Until the sun rises

Updated: Made it more readable. Removed redundancies, etc.

I have four/five sleepless, tired, disappointed hours ahead of me, so let's see how far I can go fictionwise. Nothing relates to reality. Nothing. Get a life, chump.

The rest is fiction, not done in itals because itals are annoying to read and I don't think you'd read fivefrikkingthousand words in itals. They're bad to the eyes or smn.

Our story is so convoluted it doesn't matter where we begin we end up with the confusing tangled mess of various lives of our protagonist. Raul Adhikary was an average Nepali man, 21 years of age, in this average day, doing what an average person does. He had had an average number of average relationships, and had opinions about himself like an average man [those opinions are rarely average, but lets not get ahead of ourselves]. Drink, smoke, study, work, etcetera. An average life.

Raul would die an average death, at an average age. The implications of his death, however, would be anything but average for Raul was... special. He thought he was special anyway, and we little reason to doubt him, as we will see. Raul actually thought everyone was special, but he was specially special in that he knew how special everyone was. The thoughts this man had were just as convoluted and confusing tangled of a mess as his life. His thoughts about specialness were anything but average. But then, not every man believed himself to be God.

It would be unfair to peg Raul as someone who thought of himself to be God. Very godlike, is how he liked thinking about it. Because, he would explain to himself, it would be arrogant to claim to be god, even to yourself, specially at the point when modern science was on the point of disproving the existence of the being to the confidence level of several sigmas. He thought it would be wrong and impolite to go out and break science.

Raul did not consider himself the average run-of-the-mill god. Thunderbolt, fire, sun, luck, were rather stupid things for a god to have for him. Besides, he knew, no conscious being could control the entire universe anyway, because... of the laws of physics. Probably. He just knew it was impossible to be god and do everything. However, he did know that humans had gods, who controlled human beings, who were timeless etcetera and that he was one of them. He had wondered many a time if other animals had gods too -- insects, now that would be crazy-- but considered it a possibility that he could possibly be their god too.

Raul, for all the belief in himself, did not have any powers. He was an average person, with average superpowers like holding the diarrhea in till one finds a clean toilet and not getting drunk even after that fourth glass of Long Island Iced Tea in a row.

What's an all-powerful deity who had no power anyway, the reader might wonder. Our hero (while still in his current form) often wondered the same. What god I am, he would ask himself, if I can't do interesting shit. He wanted to talk to that pretty girl with the green dress from the dark house, please. Preferably just after she had broken up with that bouncer of a boyfriend.

Funny thing, fate. The bouncer of a boyfriend wasn't a bouncer but rather a cuddly gentleman who at that point in his life would have been glad with Raul's actions. No, even talking to the neighbour girl in the terminal stages of her relationship was a superpower too much for Raul. He was stuck with his perfectly normal life.

The only thing Raul could do was communicate with himself. While that doesn't sound particularly impressive --everyone communicate with themselves way more often than you would ever admit anyway, and shutyourmouthholeup it doesn't feel special at all-- things do get slightly impressive when one considers that Raul had more selves than the average person. Raul considered it a possibility that every living person, present or past, was his self; he was certain that at least a tenth of everyone he had ever met was him.

What that meant was when he came across his different self, he would be them -- their histories, emotions, baggage et al-- and then he could get back to his normal self. Or rather, the current self. Or whatever. It's complicated, and that is what we will explore for the rest of this book. The various lives of R.A.

This is how it worked. As Raul walks to his office located in Anamnagar, he comes across a mother taking her dressed kindergartener to the school. He looks at her, and she nods at him,  giving him that smile and that look. Hi me, it's me, I hope I'm doing well in that form. My womanly current form isn't doing so well you know, just had a second child, not a terribly supportive husband but hey, I know everything so why the hell am I telling me. If he wanted to, he could be her, and his old body would go on 'autopilot' and he would be the woman. Sometimes he could come back to his 'original' body, sometimes he would live the rest of the life as the new person.

