An Experiment
[For those who enjoy pedantic details—or just hate secrets left untold—the full story is waiting in the endnotes. Follow the numbers in brackets and trace them to the end of the text.]
When I went up and visited Rai for the first time, I knew she was only inviting me so she could relish-share the story of our encounter as an odd misadventure with her middle-aged friends from the society complex. They were ready to have fun at my expense. I imagined Rai telling them about my crisp-ironed shirt, about my linen trousers and how I was willing to pay anything for the thrill of an escapade. I imagined the ladies continue the joke days afterwards, over snacks and meals with whosever they shared their apartments with. I wondered if that was so easy for them because they were never a single entity. They were assembled, made of several disjointed parts [1]. I knew they looked so beautiful because their limbs were made to order from the Limb Factory, a boutique outlet originating from South Korea that has stores across the world. Rai let me know that her face came from Untouched by Divani, a face designer from Malibu [2].
Great, I thought. What was greater was the efficiency. Call it grace if you will, but I did not feel guilt or shame that my wife would find out I was being unfaithful. In fact, the source of those feelings had been conspicuous by their total absence.
Tonight, Rai took the joke further. “Let’s play a game.”
“What?”
“Text-text.”
I looked at her in suspicion. I am always suspicious of people. They are out to do harm—that’s my first reaction. My wife Ka tells me it originates from emotional neglect [3]. That is the opposite of feeling secure, and knowing someone has your back, my wife adds. I have listened to the same words again and again, from Ka and from various other people. As if that explains all the wrong that I do—and with no chance of reversal. I understand my wife’s words also point to another thing—her internal dialogue with making do with a lame, weak person as myself, perhaps her lament at marrying me. Rai had already flicked her spare phone towards me, and she had begun texting something herself.
“Hello?”
“I love you.”
“Ah, so boring. Tell me something I’ll like.” Her retort was sharp, like an arrow through the blue screen.
“Like what?”
“Oh, stupid!”
“Nah! Really! I really don’t know what you like to hear.”
“Say something like…I like the shape of your ear.”
I closely look at her ear. It is undoubtedly shapely.
“Nice!”
“Order one for yourself!”
“No way! I am fine with my pair :P”
She sends me an angry emoji.
I drop her phone on the bed. Then I turn to pull up my pants because I don’t want to face her. She faces away as well and thrusts her beautiful head back among the pillows. I am out of her apartment in the next sixty seconds.
My AppleNext phone chimes after I am seated in a taxi.
“You’ll be sarry for this.” Rai has typed this in a hurry because she has misspelt sorry. I don’t reply.
#
Next morning, I am awake because I never slept. I kept tossing and turning, but I feel fine. Alert and raring to go, I sit up on the bed, slowly let my legs dangle by the sides of the bed. There’s a strange buzz around my head. I ignore it at first because I notice a note right by the bed, saved from being blown away by the whirring ceiling fan by a hairclip of my wife’s.
V,
We are down on supplies. I needed a refill. Energy fluid from VitaX [4]. I called them and they said fresh supplies are here, and that I must hurry or they’ll be gone. This time I think I’ll get my veins filled to capacity. A full refill, and not just a replenishment. Get yourself something for lunch. Don’t spend the day in bed. You’ll lose your bones.
Love you,
Ka
Lose my bones? Spontaneously I check my ears—oh, such a relief, they are still hanging on. Doctor Arvind [5] thinks I have one of the best rated pair of ears. If I decide to sell them, they’ll fetch me upwards of a million.
Doctor Arvind was a fellow inmate once. He and I were at the Barbari Correctional Home. Murderers, us both. Though we never could explain it. Guess we had our brains altered, replaced—or whatever. But neither of us could be sure about the circumstances of the case, and had no choice but to serve time. He told me about the transplant trade. Live body parts are more sought after than those, for example, from the Limb Factory [6]. He has an investment in Limb Factory. It’s going to profit for many years to come.
Ears and eyes are fastest-selling organs, with screen times and computers. Both valuated on their quality. Not shapeliness, as Rai would have me believe.
