Chapter 4: Censorship

“Why did you even risk it?” she asked, “You should’ve let it be sir, our ratings wouldn’t be much worse.”
I sighed in disappointment – it was a pity to witness the de-evolution of a supposed intelligent human being like her.
“I told you, Atty,” I told her again, “This is what people want to see. We’ve been having far better ratings since teenage boys and fat, lonely men, have started sitting in dark rooms at midnight gasping and watching BTV.”
She grimaced and looked away. “You have a wife, Mr. Shanker. And a daughter. At least pretend to be a little less sleazy.”
“Sleazy? Since when did a little gentleman’s entertainment become sleazy. It’s classy, that’s what it is. Watch – One day I’m going to be known as Varanasi’s Hugh Hefner.”
“It’s sleazy because the censor board says it is, ok.”
See, this was the problem with Atty: she was disgustingly moral. She was someone who had struggled so much during her young life that she never had time to decide right or wrong for herself. She had much bigger worries, so she had simply let the government, her parents, and the censor board set her principles for her.
Ah – the censor board – those corrupt motherfuckers.
I let my feelings be heard. “Corrupt motherfuckers,” my voice echoed in the suddenly silent office.
A few of the others in the office had stopped not working and had started to make their most useful contribution of the day, one which constituted of staring at me in amazement. I was starting to hope that they’d be used to me by now.
“Please don’t curse, sir,” Atty said with despicable professionalism.
I hated professionalism. It was too perfect. And boring. And claustrophobic.
“What’s next?” I asked, “Sahni will start banning women on TV with bikinis on. And then, soon enough, there will be no more touching on screen between the sexes. Actually, no touching at all, since Sahni will avoid any possibility of homosexuality, too. We all know what happens after that, don’t we?”
I looked at them, genuinely expecting an answer. Most of them stared at the floor blankly, while the kiss-asses actually tried to think of something to impress me. I continued.
“Woman won’t be allowed to show any skin at all. They’ll have to wear full sleeve shirts and full trousers, and gloves and socks and shoes, and those monkey masks you get in the hills. We’ll be able to see their eyes for the time being.”
“And then, someone else will get the wise idea to ban women from TV all together. Turning all the men in the world gay. And I’d have to start showing lady’s entertainment to keep making better revenues.”
I rounded off my speech, leaning on Atty’s desk in style and looking around the room, waiting for applause. None came.
Atty finally spoke, tutting and fuming in irritation. “So you still believe that they are corrupt em-effers?”
“You heard me,” I said, and then turned to the rest of my audience, “You all heard me. Corrupt mo-daa-fu-kaaz. All of them. I told you about that that Sahni, didn’t I?” I reminded them, pointing at an invisible Sahni at the office. “He was in the hospital that day. It was just chance that I walked into that room.”
It was a story that I had recounted several times, but never in Sahni’s presence. Sahni, if you’re wondering, happened to be the government’s television censor board representative in Varanasi. And he also happened to wake up every morning on the wrong side of the bed, because he had been intent in making my life hell ever since I started my movie channel.
Ok, backtrack: No, I’m not a porn kingpin. I show movies – Bollywood, Hollywood, Lollywood, etc. Now of course, some of these movies have an adult scene here and there. No problem for anyone, right? Well, anyone, except for pissed-off mummies like my wife, and of course, Sahni.
And ever since I had started BTV, he had been after me. It was like he’d found the ultimate wrong side of the bed with my channel. It wasn’t that mine was the only channel showing these movies, the others just showed their censored versions on TV. That meant no swearing, no ultra-violence, no drugs, and lord no, no sex.
I ignored the ban, mostly because for the first few months after the channel’s launch I was in a state of constant sleepless caffeine high. And then, I found a good reason to back my lack of attention – artistic freedom. A movie is a work of art, and if the director wished that snorting coke or graphically slitting a woman’s throat is what shapes the piece of art, then I wasn’t about to go and censor it.
