Muhnochwa - The Monkey Man

Life has its complexities. I wanted to be a writer ever since I passed school. Since I was studying medicine, I looked up to physician-writers such as Chekhov. I had a belief that suffering makes people artists, I do not have any such delusions anymore. What makes artists, like any other profession, is imitation and repetition. If you are not given the context, you won’t be able to distinguish between the art of a truly good person and an absolute scum of the earth. Writing is redundant but I still write because I have things to share with the world, and all my writing is open access and free, you can use it without being thankful to me even if you ever feel like being thankful to me. If it causes you trouble, just remember that we live in a world where truth causes trouble. These are unprecedented times because the social and government institutions have collapsed, what you see still standing are just props. It’s funny because one would have never thought that the controllers of the world, this country and the society would finally go ahead with absolute totalitarianism, but here we are. Those who are not feeling the air getting heavy, good on you there might be reasons for it. We live in a penal colony and some regions of this country are worse than others. Though the drama of homogenous and equitable governance goes on. After years of wrestling with individualised absolute totalitarianism I have finally realised that fantasy and escapism is the only answer, and it’s a permanent answer. Just don’t choose harmful ways of escapism. I belong from Purvanchal, though I haven’t lived in the region for most of my life, but I finally realised that the region had been living with me throughout my life wherever I lived and went, not in sentimental way, as there is no scope of sentiments left in this country anymore, but in a very practical and political way. What I thought as my feelings were actually intimidation and exploitation. I guess anyone who has visited a psych ward knows that some people are born with a target painted on their heads. In this country, and I do not know about the world, you don’t get emotional and psychological traumas and mental health issues so that you can recover, it’s part of your fate and you should learn to live with it. Halfway through my college I wanted to go into the field of creativity and entertainment, I thought those who make entertainment are good people who want to entertain people to make them happy, while I still suspect that it might be the case with Hollywood, it’s not the case of India, these are scums who know that they are making propaganda, at least a lot of them. I really wanted to write comics along with my medical practice but then comics have run their course. Kids in this country, especially in the totalitarian setting that’s going on, don’t need comics. They can and will play hunger games, not sure if for their entertainment, but for entertainment of others. I don’t trust the entertainment of this country anymore and last time entertainment was authentic in this country was when TVF and AIB were making fun of celebrities. I have, for my own dignity, have mostly shifted to pre-2000 entertainment and books except for the social media because it is directly from the people. I still follow comics and I’m excited for James Gunn’s Superman. Like I said escapism is the way, only the deluded would like Scorsese in the  world we are living in today. American professional wrestling is still good, because it is entertaining and it is technically the true depiction of the world we are living in, only difference being those who organise American professional wrestling are a thousand times kinder than those who run the world. The collective soul of people of Purvanchal is beautiful, or at least it was till the 90s, the soul that governs this collective soul is rotten and corrupt to the core. The basics for this soul, that governs the collective soul of my people are sex and money which due to unchecked power and irreversible advantage in power dynamic, since the control is at a level where retaliation is impossible, has turned into rape and exploitation. Though I would argue that this is the condition of the whole world, this country only looks bad because lack of refined sensibilities and incompetence or inability in maintaining aesthetics. Kafka, Chekhov and Lovecraft are still important to me though they have served their purpose. You can train yourself for this nation by practicing looting the food packets thrown from the helicopters during a flood and stocking them for selling them in black market. I, however, would choose to starve with dignity.