful Face

Selena’s best friend was her mirror. She began her day with it and it was the last thing she looked at, before she turned off her lights. Her mirror showed clear skin pulled taut over large, dark eyes, that topped a straight, defined nose, which led down to perfect Cupid’s bow-shaped lips and bordered by angled cheekbones. It filled her with joy and inspiration. Selena had an artist’s eye and she knew that the Maker had outdone himself with her face. The lessons of symmetry, balance, textures and contrast were carved out in precision across her face.

There was just one problem. Other people didn’t see her face in the same way. The mirror had surprised her, in her teens. Believing that she was dreaming, she had asked her mother to tell her what she saw. And what the mother described, was so different from what Selena saw in the mirror, that she decided she needed to have her eyes checked. But the results came back fine. The doctor had actually told her to be grateful for good eyesight and not hanker after features that could not be hers. At least, he had said, she didn’t have to look at her face.

The doctor was not a mean man, she knew, just blunt. She pondered the mystery of her two faces. Just to be sure, she took up her mirror once more. A single glance and all her cares evaporated. What a pity the world could not share in the bounty she had, where a single perfect vision could lift spirits!

She took to carrying a little hand mirror in her purse. When someone said something mean or hurtful, she’d take it out and dip into that little pool of serenity that she carried inside her mirror. Her friends noticed and the rumours began swirling around her. They would have called her vain, if they had thought her beauty merited it. So instead, they decided there was something wrong with her and attempted to bring her back to reality as they saw it. Their disapproval, their harsh criticism streaked her pretty mirror like the dark streaks that sometimes forms on old glass. So the hand mirror went back into her cupboard.

The large swing mirror in her bedroom still stood solidly by her, though and reassured her at the start of day and at its end. One day, it asked her how things were. As startled as she was to hear the mirror speak, the feeling didn’t persist. She had gotten so used to being alone in her thoughts.

“Oh, you know..”

“Yes”

the mirror agreed, swaying slightly as if nodding its head.

“The hardest part is pretending I agree with them. It’s like living a lie. But how can I, when every day you remind me that it’s not true?”

“It is not a lie. You see things one way, they see the opposite.”

“I was always told that the world sees you as you see yourself.”

“Indeed. It is a reflection, like everything else. Is your left, not my right and vice versa?”

Selena grimaced. That was true. Her reflection pouted back, in beautiful disappointment.

“Does that mean if I reverse, the reflection will reverse too?” she said, putting down her right hand and raising her left.

“Isn’t that true?”

replied the mirror, echoing her gesture in perfect opposite.

Selena’s features set in a grim line, which looked sober at worst, in reflection. Anticipating her next action, the mirror warned,

“Are you sure? You will still have to look at yourself every day.”

“No, I won’t.”

said Selena and took her mirror down.

The next morning, when she went out, seven different men stopped her on the road to talk. One of them asked her if she was a model. At work, people stared when she walked in. A week later, she moved into a new office that came with a promotion and was closer to the director’s cabin. She had to quit at the end of the month, because the building walls had mirrored surfaces and she couldn’t tolerate having to pass them every day to enter. One glance was enough to put her off her reflection.

She landed a new job in two days. Her new boss didn’t like her much but nothing she said would change her colleagues’ minds about Selena. They milled around the beautiful new girl, during lunch hour and hung around after work, trying to get her to go home with them. Selena could sense it when the stories began flying about her but none of them ever harmed her. Nobody ever got to escort her home and eventually, the admirers learnt to be content with watching her from a distance, waiting for one smile from her to get through their day. They stopped hanging around her desk too.

Selena didn’t smile as much any more. What was the point? It would only make a man fall off his bike (that happened once) or run into the printer making it fall over (this too). And by the next day, her boss and her cronies would have put out another story slicing Selena’s character with a new knife. But nobody would come over to talk to her. Her smile had become a prison and she was trapped.

