Labels

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Confessions of a murderer

Maybe I wasn't destined to be a murderer, but I became one. We are told that sin sits like a boulder on your heart. We are made to believe that blood clots stain your hands, and your eyeballs turn into the dark, insomniac districts of big cities. We are told that grief and compunction lurk like a phobia in the silent hours of your existence. We are told that killing another is hard, that it’s a brutal act. They have announced that promiscuity is a burden, a disease, difficult to live with, to live for. It is nothing but a thick pile of lies. Each one of us has a murderer within us, and if we train ourselves well, killing is a pastime like none other. I am talking about killing humans. Killing as a hobby, as an art, as a science! I will now tell you why I am both an artist and a scientist.

This is my true story. I write this to denounce the myths associated with murder. I am not here to praise myself or my acts. My anonymous existence points to the fact that I don't care for your applause or comments. I want you to listen to me. Suspend your prejudices and listen to me. I may come after you and kill you too, but there is no hurry.

Killing for pleasure is my hobby. Like a prostitute who enjoys the variety and the range in her customer base, who works not just for material pleasure, whose loins are like ravenous hearths thirsting for more wood, I am always fantasizing about spurting blood, slashed veins and strips of flesh peeled out like onion skins. But murder is the end of ecstasy; the real pleasure is in the foreplay.

First kill is like losing virginity. It introduces you to a new realm of pleasures. I was only fifteen when I discovered the essence of this simile. Rashq, my mortal twin, consider himself as the stronger and the smarter one. Our mother, the bitch, never figured who our biological father was. Rashq had arrived a few seconds before I did. I arrived in anger, and unlike usual babies, I arrived with just a single tear on my cheek. One tear for losing the race to Rashq, one tear to be christened as Ashq!

I tolerated him for fifteen years. I let his six feet, stout frame tower a few inches above mine slim, bone and flesh, dilapidated body. I let his scores at primary school overrun mine; I let myself bear sores after every battle we fought. I resented him with a bitterness that I openly flaunted. I tolerated him till the day I saw him extract a smile and blush from Rashmi. She sealed his fate.

I think I was a little inexperienced then. I did not know human anatomy enough. I choked him with a pillow, and he struggled like a horse trying to swim across a swamp. He fought hard, but in the end, his despair, his astonishment swamped him. I was much weaker physically, but my intent was as taut as my grip. We lived next to Yamuna, in a slum basti. It took me only a few minutes to wrap him in a bed sheet and leave him for the fish to feast on. My sweaty self was strained to the limit, and yet I felt an exhilaration one feels after scaling a mountain. What followed in Rashmi's room was like jumping off a cliff for paragliding!

I did not know enough human anatomy then. I did not know how erotic pain is for woman, how injury urges them on, how darkness turns them into a force that contain pleasures that bleed as they proceed, that soar as they swing, that flatter as they fetter you. I approached Rashmi, who was only thirteen then. She bit me, punched me, hit me, and writhed in my grip like a snake, trying to escape from a mongoose's grip. I hurled her down on the floor, and held her breasts so tightly with my fingers digging deep into them, that I feared my fingers would start to crackle. Before my fingers could crackle, her fierceness began to exude a fire that I had never thought possible. We both burned like turpentine oil, screeching and spurting as we exhausted every drop of our intention. When we stopped an hour later with teeth marks and bites all over each other, I rose with a freshness one feels after an extended bath. Ashq, the man, was born.

Unfortunately, Rashmi had to die next. The only murder that brings a sigh to my lips was hers. The murder itself was a fascinating affair; I have no complaints about the act itself. In fact, it was my first masterpiece. The sigh is for the body that was first to anoint me as potent. The sigh is for the teeth that first roused the animals in my languid flesh. I killed her one evening, of course, after pounding her with my exploding ego. I killed her, just at the moment, when she closed her eyes, moaning as she climaxed. Blood sprinkled out of her veins, as it does when suddenly someone steps on a garden hose and it just bursts out. The red liquid rose like a fountain, and drops fell like rose petals on her face. As I walked out, unnoticed at the early dawn, I left a raging fire to gorge her, to finish her with the last rites a Hindu deserves. Then I took a plunge in the Yamuna to clean off the stains of my first romance.

