A Politician’s Suicide Note.
It’s been 2 months since that one particular visit to the bar in RP that motivated me to write this blog entry. Saying that it has been stuck in my drafts folder during all this time wouldn’t be a correct statement. This has been inside my system for ages now and the time has come when I should puke it out just for the sake of puking things out, which happens to be a common phenomenon once you’re down by 6+ pegs of whisky.
I have had experiences with people who get irrationally high at times and end up creating more chaos in this universe than there already is. It’s not the company that anyone would crave on normal night-outs when you’re shit depressed about things that are going on in your life. What’s normal in these situations is spontaneously joining a bunch of extraordinary individuals on a unplanned evening and not drinking at all out of guilt that your parents might just find out and acknowledging the fact you won’t be able to supply them with a proper explanation. In the KPWSD (Kingdom of People Who Seldom Drink), men are equally tabooed by our parental society along with the members of BMWRKBAE (Brotherhood of Men Who Return from KB at Eleven). I, sadly, now happen to be part of both thanks to the virtue of my sins and kalyug.
I have a bad reputation of being brutally diplomatic when it comes to people. This sort of quality(?) is <computer-lingo alert!> hard-coded in my system that churns out and pre-processes all the gossip.
There are often times when I relate more to Harvey Dent than Bruce Wayne. After all, everybody did the psycho-analysis of the sad-sad Batman on how his righteousness is unperturbed by the onslaught of his people around him. But nobody, nobody ever thinks about mad-mad Harvey.
How a handsome leader could be such a disturbed soul in the inside? That makes me question, why everyone drools over Batman so much. Quite apparently, it’s rather convenient to have your parents die at a young age right in front of you. It gives you a reason to vent out your frustration, be a rebel, be the cruel, unforgiving kind. Dent, alas, had no such escape. Each day he saw the bigotry of the system. Each day he struggled to make sense of his actions. Each day he tried to find another reason to live. And since there was no major tragedy for him to answer the unending question of what now, each day he died a little. What remained ultimately was a mask. A mask that he shared with his inner demon, pulverising his intestines with unfinished businesses, unkept promises, scum of the world and resentment towards the lethargy that engulfed him in the creation of his image. Each day people saw a smiling Harvey, because nobody would’ve wanted to handle the awkwardness of a crying Harvey, doing so for no apparent reason. Nobody would’ve felt for him because his parents didn’t die in an alley by a gunman, who happened, for Bruce, the prime manifestation of everything’s that was wrong with Gotham and the world. Harvey never had that privilege. He still cannot see that gunman. All he stares into everyday is a void. That void is exactly where everyday Harvey hides the residue of his burnt image.
Dent is what makes people uncomfortable. Dent is exactly what’s wrong with this fucked up world. People love to see the smile of a leader. If he doesn’t face everything with a smile, then probably he’s a bitter man from the inside.
Sometimes I just smiled at how general public judged people in that regard. A smile, a confident gesture, a curt nod, a concerned look, a convincing tone, a deep, gentle Thank-you with a firm hand-shake…
Sometimes I just laughed at them. And sometimes I laughed so hard that it used to become impossible for me to stop.
And sometimes I cried.
It, all of this, can drive people crazy, all that attention, I have read. Maybe that was happened with Kurt. Maybe that was what happened with Marilyn. Maybe that was what happened with Madhubala. All that smile for one last performance. All that expectations…
The bar in RP closes at 10.30-ish. I am not sure. I am not a regular customer there. Ganeshan sat alongside me. Claiming not being a regular drinker is a legit defence of a guy who has only touched alcohol only 4 times in his life. (Okay 5. The last one was a farewell. Usmein toh banti thi). Ganeshan, in all honesty, is one of those few peoples who I genuinely respect for the passion he displays at times, the kind of person who I’d love to impress, and in an attempt at doing so, blurt out something stupid that would make me cry the entire night. Along with Ganeshan, there was Manish, Shubhanshu, Behera and others too. I don’t remember exactly. I do recall that Yash was there for a brief moment but most of the night’s memories are already fading away from my neurons.
What I do remember, and iterate over and over again in all the randomness of the universe around me is Ganeshan’s repetitive urge to revive my blog. I also remember, out of that chaos, the verses and poems, Manish and Shubhanshu sang, explaining their meanings and contexts thanks to our lamentable Hindi and non-existent understanding of Urdu. I did remember reading Ghalib in 2nd Year and Firaaq in 3rd, which gave me some elements to lip-sync with the men on the table. But overall I just enjoyed and absorbed the moments of blissful realisations that hovered there, reminding me of my lost love for art. I suddenly remembered, that I had a book to complete, a poem to finish, a story to write and a movie to create.
Perhaps Harvey needed something of that sort too. Perhaps an evening in RP once in a while, with some interesting folks, might have helped.
Perhaps.