Limbs are next. Close second, in terms of demand, especially for their designer values—are palms and feet. Faces are a different story—they can be custom made.
I run a finger along my ear lobes and can’t help a smile.
So, Rai was wrong about my ears. I don’t need a replacement. But what of my bones?
If I lose my bones, I can opt for a metamorphosis. Among the options for me are cockroach and beetle.
#
I see Rai off at Sygma. They have the best interfaces for man-animal reverses [7].
The gates are dark glass, but I am sure she can see me waving a sorrowful goodbye. I am sorry to see her go, especially her congenial, beautiful face.
I am thinking of the day she was convinced.
“Porcupine [8]. Yes, I’ll settle for that.” She had nodded her head as though she was happy with her decision. Like a lovelorn puppy. She sat up in bed. I thought: Good for her. She finally has a purpose, unlike the other society ladies.
“I am attracted to the elaborate mating rituals,” Rai said abruptly, just as I was picturing the society ladies just beyond her apartment learning to drive, or drink, or smoke, and treating it as an adventure of sorts, and never quite tiring out of their misadventures, and occasionally going to get parts replaced, until all the body parts have been replaced and they become wholly-assembled bodies, just like Rai’s. “Porcupines are really interesting. I was told they have courtship dances. Whine, moan and wail, during mating. That involves some battery I suspect, because they also scream. Should be mind-blowing.”
“Um-yes,” I reply, though I am not sure how that’d be fun.
I am embarrassed that I am still waving through my reverie, though it has been pretty long that Rai has disappeared behind the glass wall of Sygma.
So right then, standing there, I make a decision: If I lose my bones, I will choose cockroach [9]. Sturdy. Reliable.
#
Wednesday: One of those days, I stare at the blank screen, and want to scream. I have thoughts of dying on some surgeon’s table [10] as they mess with my body, take this out and put that back, intestines and bile ducts and bones, all at once, while I scream (like a porcupine?). Am I there with consent? Or did someone kidnap me to extract some part they urgently needed?
Everyone must die. Who am I?
I fold some papers and make them into planes. I slide the window pane open and throw them out, and watch my paper planes land on the roof of the buildings below. Our office is on the 37 th floor. 37 floors—um—high enough. 37 is a good number—so rare and prime [11].
Across the busy road with overflowing traffic, the organic sea turns and tosses. Turns and tosses. Like millennia before us and millennia after us. I go numb standing at the window—like hypnotized.
I return to the present when the pile of loose A4-sized paper flies off my desk and land at various corners of the room.
Ka isn’t back, and I want us to change a few things as to how we function. I watched her on my phone screen last night. She was happy with the new blood they’d injected her—a full tank, replacing all her original blood. She said she felt energetic. Beyond her, the Shanghai skyline glimmered. I suspected right away that she was having an affair. Most women do, and energetic ones actually need more than nice words.
I felt odd. Earlier, I had Rai to go to for comfort. It began just after Ka told me she was due to spend the summer with the Vaga boy—a rustic-musician-handsome man-panda hybrid, definitely an assembly product, but he wasn’t going to acknowledge that, and Ka was naïve enough to buy into his “oh-I’m-original” story.
I furiously type an email to Ka.
I need you, back. Now or never. You are my wife. Everyone’s going to die.
I think I mistyped the address. A bot is quick to send me a reply:
Everyone’s going to die.
You are going to die. But not I.
Not I.
Never I.
Find YOU!
Kill you.
Now that was odd. Really odd. I bang my head three times on the desk, and shut the computer down.
#
This time the Body Shop is asking me for a full body transplant [12], and I can pay in instalments.
Free tissue on the calves, nine bones add-on, wherever desired. No facial hair, six extra muscles on my shoulder on request at a discounted price.
I read the promotional message again and again. By way of advertisement, it has sent me a near-perfect image of myself in the nude. I am tempted.
Evening is wearing on and I must hurry back home. Ka is finally home, but that Vaga boy [13] has tagged in with her. He’s to stay with us—Ka has enlisted my support for her little adventure. She calls it an experiment [14].