Finally, when she was affluent enough, she tracked down one of her favorite artists. Once upon a time, she had hoped to work with him and he had shrugged her off, not noticing her among his admiring audience. But now, he met her with rapture. Even as she talked to him about commissioning a portrait, he held her gaze in respectful devotion and told her it would be his pleasure, his finest work ever.

The portrait was ready in six months. Selena thought it could have been done in four or even three months, just that the artist had prolonged it as long as he could to be able to gaze at her face longer. It was just as she remembered herself – the lips, the cheekbones, the eyes, the nose. But the painting did not speak to her the way her mirror had. She had it framed in expensive rose wood and took it away, telling the artist that she would hang it up in her bedroom. It went into her attic, the minute she got home. Selena never asked for a picture of herself again, not even a photograph.

When she died, everyone said she looked very well and it was true. She was the prettiest corpse that the cemetery had ever seen.

Magic Mirror (M.C. Escher) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dancing

Dance, dance with me
Swing me out of secrets
Reel me into your cries
Spin me over conversations
To meet under shared laughter

Dance with me.

Bombay Talkies: 100 Years Well Worth Celebrating & Watching

If you’re a cricket-agnostic in India, then IPL season is slow torture. Every television in the world is hogged by cricket fanatics. Restaurants, malls, even shops are playing matches and everybody’s looking over your head to catch the score. Even the bloody internet bandwidth is clogged by those in office, desperate to know Sachin’s stats. And if you do manage to get online, Twitter is waiting for you, hashtags bared. A movie would be a nice place to lose oneself from this mania but the multiplexes and theatres all throw up their collective hands and screen the bottom-of-barrel movies only. I guess somebody up there took pity on the minority that is me and tossed me a tasty titbit in the form of Bombay Talkies.

Released as a centennial tribute to the 100 years of cinema, Bombay Talkies is a collection of four short films, one each by a prominent Bollywood director. The shorts-format has always intrigued me and I wonder why Bollywood doesn’t do more of these. The only short film collections I’ve seen Bollywood release into mainstream are Darna Mana Hain, Darna Zaroori Hain and Dus Kahaniyan. Considering the burgeoning costs and risks in making a film, might it not be a better idea businesswise and creatively speaking, to spread that across multiple smaller buckets? I do hope the powers-that-be are considering this and that the brilliance of Bombay Talkies paves the way for more.

The first story, directed by Karan Johar, brings the expected star value by way of Rani Mukherjee and Randeep Hooda. This film is really more about gay angst than about cinema. It’s not too bad, all things considered. Unfortunately, as part of a bouquet that has the other offerings, this one is the weakest, both in terms of interpretation of the theme and the story delivery. Randeep Hooda is his versatile self but Rani (doing a Vidya Balan a la The Dirty Picture, if Silk were an affluent South Bombayite) come through the way HD made the raving beauties of the last decade look – plastic and grotesque. The one and only sweet note in this film – and it’s a beauty at that – is the street urchin’s rendition of Ajeeb daastan hain yeh. The child’s voice brings all the mood and has that component of art that reaches out from its canvas/celluloid/paper and wrings the audience’s heart.

Story two, by Dibakar Banerjee, takes us through the mundane day of a chawl-dweller and the one special event of his day. Nawazuddin Siddiqui is nothing short of superlative in his depiction of a nondescript everyday man turned magician, full of wonder and glory and big dreams, if only in his own mind. This one showed real class in such subtleties as Purandhar’s monologue with his alter ego and a surreal emu walking around in disparate scenes.

Post interval, the film didn’t disappoint either. The next story, by Zoya Akhtar dips into the LGBT bucket again, but this time with finer strokes and the rawer talent of a child. A little boy dreams of shiny baubles and dancing, instead of football and cricket. Mostly alone in a world of ambitious and gender-role rigid parents, he takes comfort and inspiration from Katrina Kaif. The climax of this film made me want to stand up and clap and just keep on clapping. Naman Jain shows talent beyond his years as he manages to depict a cross-dressing child without parody. He makes you want to laugh with him, rush to protect him from judgements that will destroy his innocence and applaud him for the star he is. This was my favorite film in the entire movie.