The footnote to this, of course, is that people like to watch things that are banned. It turns them on.
So Sahni woke up on the wrong side of the bed one night, and since he couldn’t sleep, he turned on BTV. And there, in its full glory, was a stark naked woman running away from a horny werewolf. The werewolf then proceeded to grope her, bite her, and then drink some of her blood.
Before you even dare to ask why: yes, Horror-core is popular.
Of course, Sahni was less than pleased, and he began a campaign to shut my entire channel down. I was going through other troubles at the time involving Rajju and his clique. But that’s another, only slightly related tale.
And then, Niyati was born. Sahni, by coincidence, was at the same hospital that day.
“And that’s when I saw him take the money,” I recalled to the patient ears of my employees for the umpteenth time, “Corrupt motherfucker.”
“Everyone in the country is corrupt,” came the wise voice of a guard from the corner.
I responded to his enlightened theory with thunderous applause, “Bravo, bravo, what’s your name? Jai?” he nodded, “Somebody get Jai a Bharat Ratna. He’s figured it out.”
Jai shifted the weight of his body uneasily from his left leg to his right.
“‘Everyone in the country is corrupt,’” I quoted him, “That does not mean that I’m going to stand for it.” I knew that I had taken the fashionable side of the argument. There was no way that anyone was going to openly oppose me.
“He’s going to shut down our channel, Sir,” Atty, unfortunately, started to talk sense again, “Try to negotiate something with him, we may still have time.”
“Never!” I announced. The office grew eerily quiet, all except for the light music sweeping in from the television in the other room. The drama was unbearable.
For the sake of further dramatic effect, I immediately turned around and left the office, even though I knew I had more work to do. On my way home I remembered that I was driving home. Shit.
“Here he comes,” Anita’s cheerful, torturous voice greeted me, “My husband,” she said, turning to her fat sister, “A man without a cell of decency in his body.”
“Bubble, please leave,” I said to my sister-in-law, “I have to talk to my wife.”
“She can stay where she is,” Anita appointed herself as Bubble’s representative spokesperson again.
“No, she can’t. I’m sure you have food at home. Go empty your own kitchen, Bubble.”
Bubble looked hurt – her fat cheeks turned a cute shade of red as she frowned like a baby.
“Don’t you dare talk to my sister like that!” Anita continued, “Bubble, you stay right there – I’ll make you something to eat.”
I laughed when I saw Bubble’s face brighten up again. Fat Bitch.
When I finally got a moment alone with Anita that night, I didn’t feel like talking to her anymore.
“What are we going to do, Azad?” her voice crumbled without the heavy support and backbone of her sister, “The censors aren’t going to shut down the channel, are they?”
“They probably are.” I shifted away from her in the bed.
“So what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“So think of something.”
“Goodnight.”
I dreamt of the mafia and that dead dog.

My phone rang early the following morning, and it was Sahni. He shot further warnings of shutting me down, which I was too sleepy to aggressively respond to.
I drudged awake and dragged myself into the dining room. Niyati came running in to hug my knees, pleasantly unaware that her father was about to lose his edge. For me, this was going to be another decisive and stressful day which I would have rather slept through. For her, it was simply Friday. I worried about my sanity and my funds, those out to murder me and extort me, and those getting away with murder and extortion under our very noses. She worried about her English homework and the size of the sandwiches in her lunchbox.
I worried about her. She is a smart girl, and she doesn’t deserve a rumoured sleaze for a father. Especially if this sleaze was soon to be unemployed.
The ‘joy’ of fatherhood has long been over-exaggerated. It hadn’t been easy trying to provide adequate time, inspiration, and finances for my daughter, but I had consoled myself with the feeling that I had at least fathered Niyati better than my father did me.
Anita welcomed me to the new day by returning to her characteristic unpleasantness.
“Can you ask Ramu to make me a cup of tea?” I requested her.