Rashq and Rashmi must have united in hell, for all I care. I was sending them more company. I worked at a garage owned by a Bengali family who had risen in fortune, through a series of shrewd real estate investments. They still kept the garage, as they believed it was their Kaamdhenu, the holy cow who ushered in all blessings and prosperity for them. I was sixteen, and the Maalkin, the Memsahib, the Mistress of the house was nearly forty. Some itch induced her to take a liking for me, and she started to insist that I learn a few things from her. She made me take Class X board exams, and ensured I spent enough time on my lessons to get through a five year gap in my education.

It was on the day my results arrived that I got my first chance to teach her a few things. I don't know what beast I roused in her, but she began to obsess about me. I patiently played in her hands for three months, then one day plunged her into her own bath tub; she shat into it as she screamed under water and left the world floating in her own mess. A servant, the only person who suspected me, for he knew of the hours I had spent in a closed room with the Mistress, found out a few days later, that his death was to receive him tongueless, armless and headless.

The Bengali babu fled to the banks of Hooglie in distress. I went with him. New language moaned at my advances, new bodies arrived at my table, to disappear like dreamt ideas do when the poet finally picks his tool. I learnt every means of dissection, I procured the cadavers I needed for this study by hunting them, I honed my knowledge of anatomy by practicing my touch, my bite, my thump on every specimen who interested me. Like a good experimentalist, I learnt from my every mistake and moved on.

This isn't Dostoevsky folks, so there is only Crime and no Punishment. Pardon me, for using the language of fools in calling murder a crime. It is a hobby. A hobby must be retained as a hobby, and then your pleasure is guilt-free. I became a homicide artist. Bodies would appear in drains, in Hooglie, in bathtubs, on rooftops, in heaps of rubbish. Bodies captured in their own state of ugliness, released from the slavery of breath! There is an erotic element to how the last breath oozes out of a writhing, alive being, from the same being, who minutes back, was writhing in sensual drunkenness as your master strokes filled her with color. But as I said before, murder is the end of the ecstasy; the real pleasure is in the foreplay.

You need to decide on how long the foreplay needs to be. Your start must be measured, slow. Did you ever watch how a tiger hunts? Prancing like a true hunter, noiseless and focused, you must pounce on your prey, and no matter what horns and what muscles embattle you, you need to hold on the neck of the prey in your ever hungry incisors, till you are victorious. No half measures. No sentimentality. Plane, simple act! Execution. Perfection is another name for carrying out a task to completion. Folks, I have sought and wrought perfection!

Here I stand before you, without face, anonymously. My lips are being licked by new desires, my hands are as eager for fondling you as they are for dismantling your intestines. I am as natural with the knife as I am with assuming the character of a weakling, a man of no importance, trying to fight big and small torments of life to survive the system. I am a Van Gogh, unknown to the mankind, a Picasso you haven't yet learnt to appreciate. I am a Casanova, who incarnates as Jack, The Ripper, and walks the nights as Dracula, without the flourish of the Count. No Gods bother me, I bother with none. We ignore each other. I don't subscribe to any cannibalistic tribe. I am a pure vegetarian (can you beat that?). I am no devil worshipper. I am just a simple man, with simple needs and a great panache for killing. I kill so elegantly that you will never suspect me as the killer.

Try it. The ecstasy of destruction, the ecstasy of death! Death is more profound than life. All men and women are born with a specter of death within them. We all can be Gladiators, the executioners, the Hangmen, the Knights who kill in name of God or country or dreamt up romances. Isn't it the ritual of survival that leads a man and a beast to invent all daily habits of existence? All this existential angst, and a lone warrior, a craftsman, Me, to release and relinquish it! A messiah is the one who leads you to nirvana. Am I not your new, anonymous messiah? I won't disclose who I am, for I have no urge to climb a cross, and be worshipped when I am gone. I do not speak to anyone, I mean no angels or demons exist for me. I will not be an identified prophet; I won't work my miracles in public. I will just do my public service; lead you to your demise, your freedom. In any case, I don't care about fame much. I don't believe in sinners and saints or Messiahs either. I do as I please. I reign supreme in my craft.

Is it going to be you next?




12 comments:

Vivek Sharma said...

From sulekha.com

koolraagaa comments: on Feb 14 2007 1:27AM
delete this comment - block this user
Way to go.. Nice Description. Nice metaphors.. Good.