My phone rings, and per usual, I let it ring for as long as I can possibly tolerate the obnoxious ringtone that is a reminder of Rai, who put that on my phone and wanted me to refrain from changing it, as a reminder of our intimacy.
I reluctantly pick the call at the very last instant.
“Hello V, Hope you are interested in the full body transplant offer.” The AI voice is cooler than I’d imagine, but that follow-up was really quick.
“No, you got the wrong person. I am not.”
“There are six options as you have seen. Please tap in your choices after the beep.”
“I said I am NOT INTERESTED.” I almost bark into the phone, I should have discounted the rage, it’s only AI at the other end.
“Beep. Type A for option A. Type B for option B…”
I disconnect the phone and flick the phone on to the visitor sofa across my desk. “Pesky. Disgusting.” I shout at the direction of the phone, even though it lies darkly harmless at the corner of the blue sofa.
#
On the drive back home, I listen to the audio book by Carry McNamara about emotional neglect that happens in childhood. When I am at the Park Street crossing, the traffic turns ominously red—it’s the longest stop on this route, 3 minutes at least. The AI voice keeps reading:
This is not as easy as it might sound. It’s important to try to understand, for example, was it one parent or both? Did your parents fail to respond to your emotions because they were struggling themselves? Because they were selfishly focused on their own needs? Or because they simply did not know that emotions matter? Was your Emotional Neglect active or passive, mean-spirited or benign? How did it affect you as a child, and how is it affecting you now? Understanding your CEN on a deep level will free you from self-blame and shame, and validate your experience.
My thoughts waver. I can sense my mind numbing (is it my overreaction? Again?). The voice keeps talking, but I am not listening, instead I am looking at the billboards—ugly, preposterous. Snake perfume. De Lamina Psychotherapy channel (what does that even mean?). Reedoin Furniture (is it wordplay?) with a display of reclaimed ash-wood cabinet against a garish colored wall.
I pay attention again because the voice says so:
Pay attention to your feelings….
This is probably the single most powerful thing you can do to cope with your CEN. It’s a way to do the opposite of what your parents taught you, start to honor your feelings, and reach across the wall to the richness, colour, and connection that lies on the other side: your emotions. Paying attention to your feelings will allow you to begin to use them as they are meant to be used.
Practice sitting with negative feelings to increase your tolerance.
Learning how to sit with strong or painful feelings is one of the main early building blocks to learning all of the emotion skills. Sitting with negative feelings will put you in control of yourself.
Keep an ongoing list of your Likes and Dislikes.
Pay attention and take special note as you go through your day. Write down everything you can find that you either do or do not like. It can be small, medium or large, but nothing is too small to make the list. Knowing these things about yourself will set you up to be able to make yourself happier.
The sign turns green.
I hurry on the clutch and accelerator even as the car behind me honks like mad. I drive through the traffic absent-mindedly without hearing the rest of what the voice has to say.
My mind occupies how I was raised. I think of how I cried myself to sleep, even though boys were not supposed to share their emotions or cry in our household. At one time, I was labelled extra sensitive because my eyes used to well up at one bad word, or one raised hand. My mother feared I would end up gay. My father went ahead and spent three years in South Africa [15] on a job assignment he could easily have refused. Mother and I were left behind, so I could appear for my Board examinations.
I passed the exams. He returned. I appeared for other professional examinations. Mother passed away suddenly. I got a job. Father preferred to live alone. I moved back and forth between cities. I think I married Ka just to prove I wasn’t gay. Yes. To me, years from that event, it does appear to be written on the wall—I married her after just a year going around because I wanted to prove a point.
No wonder, Ka regrets her decision. I am not sure though as to what made her agree to it in the first place. I never asked her about her side of the story [16].
