#26 - New Writing & Mogambo
In this issue, I share the finale of the Mogambo story, some new writing, and recent SneakyArt.
Writing
There are weekly prompts in a writing group I am part of, and the most recent one had me looking back at an incident some years ago. The prompt was - “Write about a 10 minute interaction you had with a stranger.”
On a winter morning five years ago, I stood at a bus-stop in uptown Chicago. I had no experience of Chicago winter, so my clothing was insufficient against the two-punch combo of extreme cold and biting winds. I hopped from one foot to the other, trying to generate heat inside my flimsy cocoon. My eyelashes were frozen, and the hair inside my nostrils was rigid like stalactites.
“Cold, huh?” said a voice beside me.
“Yeah,” I said, nodding at him over my muffler.
We were two strangers waiting for the same bus. I did not know at the time, but this is enough common ground to strike a conversation in America. He told me he was an exterminator. It was a well-paying job, much more than minimum wage, and it was work no one else wanted to do. But despite all the positives, it was still back-breaking work. He made a joke about it being worse for the rats, and then laughed. It had the sound of a joke he had made many times before. He no longer waited for his audience to laugh before him…
Read the full piece here.
Mogambo, a tragedy in 3 parts
I have always thought that traditional villains were the most misunderstood characters of Bollywood. Was Ranjit all that bad, or was he just a victim of unfortunate circumstances? Was Prem Chopra a creep, or just in desperate need of friends? Villains are the few characters in Bollywood movies to have a complex personality, with talents and flaws, motivation, drive and - occasionally - a redemptive character arc. This is why I want to tell you the real story of Mogambo.
Read Part 1.
Let's be clear, Licence Raj India was not a friendly place for a budding entrepreneur. Decades of Bollywood propaganda had reinforced an idea of "poor = good, rich = evil" in the mind of the common man. The image of the moneylender was that of a pot-bellied man with cruel eyes, delighting in the misfortunes of others, inordinately obsessed with calculating compound interest. We didn't have the foresight to call them Venture Capitalists yet. The image of the jobs-creating industrialist was that of an exploitative, cigar-smoking man in the throes of a colonial hangover, taking pleasure in the victimization of others. In this kind of unfriendly start-up ecosystem, one man tried to change the world.
Not mincing words, the launch of an indigenous industry was a colossal undertaking and it is difficult to imagine the logistics even today. Surely Shri Mogambo was the real indie-genius! In short time, evidenced by the bafflement of the Indian government, he was a leading producer of agricultural products (indicating smart investments in rural India) and also a pioneer in India's fledgling manufacturing industry. From all records he commanded the complete loyalty of his employees, so much so that they did not even hesitate to jump into volcanic lava at his indication. It is not unreasonable to assume that M-Corp provided a generous compensation scheme to the family of martyrs.
Read Part 2
Was Mogambo mischaracterized in the 1987 film Mr. India? Was great achievement maligned and misrepresented as megalomania? We can leave such ponderings to historians and philosophers, but posterity will surely be kind to this superman who reached for the stars and met a brutal end.
And that brings us to the traditional protagonist of the Bollywood narrative - an unemployed, urban-naxal jholewala who plays violin on the streets to beg for money, runs an orphanage without due qualifications or resources, and creeps on an independent female journalist once dumb luck throws at him an invisibility watch. As he gets touchy-feely in the rain with the delusional sapiosexual, so dire is the situation at the orphanage that children go unfed for days on end. Much like the 12th century Black Death, they invent rhymes and songs to deal with their utter deprivation and the hopelessness of their situation.
What happens at the end of the film is predictable. There is needless death and wanton destruction of private property. But instead of Bollywood propaganda, I would like to tell you the other side of the story from the point of view of the only survivor of the carnage at M-Island -
Read Part 3!
SneakyArt
The wife-person has nearly completed a “Paint by Numbers” kit. Here is a drawing from when she was mid-way. It is a LOT of work!
I drove to a different part of the city, looking for something to draw and a fresh coffee and bagel. I found some beauty at this street intersection, and here is what I made of it. It is dedicated to the resilient Chicagoan, a stranger waiting at the traffic light.
Yesterday we were visited by a friend who brought over some delicious food.
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There is no podcast episode this week or month. I am taking a hiatus while we move to a new city. In an ideal world, I would never leave Chicago. But this is 2021, the successor to 2020, and things are far from ideal. Still, we are excited and eager to see a new part of the world.
Details soon!
Thank you for reading. I’ll see you next week.