Nargis Natarajan comments: on Feb 14 2007 1:03AM
delete this comment - block this user
Ewwwwwwwww...felt like reading the mind of Jack the Ripper or Ted Bundy...the details were very gory and very graphic details and very interesting to read. And I also hope that I never get to meet you in person Btw just dropped by to say that your answers in Indu's blogs were quite interesting too.


vandana1982 comments: on Feb 13 2007 11:47PM
delete this comment - block this user
indu,


The medical term is "SCHIZOPHRENIA " . The person starts hallucinating and looks everybody doubtfully as if everybody is trying to harm them. So they start killing people and secure themselves(as they think).


vandana1982 comments: on Feb 13 2007 11:17PM
delete this comment - block this user
Kill me, if you wish
I

ndu3 comments: on Feb 13 2007 9:10PM
delete this comment - block this user

Vivek, when I was reading this story I remembered a movie which I saw on ZEE TV where a boy kills people and is being identified as dual personality and some long medical term was used to describe that decease.



I think I am an escapist. I love to read a lot and I do read a lot. I feel when we read some thing it must give us good feelings even after we close the book.

Indu

Vivek Sharma said...

From Dud Sea Scrawls

R.I.P - Vivek Sharma - the Poet
new
By India Whining on Wed, 2007-02-14 08:23

A minor classic, thats what this is. Gripped me the moment i read the first sentence. Grisly & captivating piece. I was almost out of breath by the time i reached the last line. Brilliant. Is this written by the same Vivek who writes mushy poetry ?? Seems hard to believe. It seems like you murdered that (old) Vivek before sitting down to write this !! R.I.P - Vivek Sharma - the Poet Evil
» reply | email this comment



Oye edgar poe!
new
By atrakasya on Wed, 2007-02-14 04:19

vivek bhaiya, aisa likhoge to logon ko inspire karoge murder karke dekhney ke liye!

Such powerful writing, the mind in wrong directions it can send, ah yes!

I think, if the language matched the educational level of the protagonist, it would be even more impactful, without having an intellectual flavor to it.

You do know that edgar allan poe is rumored to have actually committed at least two murders, one of which he described in his stories? Smiling
» reply | email this comment

Vivek Sharma said...

from desicritics.org

#1
Deepti Lamba
URL
February 14, 2007
03:06 AM

Viv, well written but I'm kind of confused - how could a man from a slum area know about para gliding, Van Gogh, Knights , Jack the Ripper etc especially with a woefully inadequate education?

The story would have been more believable if he was from a regular middle class family or upper middle class given the well articulated narration.

Vivek Sharma said...

more from sulekha.com

« Back to Post
cheti comments: on Feb 14 2007 2:08PM
delete this comment - block this user
Vivek
This is inspiring !!!Scares the shit out of me !
The two words "Try it" comes down like a thunder after a slow dark build up of clouds.
You are dangerously talented !
onlyyourspiyu comments: on Feb 14 2007 12:57PM
delete this comment - block this user
Deadly....not intrested in meeting this GUy in anyway....My Hobby is to live and wanna stick to it!!!

The narration was superb....and one cannot deny that such devils are not present in this world...

Read my latest flash fiction "Bloody Business"...based on murderers but of a diiferent race!!

Vivek Sharma comments: on Feb 14 2007 9:48AM
delete this comment - block this userIt is fiction, so don't attribute any ideas or persona to the writer:)

Not the best read on a Valentine's day, but a story you will remember for sometime.

Vivek Sharma said...

more from dud sea scrawls.com

I appreciate the general idea
new
By blue on Wed, 2007-02-14 19:39

The whole concept is neat. Perhaps you could have been a little psychedelic if thats not too much to ask. It had the feel of a story twined into a “philosophy” than the other way around.

“Man Bites Dog” (Belgian) is a Movie to watch if you haven’t already watched it. for the least budget its the best story ever told.

also, too many cliched phraes “His frames towered over mine”, etc. still loved the concept.
» reply | email this comment
Chilling
new
By chetiyaar on Wed, 2007-02-14 18:57

Vivek

This is inspiring !!!Scares the shit out of me !

The two words “Try it” comes down like a thunder after a slow dark build up of clouds.

You are dangerously talented !
» reply | email this comment

Radhika said...