The last story is by Anurag Kashyap and to my surprise, not dark or gritty. It’s a fairly standard story of the God-level idolization of filmstars across India. A young man comes to Mumbai with just one burning purpose – to meet Amitabh Bachchan and ask him to bite into his mother’s homemade murabba so his ailing father can eat the other half, having felt like he shared a meal with the superstar. But the story carries you through Vijay (Vineet Kumar Singh)’s adventures and right through the twist in the end. Maybe I’d have enjoyed this film more if it had been number two or three. Placed last, it felt slightly predictable, probably because the two preceding it were so unexpected and diverse. At the start, I also had a The Terminal flashback with Tom Hanks soldiering on to get an autograph of his father’s favorite jazz player. Still, this was a very good film with the unmistakably Kashyap style of extreme highs and lows.

The movie ends with a song that fails to impress in any way. The medley through the years has been done so often in Bollywood recently, you already know how the music and even the backup dancers hips will swing. And it closes in a tacky family-photograph style ensemble of all the current actors. I was glad to walk out by this time.

In all, I’d have thought this would be a ‘festival’ kind of film, meant only for niche audiences that lived and breathed the technical language of cinema. What I found instead was a damn fine movie, that even I, a regular member of the audience, could relate to and enjoy.

Go Goa Gone: Zombie Comedies are Howl-a-rious!

I’ve only ever seen two movies on the same day, once in my life. That was the day Saawariya and Om Shanti Om released together and I came home with a headache and a blue disco hangover, swearing never to do that again. I broke that rule today and how delicious, I had a wonderful day!

Starting the day with a solo matinee of Bombay Talkies was a sweet surprise. And I ended the evening with Go Goa Gone. The friend I invited along, tossed off a comment about the ‘ZomCom’ that I was going to watch which made me think I must be getting old since I didn’t recognize the abbreviation. Zombie comedy seemed a misnomer to me and I wasn’t that hopeful given the cast seems to range from child stars who never really made it big as adults (Kunal Khemu), funny-but-always-sidekicks (Vir Das), Mr.Nondescript (Anand Tiwari) to ageing-and-desperate Saif Ali Khan.

Well, take all those notions and throw them to the zombies to chew on. Go Goa Gone was fun, funny, fun from the word go! Three friends find themselves Goa-bound. One, the classic hip dude/douchebag is in trouble for getting upto nooky at work, the second paavam prani has been dumped by his girlfriend and the third geek/good boy thinks he’s going to a business conference. They wake up on the other side of a rave party on an island off Goa’s mainland and discover that everyone at the party has turned into zombies.

The humour might have been grating were it not for the fast-paced action. And the zombie horror bit might have been screechy if it hadn’t been for the laughs. Quite surprisingly Go Goa Gone seems to hit the perfect balance between chills and laughs. It was actually fun to be scared of something other than the random ‘Boo!’ kind of scares that current Bollywood horror seems to dish out. And yes, it was such a pleasure to watch entire dialogues that weren’t being sterilized by censorship. If the words sex, fuck, fucker or gaand offend you, you might want to stay away from this film. Somehow in this film, this language didn’t seem to be thrown in for its ‘cool’ quotient but because realisitically, that is how people talk.

Aside from the language, there were genuinely funny sequences through the movie and I’m glad to say that these were plentiful. The sequence on the window ledge, right after Hardik (Kunal) gets caught with his pants down at work was a beauty. And the first conversation between the three friends where they try to piece together what they know about zombies is howl-a-rious. Finally, I loved the fact that they didn’t run out of the magic laugh-creating formula midway. The ending twist before they get off the island, was perfect and resulted in an explosion of laughter.

All in all, I’d say watch the movie. I’m heading to Goa as soon as I can!