“Go ask him yourself, you sleaze,” she said, “Why do I have to do the talking for you?”
Ramu made me a cup of tea. He would definitely have to be fired. There’s no way that we’ll be able to afford a cook without BTV. We would probably have to disconnect the internet. And for good riddance, I’ll disconnect the television, too. Do I really have any other skills? Where’s my degree? What did I get it in?
I took a sip of the tea. Aaaaaah! I sighed.
And within moments it stopped. All the pressure and hesitation about waking up to another dodgy day flew away. The tea… Oh, the tea! Oh, it was good!
There is something magical about a good cup of tea. A good cup of tea gives you exactly what you need. If you’re feeling sleepy, the tea wakes you up. If you can’t sleep, the tea relaxes you. If you’re having a hangover, a cup of tea is recommended to kick away those headaches. If you’ve had a meal that may be a bit too large for your own capacity, the tea makes you feel light again.
And if a few innocent adult scenes in a movie have forced members of the community to call you an immoral porn kingpin, the tea makes you feel pure and blameless again.
This morning, Ramu’s perfect cup of tea did exactly what I needed it to. It was a catalyst for an unexpected feeling of optimism and rejuvenation.
“Papa, what are you thinking?” Niyati asked me.
“Nothing, nothing,” I smiled, “I love tea.”
So of course I spoke to Ramu the magical tea wizard before I left home. He decided to take this opportunity to continue basking in his new-found limelight by making me a suggestion. He told me that, if I continued being this anxious and worried, then I should go and sit by the river at the ghats and temples to calm down and clear my head. I had never been religious or hippie enough to spend too much time around there, but it was Ramu’s Magical Tea Day today, so I promised to think about the old cook’s advice.
Driving to work that day, I felt more determined to face Sahni and the censors than ever before. The earlier stress was now replaced with vengeance.
My phone rang – it was Atty.
“Sir, they’re here.”
“Who’s where?”
“Here!”
“Where?”
“Sir, they are here at the office!”
I exhaled slowly, prohibiting my brain from thinking of the inevitable.
“Who’s there at the office?” I asked her after a moment’s silence.
“The censors, Sir! The fucking censors.” She shouted, before slamming the phone down. Wow. I hadn’t ever heard Atty curse before – it was strangely appealing.
So Sahni and his squad of joy-killers had finally raided the office. I wrote a mental apology letter to every pervy teenager that has lost sleep watching a two-hour long movie after midnight, just to catch five minutes of a sex scene. I also addressed this letter to each frustrated man in his mid-life crisis, looking for nothing more than some explicit and unapologetic violence so he could mentally vent all of his own stress. The audience will go and so will the advertisers. It was over. BTV was finally going to come to an end.
I turned the final corner to see the censors standing outside the office, waiting for me. No, I changed my mind – I was in no mood for this today. I quickly turned the car back around.
Anita called.
“That secretary of yours called looking for you,” she said, “She sounded scared. What’s going on?”
“They’re going to shut us down. And they’re after me.”
“Oh, Jesus,” she wept. A little too quickly, I thought.
“Now listen to me Anita. I don’t want the censors to bother you if they come home looking for me. Take Niyati and go…”
“Oh, oh, Jesus,” she interrupted.
“… Take Niyati and go to Bubble’s. I’ll figure something out. Don’t worry.”
“Jesus, what are we going to do?” she asked Him.
“Jesus, just go!” I answered on her Messiah’s behalf.
I hung up the phone and switched if off. I needed an answer to this. I needed an answer to everything – to all this bullshit I’ve gone through just to survive on this planet in semi-decency. It couldn’t have all been my luck, could it? And if so, I wanted to confirm it.
I turned left and into the thin street that led towards the ghats.

Chapter 3: The Answer

Recently, I had had the realization of why I like to laugh at myself: It was the least humiliating way of coming to terms with the disaster of a life I had led. It was an unusual tactic my brain used to distract me from the stinging unhappiness, but it worked.