If he had the immense potential to be pretty much anyone he desired, why wasn't Rahul a genius after having accumulated uncountable numbers of experiences of innumerable individuals? Because, by some stroke of supergodly intervention, his abilities were limited to the confines of the body he inhabited. He could tap on to memories from other lives if he tried really hard, but his supreme existence didn't grant him any supreme abilities. Such is life. Even the gods cannot live without all the indignities of daily life. We are thus left with a man with illusions of grandeur who hears things in his heads and looks at every tenth person in a weird fashion. That's what our threehundredandthirtythreefrikkinmillion gods have been reduced to.

On this particular average day, Raul was on an average news event. Yadda yadda yadda, they release a new report, you ask questions if you're running after a feature or an interview, get fantastic refreshments, networking networking networking, say hi to the reporters from other papers and channels who you see ten times every day, a little bit of gossip here and there and sometimes someone says something they're not supposed to say so you run after it like a hound, then back to office typing lots of words, editing, editing, meals that last several hours, back to little more work, plans for the next day, and back home. The report released was on the status of the Himalayan Blue Boobied Bonnet Birdie in Nepal. Raul knew it was a strange name even for WWF. Maybe he could pursue the process of naming birds for a large sidebar or even a long feature story if it had meat in it. How the heck would a bird get a name like that... ending with a 'birdie'. Definitely a feature material. To Raul it sounded boring, but would probably get interesting as he dug in deeper.


Raul lingered at the refreshments area while his coworkers milled around and gradually left. His target was the pale blonde man with razor sharp suit and blue tie. Just as the man finished talking to a server, Raul approached him, put on his howdy-hiya-happytoseeyou-lets-talk face, and extended his hands. Then he got the chills. Of course, it happens when I least expect it.

While most of Raul's encounters with himself ended in mere glances and nods, there were times when he would strike conversations with himself. He had fallen in love with himself, and married (himself), several times, and occasionally had had sex with himself. However, we shall not get ahead of the story for we are not yet ready for the emotional and physical intricacies of literally fking yourself.


Once, he had gotten into a heated conversation with a man, only to realize halfway through that were both arguing with themselves. Both had gotten embarrassed and left after hugging each other. Raul realized that arguing with oneself was not as uncommon a happenstance as one might imagine, even in non-divine situations.

Had he ever killed himself? In a different form, no. As suicide, yes.

Had he ever birthed himself? Yes. But he gap between birth and the consciousness of his peculiar existence had been large enough for him to not over-think it.

The secret to being a diving being, Raul had realized, was to avoid over-thinking. If you start thinking and analyzing every small interaction and movement and what people say, you grew crazy quickly. So the ideal way to live a divine life was skimping on the details and focusing on the generals. What am I doing here? Should I be trying to save my life from that huge truck coming this way or should I just leave it all because goddammit I'm so tired of all the multiplicities I have? Not that suicide would have made a difference to his existence anyway. He wished the Myth of Sisyphus were only so for him, but it was living it. His existence was infinite -- with no beginning and no ending.

When Raul was feeling particularly smart, he wound think about the physical-biological nature of his existence. Maybe there was just one single 'consciousness' in the Universe, which would inhabit just one creature at a time while disregarding the rules of time. Maybe this consciousness originated as a weird result of some Big Bang or alien invention and it had been his misfortune to be conscious about the nature of his consciousness. Or maybe I'm just fking crazy. He had an average number of sad, depressing days for people his age, when he would want to really really kill himself because what's the point anyway. He would realize on those days dying was pointless also and it would just be unnecessary mess. Might as well go through this mess of life than the mess that's death.

Those were not the thoughts in Raul's mind as he shook hands with the regional director of WWF, also himself. The two versions of this deity made small talk about how great the presentation was, how important the boobies were, politics electricity omigod can we go the naming of the birds already. The naming for that particular bird was apparently not average. Had putting 'boobies' in bird names been common, the would  would have a lot of dicks vaginas, penises, assholes, flying above us happily, shitting in our crappy little heads. Birds are respectable creatures, and they are supposed to be given respectable names, like the emperor penguin or the golden feathered peasant or the bird of paradise. Gosh, what asshole would name a bird asshole.