#
I can hear Vaga boy making a series of noises in our guest bedroom. I wonder what he’s up to. I try going back to sleep because it is only the first time in a week that I could actually go to sleep without any ominous thoughts. What time is it? Probably one, one-thirty—I don’t bother to check. In any case, sleeping at ten, just after I was home and showered and fed, it is easily three hours of sleep in the least. Not bad. I was well-slept. If I wanted, I could go check on Vaga boy, and find out the source of his mysterious noises.
Again, I wished if I could turn into a cockroach—my original plan if I lose my bones through trade or barter or accident or consent. If I were a cockroach, I’d slip underneath the door and get a peek at his nuisance.
I imagine myself doing exactly that, smelling my way in that direction. Why am I a human, and not born as a cockroach? Is this question even real, or merely the discretion of some jumbled mind to ask, and then hope for replies from those dwelling on the intersections of philosophy and religion as a vocation. If I were to examine them more than I do now, it’d truthfully take more than a lifetime of thought and study and still be unanswered.
And it is entirely understandable that many people ask them. It’s legitimate. The thought that my wishful thinking is, in some sense, valid, is in itself reassuring.
I keep in my upturned, sleeping-on-my-belly position though I am wide wake. The sounds continue. Reptilian hissing, clacking of lips, a sort of tongue clicking between the sides of cheek. A variation of the sound of buzzing, quite like an injured or sick bee, as though Vaga boy has grown wings and was flapping them excitedly, but not as swiftly as a bee.
If I were a cockroach, I’d have wings. But only a few species of cockroach fly. Cockroaches can however crawl at speeds of up to 3 miles per hour. They are also able to traverse walls and ceilings due to the fact that their legs have short, spiky protrusions that stick to surfaces. I’d have an interesting life.
I think of Rai. I try to imagine her like a porcupine. She shelled millions for the interface chance; was waitlisted for three weeks. I wouldn’t be able to recognize her in her porcupine avatar, but she would, if we were to meet ever again.
#
I wake up when the digital clock says AM. Thursday. April. 6:37.
37 again. Do I stand to lose or gain because of 37?
I remember something from my class in college. I had an ID number with its last two digits as 37. I flaunted it, called it my lucky number. Secretly it was because Ka’s was 73 and 37 is a permutable prime, meaning if its digits are reversed it becomes 73, which is also a prime number. After we met, this fact is why we bonded. She thought it was very smart of me to know it and tell her about it. I declined two other offers—one from a girl named Sonia, and another from this really nosy Anubhav. Anubhav [17] was stalk-ish, and particularly hurried me through my relationship with Ka. Anyway, she was quite attractive then, and she has maintained herself well through the years.
I walk to the dining room. Ka is in the kitchen slicing tomatoes. By her side, lies a heap of sliced cucumber. So, we are having some find of salad for breakfast. Ka prefers healthy and I so admire her for her steadfastness. Only if she was as steadfast about me.
The Vaga boy is standing by the dining table—the hybrid-panda cute look on his young clean-shaved face. A crushed brown t-shirt and shorts. He’s munching on something. I notice his teeth—sharp, menacing, like they belong to a hyena or wolf [18], who knows? He throws a glance at me, then pulls a chair and plonks himself on it. He doesn’t look like he’s up for any conversation with me, with anyone.
“Good morning,” I say, hoping to ask him about last night, and tell him how it totally messed with my sleep, leading me in and out of stupid, narcissist dreams.
“Good morning, V.” he says in a blunt uninterested voice.
Ka pokes her head through the counter-window. “V leave him alone. He’s pretty stressed.”
“Stressed? What about?”
No answer from either Ka or that boy.
“And what about me?”
Again, no answer.
Ah, I see. No one really cares for me. I have and will always be the recipient of neglect—a lot of neglect.
The last thing I notice is that boy is scratching his nose and it seems identical to mine. Immediately I touch mine.
THIS NOSE IS NOT MINE!
It’s at best a good replica, but it is not mine, for sure, because it is squishy and plastic, no doubt a product of The Body Shop.
When and how did this happen?
I decide not to make a fuss about it. I am too weak for that. I retreat to the bedroom.
