Mario, Aur Shrooms Par Koodio!

There is a peculiar manner of speech in some North Indian Hindi, where the verb is extended, making it simultaneously more expressive as well as more casual. The extension occurs by (it seems) combining the respectful and the casual forms of the verb. For example, the Hindi word for throw is "phenk". Requesting someone to throw respectfully, one would say "phenkiye", while casually one would say "phenko". BUT the common turn of phrase is "phenkiyo", or "phenkio" for brevity.

In 1981, a video game character called Jumpman made his debut in the arcade game Donkey Kong, and proved to be popular enough to have his own 8 bit video game two years later. The new game involved him and his younger brother battling creatures coming from the sewers below New York, with a a lot of "maar"(hit) and "kood"(jump). With Indians being such natural geniuses at 'computer stuff', its quite possible that quite a few game testers must have been Indian software engineering graduates, fresh out of the drug-induced seventies, and ready to take on the world. The involvement while testing the game must have led to a lot of vocalizations - shouts of "Koodiyo!" and "Mario!" (following the peculiar turn of speech mentioned above) - while their post-adolescent minds must have found it quite amusing to recommend that the power-ups for enhancing character abilities be based on shrooms (Hallucinogenic Psilocybin mushrooms).*

We decided to paint a wall in hostel, and the brick facade prompted us to think of a pixel-based composition - what better than a tribute to our shroom-munching, "Mario!"-shouting software engineering graduates of yesteryear? While me and the Dog designed it, it took the arrival of Osiris to start work on it, with a little help from the Monkey on the way - a regular carnival of freaks creating what Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore would call "a coughdrop in the throat of eternity".

No, not that Dog

* If you believed that cock-and-bull history of Mario, deduct 12000 and go to Jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect 200 units of your currency.

Fourth Way To The Third Gender

The court jester of yesteryear held an important position - using foolish antics, he could make fun and poke holes in the system. This position still exists in society for those willing to take it up at the risk of being made fun of. An important concept in the book (and movie) Fight Club is that "its only when we've lost everything that we're free to do anything". An important thing to lose is attachment to one's image - an important feature of Eastern ways-of-life. The jester was closer to enlightenment than the other schmucks in the feudal system.

Experiments with detachment resulted in a metal fan (me) singing a Backstreet Boys song (I Want It That Way) last year for the slowly dying music show organised by the slowly dying university music society; an even earlier example of detaching myself from my image would be the Bad Dancers' Club. This year, I targeted the unforgivably unoriginal fashion show organised by the generally unoriginal university fashion society. The aim was to create something which people would generally consider repulsive and uncomfortable for a show that is meant to produce items that are beautiful and comfortable. To create shock without outrage is a jester's modus operandi and the idea of a hijra sequence was born - the exact inception probably had something to do with a documentary I once saw, as well as an Occam's razor answer to the question 'What different thing can a guy wear for a fashion show?" Once the theme was decided, us like-minded (and big-balled) degenerates gathered together and produced a great showstopper, though that is aside from the point.

Fright Club?

My general disgust for the monotony of these societies gave birth to some memorable shows. Using myself as a channel for injecting the unexpected into these events served two purposes:

• Expressing my opinion without causing offence a la Jester, and
• Understanding the futility of preserving an image of self with respect to the environment; a highly personal and - dare I say it - spiritual development.

Again,

"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything"

Tyler Durden

Again.

Condescending Rant

For some reason, people who do not listen to the metal genre would like me to believe that the only reason they dislike this type of music is because of the death growl vocals, associated primarily with death metal and it's associated subgenres. I beg to differ, dear Fool.

From Death Metal,

"However, death growls are just as much an aesthetic to death metal as an instrument, particularly due to the percussive nature of this kind of singing; its harsh and very bad, brutal nature is in keeping with death metal's often dark and disturbing subject matter." (Sharpe-Young, 2008)

So people are trying to tell me that out of all the 'harsh' instruments, they have the musical sophistication to single one out for critique? Or are they unhappy because they can't understand the lyrics (poetic though they are in many cases), which would then have completely changed their attitude towards the genre, though all other instruments play the same thing? The voice is an instrument, Mouth-Breathers, and the fact that it is informed by the music means that it's actually following rules of rhythm, harmony, structure and texture integral to making something sound 'good'.

