How I Cooked Myself Out of It

My flat is being renovated and the place is a god awful mess with a metric ton of dust on everything. The dust has caused me to develop a mild cough and sore throat and the only passing that Pippa would be doing would be passing away. Even killing time has lost its charm and I find myself ready to bolt out of doors, screaming for my (dead) parents every now and then. I'm told that this is my body reacting to the noise, supplemented by the heat and the chaos of yells, slams on marble, the kind of cuss words that make me feel like sailors are golden tongued and of course dirt everywhere. I also want to have a chat with the sun because what the fuck is this temperature of 38 degrees which feels like 42 degrees? 

Now, let me be clear. I should have expected some of this. I am neurodivergent, I am now learning, one typo at a time, that what that means is that this is a sort of natural state from which my nervous system craves respite almost on a constant need basis and since I am now a part of the body that hosts this nervous system, of course it means I need to be the one to calm it down. So, since running out of the house screaming for my dead parents is not on the table, I needed a solution. 

My solution was to cook. Just cook.

Over the course of the past four days, there has been some action in the Mobius Kitchen and now at the end of April, I find that the provisions have proven most useful. I've cooked fish and eggs and more eggs and some chicken as well. I've combined stuff like soya sauce with honey and pizza issue oregano to make a blend for chicken which a friend called Sammit told me would go really well with a pizza as well. I've obeyed the recipe for a cooler shared by a friend over Instagram. This friend by the way is also an Earth Genasi like Mobius Worblehat! There has been the lesson of the fact that turmeric is the game changer in fish curries and the equally important lesson that eggs if left too long in hot oil tend to explode and then you have yolk everywhere.

Don't get me wrong, I still want to run away screaming for my dead parents but at least I can do it on a full stomach now. I suppose that now that I am the only one keeping score of how I'm staying and what my body is asking of me, sometimes I need to bend the rules and sometimes I need to heat oil, add masala and temper temper away the blues.

Shout out to all my friends who are a part of this journey with me and my trusty cooking pot who has seen me concoct many things.

The Bilge Master 

What Nobody Tells You About Being ND

 “And you can have it all

My empire of dirt”

 That sense of blankness when you’re about to write something important (at least to you), is a terrifying part of my writing process, or so I’ve found as I’ve paid more and more attention to how I write and what I write. So, here I go with a cup of tea and a lotus biscoff biscuit in my hand, making a typo like a pro to tell you all, I will tell you all…yeah, Eliot beat me to this one.

It is an often repeated saying that there’s a first time for everything and anyone who happens to follow me on Instagram knows that last weekend was spent at the Apeejay Kolkata Litfest, a gala event with lots of insights and thought provoking conversations; not to mention travel on buses and in cabs, selfies and group pictures and a controversial plate of fried rice which was served to us in jail.

So now that we have gone to prison for our vices and guilty pleasures about literature (for we are as much what we read as we are what we wear), let’s take a look at how I feel on the Monday after the AKLF. Put simply, I feel like a herd of elephants in the seventeen stone category (minimum) did the mamba on my spine.

I was glam itself for the past three days – good clothes, ties, blazers, excellent watches and lots and lots of smiles . Bertie Wooster would have modeled his article on “What the Well Dressed Man is Wearing” on me (assuming of course that Bertie Wooster was a real person).

But that brings me to something else, am I real? I ask this because I went from an outgoing and adrenaline crazed junkie listening to luminaries talk literature, psychology and book covers to a man in his dad’s clothes, sipping tea and doing whatever this is so quickly. My WhatsApp is full of chatter about the event, but my phone is on silent and my head hurts and I’m so twitchy that the sound of the doorbell is making me jump out of my skin.

 I sort of zoned out a second and had to read from the beginning to get back some sort of bearing of what it is that I was writing. Apparently, there’s another event coming up soon but I’m pretty sure that I won’t be able to attend it because this event has set my social batteries to a point from where its just work and books for a minimum of two weeks and no skipping workouts (especially leg day) for a straight week.

I don’t even have the energy to try and make this article a little less chaotic. I feel like I’m birthing a little trickster demon using the pixilated ink as a substitute for blood and keystrokes instead of chalk to draw Aldebrand’s Pentacle (tell me you’ve read Johnathan Stroud without telling me you’ve read Johnathan Stroud).

I suppose that now that the trickster demon has appeared, its time for my last trick.

This is what nobody tells you about being neurodivergent, not even the internet. Typically, before this aspect of my psyche took hold and assured me it was here to stay, I would be able to attend such weekend long events or have 15  hour days without balking. In college, I would be the most unhinged party animal and for the longest time in corporate, I drank the equivalent of a small plantation’s produce of coffee to function. I now realize that these were the small signs that nobody indicated that such blatant disregard for my physical and mental well being was tomfoolery.

So I guess, this is now me and my overstimulated, plump arse against the events I want to attend and the cooldown periods attending said events will have!

 

*JUMP* Doorbell!

 

The Bilge Master

The Hope I Have for Poor Ebeneezer (Christmas Babble)

 There’s something quiet about Boogie Street tonight. Macy’s is run down and it seems as if that death sentence from the blues is in effect. The printing presses of the world went off to write about the comedian who died in New York after all and that left us with some hope that someone will do some good.

Meanwhile in Sin City, someone put the chairs on the table as a dame called Nancy caught a bus to Ohio and now that its cold and empty, I looked among the debris for that lead on the succubus. I found only a box of rouge.

Winter has set in now in some parts of the world and the specters are getting ready to pay a certain Ebeneezer a call.