There had been nothing funny about today.
“People come here to die,” he told me, “You should never leave Kashi. It is God’s vessel: ever filled and ever empty.”
The pilgrim looked straight into my eyes as I pretended to make an attempt of disguising my irritation. I didn’t come here to ask this holy man for his holy words. I came to find a way out.
“In the olden days,” he continued, “People used to break their legs so they couldn’t walk away and mistakenly die outside the city limits.”
The pilgrim looked up philosophically, musing over the past. I thought to myself: Yes, a lot used to happen in the older times. People broke their own legs, the dinosaurs walked the earth, and we used to watch movies in video cassettes and a rusty VCR. But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to throw away my DVD player now, does it, Mr. Prehistoric?
No, no, Mr. Learned Human: people don’t come to Kashi to die. They come here to live a life that is as eternally stagnant as death itself.
“Seek, believe, and it will come to you,” his voice was high and transcendent, floating above and beyond normal human comprehension and continuously challenging gravity. “I have been a wayworn saint for years and yet the truth escapes me. But just like a patient old tree, I hope that in time the understanding in me will grow to its full majesty.”
“Ahem,” I ahem-ed, “Excuse me, but I’d rather sit in silence with my own thoughts.”
He smiled smugly – a smugness that made me grit my teeth. I bowed my head down as he got up to leave. Funny man, I thought. He strangely reminded me of Dr. Scholar, and our conversations outside Vipin’s Tea Corner all those years ago. And I could never forget what Dr. Scholar had to tell me.
It is funny how, with every passing year, the lessons you learn become less memorable. I was a confused kid back then who was hanging on steadfastly to every piece of advice or intelligent sounding ‘how to live your life’ step. But as I’ve gotten older, I have no time or patience for wisdom. Either that, or people are just not as wise anymore.
“Stay calm, my friend,” the pilgrim buzzed me away from my thoughts, “I shall leave you in peace,” he said, “And hopefully, like the waking eyes adjust to comprehend the beauty of every morning, your mind will adjust and awaken to the beauty of this life.”
Well, the story of how I, a controversially successful businessman, had ended up quixotically searching for an answer at the ghats and temples by the Ganga river and was now trying to avoid an overzealous holy man, is a long and strange one. I’m usually considered to being too much of a sinner to have hopes for a spiritual experience that this place is advertised to offer. And my wife is too Christian to see me hovering around Hindu temples. But Christ is good at the forgiving business; I’m hoping that his style has rubbed off a little on her.
It was Ramu’s recommendation anyways – the first time I had ever listened to his advice outside the kitchen. If I wasn’t to completely lose myself in the mysteriousness of this place, then I would be totally regretting wasting this day away. But hell, I might as well try, right? This is surely a better outlet for my depression than alcohol. I mean, it must be. People wouldn’t rave about it otherwise. Tourists come from far and wide just to sit here and stare. And I’m smarter than all of those junkies – maybe my sitting and staring will actually be of some benefit.
Now that the pesky pilgrim had left, I sat alone on the rooftop of a temple at Tulsi ghat, dozens of dangerous steps up from the river. The orange, evening sun was slowly shying away, barely peeking out from the horizon. Its reflection on the river was beautiful, creating a mosaic of orange, red, blue, and a couple other weird colours like teal or magenta that people pretended to be extremely familiar with, just to sound different. I felt calmer than I had in years. Ever since Niyati was born. Or even further back, since that drunken day at church nearly 10 years ago. Now that I think about it, I hadn’t felt relaxed since college, when all my stress to find myself successfully drove me schizo.
I had allocated too much of my happiness to the women in my life, and was never comfortable unless I concerned myself with the love, like, or lust I felt towards any one of them at any given time. They were all the same. I’ve been in love with the same girl for half my life, but have just been putting different masks on her. Whether it be Anita, Atty, or even Monica – in each one of them, I looked for the characteristics that I wanted in Kalpana.