#
I meet the society ladies on Postface App. They wanted us to meet on Postface. An earnest request. I am suspicious of everyone but I am also foolish—I can rarely refuse things to people I don’t suspect. They have beautiful names [19] . I keep scrolling even though it is late and I should be sleeping. I hardly had any sleep over the last two nights, worrying what all I may find replaced when I wake up in the morning. Thankfully, with my vigil, nothing was lost.
Arwanatra says, “Put your ego aside. Don’t we look pretty?”
“Yeah, for sure.”
“Know what? I am just using Rai’s brain—I loaned it from her while she leads her porcupine life.”
“Wow, I didn’t know that.”
“Yes! That, I think, explains why I am kind of besotted with you.”
I blush, but don’t type in anything.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Um—okay, that was flattering.”
“Could we meet some day?”
I am in two minds and take more than a minute to answer. I look at the digital clock. 2:21. That’s pretty late.
“What happened? Gone REALLY quiet?”
I post a selfie of myself taken in my office.
“Good! You’re responding. Finally!”
“I’ll let you know about it—if I can—by any chance, take some time out—um—to meet you.”
“Good! Looking forward!”
I slam the laptop shut.
In the darkness, I think of the disjointed parts that the society ladies got assembled. Plastic-y like my nose, but well-done replicas nonetheless. Smooth and beautiful. They are worth the money.
I slide the laptop on the empty side of the bed, where Ka used to sleep once-upon-a-time.
I am not sure Ka is at home at the moment. Maybe she’s at work, maybe she’s with the Vaga boy inside the apartment somewhere, or some place outside.
#
“I hired some parts. Got a new face.”
Anubhav is in his usual cheery voice.
“Good for you,” I say, almost like a whisper. I can imagine him pressing the phone to his ear—not too shapely then, as far as I can remember.
He keeps quiet, even though it is Anubhav who has called me today. Odd. It’s been a while since we lost touch. During office hours too. Very odd.
“So, what’s up?”
“I was thinking if we can swap our jobs.”
“What?”
“I heard you are at communications. I am stuck in marketing, and I am beginning to hate it.”
“No way. I’m fine.”
“Think over it. We are dealing with Sygma next month; launching national-wide human-animal interface terminals; at every tier-2 and tier-3 city [20]. Business will of course boom, and you get a chance to examine your options—snake or cockroach—what was it that you often said you desired?”
I hear him laugh sarcastically.
“Listen,” I say with irritation, “I said I am good here.”
“Never mind. I thought I’ll let you know. Relax. Go home and think over it.”
I bang the phone down.
#
My brain is in Vaga boy’s body. I got the idea from Anubhav about swapping. Instead of jobs, it’d be minds. Got Doctor Arvind’s help enlisted. Costs way less than buying yourself body parts that have to be procured (if live) or manufactured (in places like The Body Shop).
Yesterday, tricked the Vaga boy into a game I had coded in college. There’s betting involved, and you lose things. Losers give up what the winner demands. I tweaked the game code a bit. Made myself win. Kept up the charade. Went on winning. Started small, acquiring his Bangkok-bought shoes first. Then his crocodile leather belt. Then a tiny palmtop that’s supposed to be limited edition. Finally, his brain.
Doctor Arvind was summoned immediately, while the clinic was readied by the bots. Minimal invasion, minor procedure. I drove Vaga boy there in 3 minutes. It was over before Vaga boy had a grip on what he was getting into.
Today, it feels nice to wake up and feel myself in Vaga boy’s body. Just one problem: Last night, after the process, Vaga boy and I had got ourselves drinks and an Afghani dinner platter at Dilshad Pathan’s. Vaga boy’s body couldn’t stand the spices—I have needed to go the washroom twice during the night.
The morning is pleasant. I walk through the passage and check the clock on the hall-room wall. 7:37. I remember a poem I had published some time ago. It had the exact same time as the title of the poem [21] . I had published it under a pen name. I never told anyone, not even Ka. She would have admired it and praised my talent, but I thought she was too busy to be bothered with my small accomplishments.
