Llosa and Ah Kin

Mario Vargas Llosa is an artist with a magic wand. His words create images so vivid and phantasmagoric, that, to the hapless ganja freak, they appear startlingly real. Poor Jake.

Days trickled by and it was time for the first internal revolution against the bourgeoisie nasal canals. The masses rose in rebellion, their cries amplified into elephantine sniffles and a sad trickle of snot. Air is denied passage henceforth through the canals of Nasale, intoned the leader of the revoluzione.

As I lay prone on the dusty mattress struggling against the anarchists, who had invaded my innards, the sheer beauty of it all was inescapable. I was more alive then, than at most points of time. I felt like Chev Chelios riding Eve in the middle of a mob, yelling to the world - I am alive, I am alive.

Hours oozed past and the Mayan sun god Ah Kin bored down on the mob with such vengeance that they melted away, leaving Ah Kin strangely contented.

The red child was hanging on to the hem of the mauve mother. They were staring strangely at me, as I attempted framing a smile, attempting to convey that I am as harmless as a turtledove.

The scent of the vegetable stall hit as it had hit Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, albeit on a much much smaller scale, thanks to genetics as well as a desensitized nose. The Chennai sun appeared to be trifling as I sailed through tree-less, and shadow-less avenues. The gods' habits are indeed abstruse.

Tlaloc, the Aztec god of rain and lightning unleashed his fury one night when three from a clan met under the roof of another. Heedless of Tlaloc the brazen ones embarked on the grand voyage to home ground, a few kilometres away.

Alas Tlaloc was too powerful. He simply smashed to defeat Bosch, the god of the spark plug. And I, who represents the defeated human spirit(always?) had to push the heavy motorcycle back to its roost through rivers of muck and the wrath of Tlaloc.

To the battered mind, the Ballad of the Easy Rider came across as a welcome distraction. A tinge of purple sadness dyed the canvas as Captain America and Billy made their way through the film, rolling in coke, grass, gasoline, girls and LSD. Its sound track is still ringing in my insomniac mind.

Never did I fancy that the Knights who say Ni, from the Holy Grail, were the legacy of George Hanson, after having taken a swig of whiskey in the morning. Ni to you all. Ni. Why did it take me so long to watch Easy Rider, after having heard about it for so many goddamn years? Ni.

Vargas Llosa is a sorcerer. He is.