I didn’t really enjoy the company of my friends or other acquaintances, but hated the fact that I needed other people to confirm my own character. I hated my job and I despised my love for the money I made through it.
And the rest of the family? Let’s not even go there. I’d rather die and go to hell than go to heaven and meet Papa again.
Shit – have I ever been calm?
But I was calm today. Today was different. I had this sudden feeling – not the kind of feeling that optimists have about the stock market or their pessimistic wives have about impending failure. Not the kind of feeling that had any preconception, plan, or expectation. I felt right; I felt that, for once, I was at exactly the right place at the right time. As if every single event in my life had sequentially happened leading to this very moment right now.
It was strangely quiet, even though I could clearly hear music from the bhajans at a nearby ghat and the boatmen driving visitors crazy near the river. It was as if I could pick and choose what I wanted to hear, and mute it whenever I wished.
I began to think back, rewinding through the chapters of my life and all conflicts that were presented. And I thought of Dr. Scholar’s advice again. Watching the sun set, my brain slowed down and I slowly began to forget. I forgot to keep any track of time. I forgot about work and the TV channel. I forgot about the censors who had driven me here. After a deep breath, I forgot where ‘here’ was.
For a brief moment of infinity, feeling the orange glow of the setting sun and inhaling the riverside air, I forgot Azad Shanker. I heard my own voice from the mouth of someone else whisper softly in my ear. It was what Azad is and then It made sense.
I rose out of Azad and flew upwards. Feeling light, I felt myself going higher and higher. I saw me sitting by the edge of the rooftop, perfectly lost within the nothingness. I went higher, strangely feeling the wonderful waft of the late afternoon air and the cool holy water of the river at the same time. Soon, I was above the entire land, above the sun, which waved at me as it disappeared behind a horizon. I saw beyond the horizon and beyond the edge of the Earth. I became space and I paused time. I saw a darkness and then I was everything.
And then I was back. I looked at my palms and rubbed my eyes, as if reawakening my soul all over again.
This is what Jesus must’ve felt like that Sunday.
I checked to make sure that I was truly back. Same clothes. Same sense of unease in my fashion sense. Same feeling of constantly feeling slightly bloated. I lifted up my shirt so see my stomach – yes, the same sense of shame at my man boobs. I laughed at myself. A dog, limping at the bottom of the steps, barked at some scared tourists. I laughed at them. I’m still Azad.
But something was different. Because now I know. I know the answer. I should write this down. I should tell somebody… Anita! I got up and raced down the steps. I stumbled and slipped, but grabbed on to the railing to prevent the fall. Screw you failed pilgrims – I know the answer!
And to think, I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for the censors waiting at the office today. I wondered if everything, actually, does have a reason. So does Anita’s or this pilgrim’s God actually work in these mysterious ways?
Nah, I thought – Calling God ‘mysterious’ is just oversexyfying him. I’m sticking with ‘confused’.
I laughed again. It’d be funny if the God that I’m so confused about is just as confused about me. But then again, if I am confused about Him, then to me He may not exist at all, and the non-existent has little chance to be confused. The irony of it all could confuse Confucious.
I’m going to head to Bubble’s. The fucking censors are at the office. I have to tell my wife. I have to tell my daughter, too. She’ll understand.

Chapter 2: The Van

My eyes were on the road. My mind was beyond it.
The answer!!! The answer!!! Oh yes!!! Oh, I’m going to tell Anita! That will teach the bitch. I know the answer! Oh, I need to tell someone!
I clutched my left hand into a fist and powered it up determinedly. My left hand, mind you. I spit in the face of all you right-handed bastards who have made me feel inferior over the years.
I sped up my little silver Maruti. The traffic on these roads wasn’t really capable of handling the exhilarating speed of 32 km/h, but I was feeling a little adventurous. My palm pressed down on the horn, and I pressed it down parallel to the movement of my right foot on the accelerator. Nothing was going to stop me today. Go! Go! Go!