I go to the bathroom precisely with the intention to see this new body in the full mirror. I shower and stand before the full-length mirror. I like what I see—Homme au Bain [22] .
I take time to dress. Then I walk past the guest bedroom. I see my body with Vaga boy’s mind inside. That body has its back to the door and doesn’t notice me walking past. He seems to be emailing someone, hunched at the desk. It must be Ka to whom he’s complaining—okay, that’s Vaga boy’s mind, the weakling mind, in my body, the weakling body, that’s complaining to Ka about something he knows he has lost.
Now is the time.
I can challenge him to a real men’s fight, now that I am stronger both in mind and body.
I wait for him to finish typing. I don’t care what Ka thinks when she reads that email.
I do a light warmup while I wait. It’s going to be a long night.
#
“Where’s my husband, Vaga?” Ka cries hysterically. Her trolley and handbag discarded by the entryway of the apartment; the door left ajar.
I do not answer. I know this will pass.
“Where’s my husband, Vaga? I am asking you!”
Someone coughs passing by the stairway.
Ka runs to the door and slams it shut, then runs back to me.
“Vaga, you must answer me!” She bangs her palms against my chest; rolls her shapely fingers into a ball and hits it repeatedly on my upper arms.
Vaga boy’s body is quite strong. It easily withstands the punches.
I hold her hands and drag her to the sofa. She’s now weeping, snorting, weeping. The TV is playing a fusion music.
I hold her face steady with my palms, and lock my eyes with hers. Ka is still protesting but not as vigorously as earlier. I let go of her face and pick up the TV remote. I flick channels—a documentary on cute pandas is where I stop. The cameras follow a panda in the wild, mighty but cute. A voice tells why and how pandas are so loveable. Ka appears to remember something and stops to stare at the TV.
I keep a hand softly on her shoulder. Now Ka abandons her drama and hugs Vaga boy’s body with a passion unknown to my brain. I embrace her passion with double the energy.
I enjoy the success.
Later, I have a wonderful sleep in my bedroom, dreaming about a cockroach who’s found a near-perfect life under a porcupine’s clumsy habitat.
I wake up wondering why I still feel like a loser.
Notes
The perception of disjointedness is illusory. Perceptual experiences are often divided into veridical perceptions, illusions, and hallucinations. For example, when one has a visual experience as of a black helicopter in the sky, it may be that one is really seeing an object and its black colour (veridical perception), that one is seeing a bird of black colour (illusion), or that one is not seeing an object at all, but something like a Devi goddess appearing mid-air (hallucination). One should understand how things sensorily appear to a subject to be equivalent to a disjunctive event that either one is veridically perceiving such and such or one is suffering an illusion (or hallucination). Disjunctivists are often naïve realists believing that when and how one perceives the world are constituents of one’s experience. Therefore, I am not sure how much or wherefore Rai is “disjointed.” Even so, the idea of disjointed parts isn’t really revolutionary. In fact, it is typically pedestrian and realist. We have had prosthetics and plastic surgery before. We have had transplants—liver, heart, kidney—for decades. An acknowledgement of the enormous amount of innovation and discovery by humans before us, is considered pertinent.
Karl Marx could hint that the experience of beauty distinguishes human beings from all other animals. Beauty has traditionally been counted among the ultimate values, with goodness, truth, and justice. It was a primary theme among ancient Greek, Hellenistic, and medieval philosophers. But beauty is a matter of taste and the judgment of taste is a reflection on cognition, and is consequently not logical but aesthetical. There is no common determining ground other than being subjective. Every reference of representations, even that of sensations, may be objective, save only the reference to the cumulative feeling of pleasure and pain, which is spectacularly subjective, and singularly personal taste.
Having said that, I concede that face designing is relatively new. Andrea Fisher, the trailblazing fashion model, started the trend. But face recognition technology was there to build upon, so that’ crazy how things are taken to the next level. To be honest, my income wouldn’t afford a face design for myself, but Rai can, and she hired the best. In fact, Untouched by Devani was the same one Andrea Fisher went to.If I had to kill my father, I would. I hated him so much. Emotional neglect is that bad. It turns you into a sheep in wolf’s clothing or a wolf in sheep’s clothing. As for my father, I do have a murder charge on me, but I am not sure who suffered.
