Where Mamachan unwittingly points at the mirror when asked to identify a criminal in a lineup
(I am the epic — )
1. Honey, gas showers are a thirty percent off on Amazon today.
In the end the only difference between someone who writes and someone who doesn’t is that the man who doesn’t write has one less regret. (Or one more. We can’t be sure.)
Porn deaddiction is the theme today and Rajesh holds forth to his Youtube followers who number in the tens today(not many want to be de-addicted of porn) while away from the camera I am reading The rise and fall of the third reich. He put what in the shower lines?
“What an epic asshole,” I surrender but the one dozen online followers jump at the sound of epic asshole and log off, probably to readdict themselves to porn.
“You are an epic asshole,” Rajesh tears his earphones off and lunges at me, “You hear me? You are the epic — ”
2. Don’t break the space-time-continuum unless it’s important
a. A Kottayam achayan dousing his wife in kerosene in the name of dowry turns to look at me and says, “You are the epic — ”
b. In Kilvenmani, a goon hired by the landlord to throw crying children into a burning haystack takes a three second break from his work to look at me and say, “You are the epic — ”
c. In Bangalore, a brown Elon Musk is Reactjs-ing an app that will disrupt the vada pav stalls across the length of the country. He looks up from his screen and tells me, “You are the epic — ”
3. Rajesh has more important things to do than weep over the war crimes of the Nazis
Outside the storm throws a poster of the circus on the window. On the side facing me, the poster has a cartoon of a joker juggling bottles and riding the unicycle backwards. An old fashioned storm, I think, carrying around pre-internet junk to slap against windows.
“Nice try, storm. But if you want anyone to take you seriously throw an Iphone through the window next time,” I shout, “or take a Youtube lecture on porn deaddiction unironically.”
It stops Rajesh. Rajesh, who has been relentlessly punching my mug into the cement floor for an hour(without admitting the sexual nature of the act) doesn’t know how to escalate. And his anger, because it can’t escalate, dissipates.
“Am I a bad friend?” he asks his guilt beginning to rise from under the sea of his being.
“No,” I say, spitting blood and teeth, because he is no worse than the friends I am allowed to have.
4. I prefer quality over quantity in everything(except public insults in which case I would rather work with quantity)
In a few minutes, the actor with the Hitler moustache will clutch his maps and throw them at the nearest generals and complain in spectacular German about having been betrayed. But right now all the male actors are gathered, coffee cups in hand, around the actor playing Eva Braun, battling each other for her attention. Unbeknownst to anyone else, the actor with the Hitler moustache stays in-character on set and in his mind, mainly because he wants the actor playing Eva to be his wife for as long as he can afford it. Every time he sees her smile, he imagines seeing her smile one last time in the bunker in Berlin. He takes a second and without breaking out of character looks at me and says, “You are the epic — ”
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