I did NOT know you could write so well...and I did NOT know you could write about disturbing topics. Loved it!
Didnt scare me.. but to think of it, I actually felt good after reading it...strange, but i am still smiling!

Vivek Sharma said...

more from sulekha.com

« Back to Post
khwaja massoud comments: on Feb 15 2007 12:38AM

Great one! I am now going to read all your past blogs.

khwaja massoud
vandana1982 comments: on Feb 14 2007 11:54PM

Vivek, Why do you say it is not the best read on a V-day?
Your creations are class apart and everybody loves them.
it hardly matters whether it is a V-day or any other day.

bada hi banka likhadae tusae.


supriyad comments: on Feb 14 2007 8:37PM

grisly.. but i loved it.. as usual!

Vivek Sharma said...

from dud sea scrawls

Bloody brilliant
By Scarlett on Thu, 2007-02-15 05:55
piece Vivek. If this was a writing exercise, it was magnificent.
Fantastic flow and build up. And so very different from your usual romantic pieces. Tell you what, I liked this better than the poetry


My only gripe is the use of the word “folks”. For such a gripping narration, a casual word like “folks” dilutes the narration imo. Again this is my opinion but I reckoned that the last line “Is it going to be you next?” was rather adding to the diluting effect too.

Sorry for nitpicking, this piece is close to perfect and that made me put my two cents forth. Please, do write more.

Scarlett

» reply | email this comment


Thrilled:)
newBy Vivek on Thu, 2007-02-15 16:06
Atra, IW, Cheti, Blue, Scarlett… I am thrilled that my prose seems promising to you. From the comments, and otherwise, I realize the traps in writing prose are the same as are in poetry: cliches, choice of words and similes, the flow, length of sentences, and the moot idea that binds the construction together.

For record,
Atra: I haven’t committed any rapes or murders yet:) I need to read Poe though. I imagined my killer as someone who inherited a love of literature from the Bengali Maalkin, and from his need to assume characters that could get him the kill;)

IW: The poet is alive, smiling, and busy churning out stuff. Poetry has ceased to be a hobby for me, and is turning into a full time commitment, requiring more attention to detail and content, frequent revisions, and so on. Hence prose seems like easier thing to play with. (Poetry as respite from Research, Prose as respite from Poetry).

Blue & Scarlett: Cliches are like weeds. I will try to pull them out while revising the next poem/story. It is my fourth or fifth story ever, so I am sure flaws abound. Please point out all the other ones too. Unless someone points them now, my writings will continue to have them.

Cheti sahib. Try it:)

» edit | reply | email this comment

Vivek Sharma said...

desicritics.org

#2
Vivek Sharma
URL
February 14, 2007
12:04 PM

I think I provided a character, a Bengali woman, to introduce him to education. If he claims to be an artist and a scientist, he better read.

A common misconception we have is that people in slums will never read anything. For a man who wishes to read, all he needs is a motivation. Just for the character he needs to assume, he ought to prepare himself by self-education.


#3
temporal
URL
February 14, 2007
03:42 PM

vivek

a lot of thought must have gone in to develop this character

a lot more is needed (i feel)

the education bit borders on the incredulous a bit as dee suggested

just off the top...couple of other things i noticed...that first victim ...13?...hmmmm...they are not so developed as you would want the reader to believe (in terms of things done with her)

and this:

(can you beat that?).

i find it hard to accept a character so remorseless and ruthless would stoop to pandering

overall a good effort that could be better

Vivek Sharma said...

from sulekha.com

mayaonline comments: on Feb 15 2007 11:53PM
V.S, this was so damn cool! this was something. luved the descriptions, well planned, clinically cold and the glory in what he does... gosh! damn gud. But mind u, i did not feel scared... jus pure delight in going thru a different mind...
Vivek Sharma comments: on Feb 15 2007 10:56AM
Sex and violence are not my forte, but I guess a good writer should be willing to try his hand at various things. The story has its grisly charm (quoting surpriyad), though if you are planning to read all my blogs, khawaja sahib, you will find more romance than blood, more humor than violence, more tenderness than pain.

After seeing so many encouraging comments, I can foresee the possibility of writing prose more often. Thanks guys.

Proma said...

Gripping !
I look forward for more from you.

Blue Athena said...

Yes, must write more prose. This is intense. And neat. Look forward to more. :)