I'd like this band, except for that guy on the left

APPENDIX

Scene from Metal Has No Good PR

Layperson: What's so great about heavy metal?
Me: I just like the speed and power of sound created, I connect with it at some basic level... Layperson: Play a song for me, like a good song...
Me: Okay, here, check this one out, it's called 'Master's Apprentices' by a band called Opeth, they're from Sweden.
*Click*(Music starts playing) (I smile, layperson looks a little shocked like as if this speed and volume were not expected, when in fact it was. I pretend not to recognise that fact)
Layperson: (Hesitantly, smiling) It's damn loud, man! How do you listen to this? (Insert other appropriate clichés)
Me: (Smiling a little smugly) Wait for the vocals to start!
(Growling death metal vocals begin. Layperson makes a pitying smiling face at me, like as if I'm a star on the ground. Head shakes to indicate that this is the ONLY thing preventing her/him from becoming a metal fan)
Me: Okay, the next verse has the same riffs, so lemme just fast-forward to the next part.(Music is fast-forwarded to next part, chords change, but growling continues. Layperson continues pitying smile, increasingly annoying me)
Me: (Talking faster) Wait, after this part, it suddenly becomes slow. These guys are masters of this kind of transition, it happens so smoothly, it's amazing, just check it out...
(After four cycles, drumming becomes slow, no distortion on guitars)
Layperson: (Looking at me like I finally did something right) Wow, this is good. (insert other not entirely sincere clichés) The first part was - er - not my type, but this is cool, like Pink Floyd or something.
Me: Now check it out, the vocals become clean, no more growling.
(Clean vocals start, still accompanied by slow music. I look at layperson and make 'Huh? Huh?" kind of eyebrow movements)
Layperson: Wow, this is good, man. It sounds like *Generic soft rock band*. Have you heard their song *Generic soft rock song*?
Me: Nope. Check out this part.
Layperson: (After a few seconds of silence) Yeah, cool.
Me: Wait, wait, wait. Not that. There's a slow solo here, it's damn cool...
(Guitar solo)
Layperson: Hmmm...
Me: And now it gets fast again, they're damn good at this, merging the fast part with the slow one.
(Music speeds up, guitar distortion resumes, drums revert to double bass)
Layperson: Wow, okay, okay. How much longer is this song?
Me: About 3 minutes more, it's a ten and a half minute song.
Layperson: What? So long? Even 'Stairway To Heaven' is, like, some seven and a half minutes long... Led Zepp?
Me: Yeah, yeah, i know.

"History is written by the Victors"

Scene 1. Ayodhya. Royal palace. Around 500BCE.

Bharat: Arrey bhaiyya Ram! Aap dakshin me kya dekhe?

Ram: Dakshin me humne ajeeb log dekhe, bahut hairy the, poore badan pe baal hi baal! Aisa laga sab bandar hain vaha pe!

Bharat: Matlab sab bandar hai south India me?

Ram: Er... Haan! Sab bandar hai!

Bharat: Tab to unke poonchh bhi hue honge? Bandar ki tarah?

Ram: Haan, haan, kyon nahi, kyon nahi! Poonchh bhi the, ajeeb bandariya bhasha bhi thi, Hindi-vindi to pata hi nahi tha unhe, jab ki kuchh shatabdi me voh hamari rashtrabhasha banegi!

Bharat: Lekin Valmikiji keh rahe the ki Hindi keval ek official language banegi, baki 17 bhashaon ke saath! Ispe to Gujarat High Court ki ruling* bhi hogi, kuch dhai hazaar saalon me!

Ram: Oho! Bada ismart ban rahe hain aap to! Itna ismart the, to yeh kyun nahi pata tha ki saare south Indians bandar hai? Hah? Hmm?

Bharat: Ram jaane...

Ram: Exactly! Ab yuddh jeeta kaun? Hum, na? To hamari baat maaniye, iske baad dakshin ke bhaluon ke baare me bhi batana hai..."

Exeunt.

"I'll tell you all about it when I'm back"

*The Gujarat High Court, on 25 January 2010, observed "Normally, in India, majority of the people have accepted Hindi as a national language and many people speak Hindi and write in Devanagari script but there is nothing on record to suggest that any provision has been made or order issued declaring Hindi as a national language of the country."