VitaX argues about the ethics of energy fluid, as though it is running a charity. Huh! They say energy fluids are for the sick and injured, but we know how the product gets sold—literally everywhere. We all know how businesses run, and VitaX is no exception. In fact, my wife Ka was once asked to model for them for an advertisement that’d run over the New Year’s weekend. Ka refused. She had plans with her girlfriends for that same weekend. I spent the weekend on the sofa, glued to TV dramas. One such TV drama played havoc in my mind. The boy killed his father but it was revealed later that was merely an illusion: the dead wasn’t his father, it was his emotional side, in any case the already- diseased-almost-dead-from-neglect emotional side. My mind eased up a bit when I remembered how human brain reflexively processes information and has a function with traumatic perception. That boy could be me. No! That boy is me.
Dr Arvind’s fate was sealed soon after an incident that happened a year after passing out of college. A murder charge that he barely remembered committing, and contested continuously in court. The details are vague, and he had no hope, until a miracle ensured that he could resume his medical practice. Today he runs a successful clinic at Faranna Gaon, totally automatic with bot nurses running most of it. We never discussed the murder I was accused of. I didn’t confess to it. I did not plead guilty. Dr Arvind was on my side—It was merely a chain reaction, Arvind said, to a sequence of events. It wasn’t even rage, and certainly not murder. His words had effectively erased the memory and his prescription drugs ensured I had a new brain—well, at least effectively a new drug. But I guess that TV show somehow reopened that sealed memory tissues. Unfortunately.
Just as myself, Limb Factory’s story is tainted by the scam of, what was called, the Bionic Flesh Experiment. It used flesh from cadavers to construct limbs. Consumers did not much like the idea of cadavers and all that, but CEO Ratul Parekh rubbished the claims as speculation and talked about skin grafting and even plant grafting on several influencer channels on TV. Result? A favourable opinion about the company was pushed around enough for the controversy to be erased from public memory.
People now laugh when their grandparents tell them the story of Taco, a Japanese man, who had a costume of a border collie made, and announced to the world that he had “transformed into a dog.” That’s laughable. A costume? To turn into an animal? Sygma can actually transmute every cell in your body into the animal of your choice. Except the process is longer than many are willing to undertake and prohibitively expensive. The rich do have weird fantasies! Okay, even some of the ordinary folk like me—we can dream, can’t we?
According to classified documents, our Prime Minister is a border collie who used Sygma to turn man when his handler wanted to prove to the world that the smartest dog breed could lead a nation. It’s only in the realm of speculation, and as expected, nothing’s proven. Yet. Bit odd though that the handler died when he used the same interface to turn into a porcupine. The burrow he made for himself suffocated him. Talking of Karma!
Will I become a cockroach at some point?
The other day, the surgeons formed an association to stop people from getting duped by—surgeons! Yes, that’s right. What are the chances? I mean, you get under the knife hoping to get parts replaced, and look prettier, or feel stronger, but then there are risks involved of course, and people have died, and then, it is a capitalist’s world. The more money you have, the more possibilities. And the poor get a raw deal. What are the chances I would be talked into something I wouldn’t do in the right mind?
Rumination about the number 37 has led me to its cultural and historical significance in many different contexts. For example, in Judaism, the number 37 is associated with the Hebrew word “chai,” which means “life.” In Chinese culture, the number 37 is considered unlucky, as it sounds similar to the word for “death.” In popular culture, 37 has been featured in numerous films, books, and television shows, often as a mysterious or significant number. There’s also the “37% rule” or the “secretary problem.” The secretary problem is a mathematical puzzle where you have to hire the best candidate for a position by interviewing them one by one. The catch is that you can’t go back to a previous candidate once you’ve rejected them. The optimal strategy for this problem is to reject the first 37% of candidates and then select the next candidate who is better than all the previous ones. And, according to a study by OkCupid, the optimal time to message someone is after you’ve viewed 37% of their profile!