The bird had been named by the New Zealander discoverer with a particularly sick mind, in the late fifties, the WWF Raul told the reporter Raul. If you'd been overheard saying boobies at college at that age, you'd have been rusticated with a special note to the authorities explaining why this psychotic maniac didn't deserve a place in respectable society and perhaps the authorities wouldn't mind if he were restrained under special detention for observation, but everyone would know you'd been put there to be driven to insanity. You'd be driven insane for saying boobies. But this New Zealander changed everything when Ornithological conventions started seeing the usage of the word more and more frequently and the world was driven to insanity.

The New Zealander was still alive and had been unable to make it to the convention because of other commitments but would be in Kathmandu in a few days. If Raul wanted to talk to him, it could certainly be arranged. That would make a funny fullpage feature about this eccentric white man going around places at a time when it was basically stoneage and naming things with body parts. Haha, I would really want to hear of all the shlongs and dongs of rocks he's discovered in Africa. Raul got the contact information, promised to send a draft of the story for fact-checking and headed to a different assignment.

Later in the day, someone at the office mentioned that the police had captured several bodies of the booby-bird being smuggled to India. That was a strange coincidence -- not that coincidences come in any other flavor,  not the interesting ones anyway -- he made a note of the officers involved and the location concerned and talked to his editor about pursuing the story. News had been slow lately -- despite all the rapes, kidnaps, murder, bribery, extortion, naked corruption that had been happening -- so he decided to call it a day.

Bargaining with the Naag

Yeah, I went away. But I got lazy to create different blogs for different threads of thoughts. Anyway. I'm back. Ignore the last post. This blogger writes for no one but himself or herself. I came back to talk about this recent happening in Nepal.

A quick background: Sinkholes have been appearing around Pokhara, and locals have been going to dhaami-jhaankri to pray the happening away. Some dhaamis are claiming to be dead Naags avenging... something. Here's the relevant article: http://www.mysansar.com/2013/12/9519/

The relevant video is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH-AOlm5OOc#t=62

The woman at the center is in a trance. She speaks for the dead supernatural naag who is destroying the city by sinking it below the ground. Imagine this majestic creature, this all-powerful invisible mystical being who can instantly create hundreds of deep holes in the ground. It does not have physical form (despite being able to poke holes all over) so it takes the voice of the woman in question to communicate to the residents. This celestial being, says through the woman, that it wants to devour/eat a virgin(young) man or woman (how politically correct of it. Glad the idea of inclusiveness has entered the collective psyche of our supernaturals also)

Hope you are in the frame of mind of the women taking the dhaami woman seriously/with less than the derision she deserves. You are afraid of the being occupying her, and are willing to make her happy. The Being is threatening to kill. Fear, curiosity, repentance should be what you're thinking about.  If you watch the video, you'll notice something's not right.

"Aba ek jana le garebhane sab lai ta testo garnu bhayena ni", shouts one woman, ready for a tedious round of negotiations. It wasn't us, don't punish us all. "I will destroy the land and turn it into a lake", the eternal Being says, perhaps confusing Pokhara for Kathmandu. No matter. "If you're in trouble, don't get us all into trouble too," says another woman, angrily. She's sounds like she is used to this: there are many selfish beings, supernatural or otherwise, who bother the world to get what they want.

"They killed my family, and now I will kill," the being says. "No you are not, that's not going to happen. We won't let that happen," says yet another woman. "If they troubled you, bring them here, and then we will see to it. Stop bothering us," says someone, opening way for a series of negotiations. "So what do you want? Where do you want us to give you milk," she says again, making the first offer. "No no, we don't agree. We don't agree at all," the Being replies.

"Well if you don't agree, there's nothing to do, so you have to agree," says one of the lead negotiators. "Listen, we are poor working people, who have to work, and we have to go to work, so tell us what you want or we're going," she adds. The Naag leaves the body of the woman.

We are so sick sick sick and tired of all those selfish fking fkers fking us all over for whatever the fk those selfish fks fking want, we don't want it anymore. Fair warning to all legendary beings in mood for mischief: we're not in the best mood to be messed around with, so be careful.