Divinorum

Music in my head: Kaneda- Forgive me first father (our blood shall free the earth)

Today's weather: Cold and Sunny.

It’s been entirely too long. My days are melting into each other, the cycle repeats, and repeats, and repeats. And then all of a sudden, just for ten little minutes, it stops.

I was sucked into an alternate reality by an unstoppable force, and that force was me. I watched myself walk through a tropical jungle in my living room. Sunlight trickled down to the forest bed through the branches of colossal white sheet metal trees. Three giant faces spanned my sky, illuminated by the soft light, the faces of the gods. I cowered in worship. I spoke to them in a strange tongue, and I understood everything I said. They did not, and they laughed. Man’s glossolalia, God’s gibberish.

I walked into a temple through the sheet metal trees. As I strolled in, an ancient device whirred to life. It broke the absolute silence that preceded, and commanded my complete attention. It was a conveyer belt made of stone, and it went round and round and round. As if guided by voices, I climbed on it, sat down, and waited in eager anticipation.

Sitting on the living room floor, I saw myself move forward on the conveyer belt. I sat frozen to the floor when I saw my body being cleaved in two. I felt my insides being split apart, but when I looked at myself, I was whole. But I knew I was not. I was on the conveyer belt, split longitudinally, joined at the top of my head. Sunlight entered me, and energized by the millions of photons that hit my insides, I started spinning. I was like the hands of a clock in fast forward, conjoined at my head. I went round and round for seconds, minutes, hours. The belt inched forward, and I was on it, spinning like a CD.

I did not know how much time had passed. Gradually, I stopped spinning. I had reached the end of the conveyer belt. And in the most intense moment of my life, my body was rejoined. I walked out of the temple. The forest was fading away. I walked into the living room and sat down next to myself. I looked at me, and acknowledged my presence for a fleeting second. And then I was gone, only I remained.

The gods had descended from the heavens, they were merely human now. A faint afterglow lit up the place. The only remnants of my sojourn in the jungle were cold sweat that had completely drenched me, and a feeling of euphoria, mixed with slight bewilderment, mellowed down by drowsiness. The dream had passed, but reality was still a haze.

My sweat evaporated as I lay under the draft from an over-enthusiastic Air Conditioner, and soon, I was cold. I wrapped myself up in a blanket and curled up again.

Now, the cycle repeats, and repeats, and repeats.

Inception Inspection : Nolan's dirty secret

Music in my head: Balmorhea - Settler
Today's weather: Barsaat.

This post is to set the record straight with the entire world (its not another 1 Night in Paris, as the title may suggest to some of you pervs). It is to claim the recognition that we truly deserve. You talk about the awesomeness of Inception, and I agree with that. But when you heap praises on Chris Nolan for the concept, you automatically incur the collective wrath of the makers of revolutionary (short) movie 'Voyage35'.

The brains behind the film, a couple of my friends and me, had a series of discussions- ranging from spiritual to gastronomic - on all matters related to dreams, especially exploring lucid dreaming and astral projection. And we actually downloaded this pdf, which gives you pointers on how to induce lucid dreaming. We worked on those pointers for a while, and one fateful day, locked ourselves in a room, ate a modified Haldiram's Bhel Puri (our sedative. Eat your hat, Yusuf), and fell asleep to Riceboy Sleeps by Jonsi and Alex, the most sleep-inducing album we could find. And then, we shared a dream, the likes of which would've turned Martin Luther King pink. Our kick was the 2 pm power-cut. No elaborate 'kick'ing mechanism involved (that's the difference between the movies and real life, isn't it?).

Although we don't remember what the dream was (except that it involved induction motors, Tricia Helfer and Bovonto), what's important here, is that we shared a dream before even before Cobb was in his frigging limbo, claiming to have built the city (who's he trying to fool, by the way? You're stuck in a dream for eternity with your wife, who is called 'Mal' for God's sake, and you expect us to believe that you're building a city with her). I could point out a hundred other loopholes in the plot, but who has the time?

I realise, at this point, most of you will have, in your heart of hearts, developed such a feeling of ill-will towards Nolan, that if Facebook pages had 'dislike' buttons, you would've clicked the hell out of it through your own account and ten other proxy accounts. But we are classy people. We urge you to desist. Come on, give the man credit for directing the movie. He's carried the idea satisfactorily enough. We admit that although we came up with the concept, if you watch our movie and then watch Inception, you'll notice that Inception has better camera angles at certain times, and better sets. That's the big bucks doing their work.

Now, a plea to Mr. Nolan. We won't go all Chetan Bhagat on you and demand that you give us all your money and put our names on the credits. We want only some of your money, a million each for the three of us would be nice. A small mention somewhere in the credits wouldn't hurt either, but you could replace the honourable mention with half a mil. No one reads the credits anyway. We know that you, like us, are a classy guy, and will do the right thing. Just comment on this post and we'll tell you how to send us the money. You should know that the money would go into paying for my Masters' Degree, and buying books. After all, education is the most important thing in the world (next to 'building cities', that is).


P.S: Inception was brilliant beyond words. I'm watching it again today.
P.P.S: The next post will deal with how the Wachowski brothers stole our idea for the original Matrix movie, and then wrote the sequels themselves.


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Voyage 35

Music in my head: Bear McCreary- A Good Lighter
Today's weather: Meltdown.



When your eyes close and your mind dreams, you are taken to wonderland and your every desire is played out. But sometimes, reality can become more than just an illusion. It can fool you into trusting it, and when it calls, you just might not be ready for it.
Voyage35 is the story of a dreamer, who can do amazing things in his fantastic visions. Call it what you will- Lucid dreaming, Astral Projection, these dreams become his solace from mundane, sometimes unpleasant reality, so much that he starts believing in them. The dreams turn into his reality and reality becomes a fickle illusion, until he is pulled back down to earth by a harsh reality check.
The movie revolves around the protagonist Laxman Sivaramadasan, your archetypal nerd, who in his dreams turns into LSD, a comic superhero. His purpose is to bring down his arch nemesis Baldix, who is a persistent bully in reality. Does he succeed? Watch the movie to find out.


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