Actually, a full body transplant is the aim for many around here. Perish before you’re dead—just the kind of idea people have. And, myself? Yes, I do fancy that thing. Except I have a better idea. Secret. Solo mission.
What happens to Vaga boy stays with the Vaga boy. Not my lines, but something that Ka told me once. Was she smitten? What is the meaning of Vaga anyway? I found out last week. “Vaga” in Portuguese translates to “vacancy” in English, which means an unoccupied position. Quite appropriate, I’d say.
The word experiment reminds me of the Latin word experiri, which means to “try.” Latin word experiri comes from Latin de, Latin peritus, Latin perior, and later Latin perior (Death. Disappearance.). The word “experiment”, therefore, hounds me to a perilous situation and my brain ticks like a confounded man about to be hanged. Reason why I must put an end to it, even if it is at the cost of self.
Mother never knew about South Africa and about the gay culture there. Was father bi?
Her side of the story could likely be nothing to do with me. I imagine her childhood in London, among ambitious people. I understand the nature of her half-truth youth, where getting to know your body and your politics and your beliefs was a crazy adventure. I am sure she has good reasons to hook up with me and then gleefully ignore me.
Anubhav got himself muscles from a horse when he was 21. Thoroughbred. Superficial digital flexor: Runs down the back of the leg, behind the carpus and cannon, branches below the fetlock and inserts into the distal side of the 1st phalanx and proximal side of the 2nd phalanx. I once saw Anubhav flex the elbow, carpus and lower joints. His ligaments inserted into this tendon from the caudal side. Quite attractive, and he made sure to flaunt them on campus.
I don’t know why but I have the highest aversion to species in the categories of hyena/wolf. To put it on record, I love animals. But hyena teeth? They always bring out my worst reaction, I mean how terrifying to have 32-34 teeth that include conical premolars, specialized for breaking and crushing bones?
I often agonise over my name and find pride and reflection in ruminating over others’ beautiful names. Research shows that because a name is used to identify an individual and communicate with the individual on a daily basis, it serves as the very basis of one’s self-conception, especially in relation to others, and has a whole psychology behind what names are found pleasant and what are not. There’s phonetics and genetics, class and culture involved, they say. I absolutely think that’s a correct analysis.
I wonder who or why were some cities categorized in that manner? Unlike people’s names, I think it is an incorrect analysis. I believe that this basket-wise classification is discriminatory, unscientific and unjust.
7:37 is the title of the poem as reproduced below. Apologies if it is not as good as I initially thought it was.
You don’t hear there’s a cup brimming in the sky at 7:37, just as the whistle from the Down Barlow Local that I didn’t, the clanking of metal upon metal, metal upon body, and songs of cicadas in the wild.
Light? you ask. I prefer blackness, scour the dark between smoothened lustre and cutting diamonds. I view the raspy flow, out in rosy dales and ochre dunes in equal measures. You don’t hear the cup dimming in the sky at 7:37.
Unlikely Providence — here after ceremonies, bathed in sandalwood, damp between earth layers, and there, viewing you, alone, shooing scavenging vultures. Choosing the retinue of images, shadows, curled memories, I trail you, shield you. There’s a cup dreaming in the sky at 7:37.
For there’s our treasured-bundle wedged within you, token of our gaiety, our strengths. You are learning to hail him, love him, feel him in the tides following the terrible swiftness with which I left. There’s a cup beaming in the sky at 7:37.
O him and me! Three? How I sink and melt charmed by these fleeting images, in delicious affection, yielding. Let me Be. Behind you, with you, in the bounty of summer and frosty winter. There’s a cup mooning in the sky at 7:37.
Homme au Bain (English title: Man at His Bath), features a man drying himself right after getting out of a large metal bathtub in the corner of a plain room, by French Impressionist Gustave Caillebotte (1884). I remember this particular painting because it is the expression of a real healthy man’s body and not that of an idealized representation of the male body. I hate the idea of platforming and iconizing.