I should write it down. I should write it and sign and date it. I took my left hand off the gears and let it blindly wander around the backseat in search for a piece of paper amongst the rubble. My eyes were still on the road. My mind was way beyond it.
I turned to be faced by a wide road, which had had its wideness thoroughly exploited by a group of angry protestors.
“Rahul Vij, Murdabad!” said their voices and their posters, “Rahul Vij, Murdabad!” I tutted and slowed down as the mob drew nearer.
I didn’t know this Rahul Vij. And neither did I know of what sin that he had committed to invite the wrath of this mob. What I did know, that his sin had caused dozens of jobless adults to march on the street to spite him; and now they were slowing me down. My thoughts had already sped away.
One of the more creative angry protestors was carrying an effigy of what I can only guess was Mr. Vij. I knew that they would be planning to burn it down. Nice – I puffed my mouth and then blew the air out – Lets all scandalize him by forming a faction to burn an effigy. Jobless retards.
I slowed down even further. One of the retards came and knocked on my window. I sighed and lowered it.
“Rahul Vij, Murdabad,” he said, and handed me a colourful pamphlet, decorated by a face vaguely matching the effigy up front. Next to the face were some slandering words in large angry fonts.
I cordially ripped apart the pamphlet into four pieces and handed it back to him. “No, thank you very much.”
I pulled my window back up, but not before he had bellowed in another warning ‘murdabad’ in my sensitive ears. My feet pressed down hard on the accelerator. My hand pressed down hard on the horn. The herd blocking the road quickly parted and I victoriously drove through.
But then, like a group of stray dogs, the mob began to run after my car. In my confusion I only sped up even further. I’m not Rahul Vij, am I?
Screw them. I know The Answer. So I went back to my initial plan of finding a piece of paper to write it down on. My hand shuffled in the back seat. Stray, retarded, pissed-off protestors followed me. I went faster. And all this while, I wasn’t really there.
Several more of the protestors had stopped a bus ahead, conveniently in the middle of the road to provide the maximum amount of discomfort and irritation to any other commuters. I didn’t stop; instead I found a gap small enough on the bus’s right to speed past.
What I had unfortunately, momentarily forgotten, is that buses are big. And that Big Things can hide other things. It was probably because of the current occupation of The Answer in my neural system. I don’t know – it could even be all the promised long-term memory loss from all the drugs. But I hadn’t touched that stuff since college either.
College! When all that mattered was lighting a joint with the twins and listening to Thin Ali’s old tape of 'The Chronic'! I reminisced for a costly few seconds. It was truly going to be a painful coincidence that the after-effects of all the seemingly flippant marijuana smoke came to haunt me this very instant. Damn you, peer pressure.
I say this because behind the bus was a large white van that came charging down the road from the other side. The concept of driving lanes was still fairly alien to this city. The driver of the van must’ve been mistaken for a Rahul Vij too, because I saw a spark of familiar irritation in his eyes before his vehicle rammed into mine.
It was a little too late for me to turn. Both the Van and my Maruti were flirting with speeds foreign to these, thin, overcrowded roads. The Van was slightly faster, and its momentum pushed my Maruti into the static bus I had just overtaken.
Shit.
Glass shattered from all around, falling on me from various sources. As I plunged forwards into the windscreen, I didn’t feel too guilty about not wearing a seatbelt, though. No one wears a seatbelt here. The almighty review of stupidity and if onlys can’t blame me for that.
But it can blame me for being distracted by the answer.

Chapter 1: The Death

I was born self-centred, and that is how I was going to die. Knowing The Answer wasn’t going to change that. The universe had always revolved around me, prancing around in whichever way I commanded it. There was no one alive half as important as I am. I only spoke to other people if I needed to. I never loved; I only obsessed – because temporary obsessions gave me something to live for.
But I frowned a little when I discovered that The Answer was going to be lost with me forever. Or maybe it was for the best, because Anita might have suffered the same fate if I had made it back to tell her. Not that her suffering the same fate is entirely a bad thing. My frown turned upside down.
You have an evil, evil mind Azad, I told myself. Wishing demise on your daughter’s mother is not funny. Never mind the fact that you’re married to the woman.
So I thought of Anita, and I thought of young Niyati as well. And I thought of other things before them. Hollywood had taught me that your entire life flashes before you when you’re dying. Bollywood had taught me that no life could end without a song and dance sequence. Either way, this might end up being a long fucking death.
Although time sort of loses its value when you’re awaited by nothing but an eternity of nothingness.
At a time like this, I had imagined that I would probably collect a list of my life’s regrets and torture myself some more during my last moments. Strangely though, the regrets never came. I had punished myself severely in past, ruing the fact that I had a child too soon, that I was stubborn and didn’t listen to Atty or my friends’ or anyone else’s advice, that I shouldn’t have gotten into my line of work in the first place. In the past, I had thoroughly questioned my hurried decision to marry Anita, and I had thoroughly regretted the fact that I didn’t work hard enough in college.
But in these last moments, there were no regrets. After all, there is nothing better than dying in Varanasi, is there? If all the liberation and moksha bullshit of holy Varanasi that Mummy fed me over the years is true, then I can conveniently skip the suffering of reality and relax in eternal enlightenment from now on.
Surprisingly, I didn’t miss Kalpana either. That stage of my life was over a long time ago. I guess death is a good way to move on.
Thank you for everything, Deepu Chachu. I would’ve probably not lived long enough to die today if it wasn’t for him. I am OK. I have The Answer.
I must say though that I’m slightly disappointed that my death isn’t more gangsta rap. All of those secondary school years spent listening to Dr. Dre and his colleagues talking about elaborate stories of murder had definitely raised my hopes a little. Even the organized crime didn’t have a hand in this – I would have imagined that my recent acquaintance with Rajju Bhai and his pals would at least grant me that. This is boring. And this is too soon. How can I die without telling someone?
Someone needs to take the blame. I mean, I’m sure I wouldn’t be seeing the white light this very moment if certain events had happened differently.
The van came out of nowhere. Although, I must admit, I was a little distracted. You would have been too, if you had discovered The Answer. No fucking way you’d be able to keep your eyes on the road. So is it the fault of The Answer? But I wouldn’t have even have been at the ghats today seeking it if it wasn’t for Sahni and the rest of the censors. Those confused disabled hypocrites. Fuck them.
I could always blame the mafia. I mean, they have been around since before Niyati’s birth. Hell, I wouldn’t even be in this whole mess if that dead dog hadn’t inspired me to join the rat race. It’s his fault. Oh, if only I hadn’t burped in that church, I would’ve never met Anita, and I would’ve never seen that god forsaken dog again.
No, it’s that van drivers fault. The fucker came out of nowhere.

Intro

Determinism, is an unconventional novel. I had a hard time trying to describe what genre it may be, and the best I could come up with was 'philosophical tragicomedy'.
But it may be different things to different people.
I guarantee that it is going to be thoroughly confusing in the beginning, but give it a go, and it should start to make sense by around the third chapter!
I will be writing and updating new chapters every few days. So bookmark this page, read, and let me know how you feel...

I Am...

Hello,
My name is Karan Madhok, and I'm a writer-in-progress... I'm also a correspondent writing for a major newspaper in India.
I've written several other novels/short stories, and have been working on this piece Determinism for the past few months.
In the next few days, I'm going to start posting the chapters of this novel one by one. The next post will be an introduction to the novel. This is the first time that I'm allowing anyone to actually read and judge a work while I'm working on it, because I didn't want anyone's opinion to change the story. But now I feel that this blog is necessary because my writing was becoming way too self-absorbed.
Any questions, comments, hate, or reverence, do post.