I take off the cowl, slip into the prepared face and I wonder if enough time has been spent preparing for this. A small snap of my fingers brings the djinn forth and I ask it to gather the elves’ artifacts together. Without warning it slips past me onto the sixth plane and Mists off into the distance, a reindeer looking to find other mates to pull cargo.

I walk to the edge of the rug and shrug on the red and white. People associate me with winter, with the Yuletide and with cake and meat and ale.

 I associate myself with cocoa and gingerbread and a large mistletoe plant which has an infestation of Grinch traps.

My quest for the succubus leads me to an alley where a boy lost his parents and became a legend that the criminals of a fictional city fear. I also remembered reading the story of a doomed planet and two survivors, one of whom is a reporter by day and leaps tall buildings at night.

And maybe this little rant that a man sitting in front of a terminal with fae lights strung up around him doesn’t mean too much factually, or the ring on his finger will as of yet take some time to reassure him he will be safe; but then again maybe this man and his stories about the stories he read about me and about Boogie Street and the man who laughs are where my succubus has gone to hide.

So maybe I should pick out the old book of tales where this ancient holiday was first named and remember the first thought that brought me gamboling into this world.

I smile as I put on the red and white and the djinn returns with my vehicle in tow. I hope poor Ebeneezer doesn’t feel too low tonight.

Off I go!

The Bilge Master

Sixty Ton Angels Gliding

“A sixty ton angel falls to the earth

A pile of old metal, a radiant blur”

Although this was not the first song I heard from the record In Absentia, it was one of the tracks whose imagery stayed with me for some time.

That was a time I don’t want to go back to. But life has a funny way of taking turns that lead you somewhere, just not here.

7^th November 2025, Aquatica, Kolkata. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun is playing softly on speakers as a music thirsty crowd slowly starts swelling around me. Steven Wilson is in town and at 7:30PM, he is going to perform less than 20 feet away from where I am standing. I’m wearing a t shirt my friend drew for me and he’s standing next to me chatting with my elder brother from another mother whose t shirt says it all. A strip of cloth on my wrist reads “Overview Tour 2025. Diamond.” I am miles away, in the mind of a confused and hurting 20 year old, whose mother has just hit him again and whose father isn’t there to stop her (he never was). I recall listening to Steven Wilson then. The year was 2015. Hand. Cannot. Erase. had just come out and somehow Ancestral and Regret #9 made so much sense to me back then, because here was a man who understood. Apparently, in half an hour that man was going to be in front of me, spectacles and long hair and guitar in hand. Was I ready? I did not know. Was I scared? No. I was not 20 anymore. I had grown beyond that, and I wanted to come and see the man who was there for me and to just enjoy myself.

The Kolkata concert was a masterclass in sound and VFX. It also boasted a fantastic setlist with songs like King Ghost, Lazarus and (of course) The Raven That Refused to Sing as the closing song.

Kolkata has become a different sort of place to be these days. One of the friends who came with us started headbanging when Staircase was being played. He was a bit skeptical about how much he would enjoy the concert, but in the end…there was a moment when something in his eyes shifted.

Behind me, a friend I hadn’t seen for a long time suddenly passed his beer can to me and kept saying, “Do send me the photos” and of course I will. To my right was a group that burst into tears at the end of Pariah and when Luminol came on, I cast a backward glance to see a mini moshpit.

When it was over, the crowd started to slowly dissipate. In a daze, I ambled off a bit and I wondered…these songs that helped me when I was sick came back to me 11 years later and I could enjoy them, film some of them and I could see the concert through to its end. I was going to be fine. I’d come a long way. It was nice to know.

A sixty ton angel glided over Kolkata yesterday night.

Thank you, Steven Wilson 

The Bilge Master

In Memory of Atish Mitra (08.10.1956 to 31.03.2025)

 I wonder what you write about fathers. They are the first man you encounter in your life after all. Do you write about their kindness or their flaws, in spite of which they tried their best for you even when they didn’t know how to make ends meet? Isn’t it also true that you look for your father in every man you meet who happens to be close to you – every friend, Roman (or in my case Kolkata bashi) and countryman? Now that the preamble is out of the way, let us talk of the many things my father was.

My father was a humble man who started influencing my life from the moment I was born (as I am sure all fathers do). I am told that my favorite pastime was nibbling his ear as a child and I recall writing about this for one of my parents’ anniversaries. He smelled of cigarettes and whiskey and loved to use Gillette Arctic Ice aftershave the most. He was also the man who poured me my first drink at the age of 16 at a party and told me not to tell my mother about the fact that he had helped me sell my soul in a mostly willing transaction to the Devil that is an OH Group compound.

I remember that when I fell sick as a child, my father would bring the music system to the room where I was resting (and fighting dragons in my head) and play a record for me. The records are still here, the man and the music system are not.

There are so many stories about my father that I could tell – the one where he made caramel custard for my mother to cheer her up in the hospital because she had had surgery; the time that he got me a GameBoy and planted the seed of video gaming in me which has led to me today enjoying a different sort of art form, and since we are on the subject of art, why not mention that he was a man who loved the Impressionist movement to bits. He came back from his first US trip (circa 2005) with a large bag full of prints by painters like Van Gogh, Manet and Paul Gauguin.

My father was the quintessential gentle giant. He took an interest in what my friends did and he would greet them briefly and he would talk to them if they had problems they wanted to share with them. Although it was rare to see him visit a theater, he did take me to see a few films, such as Spider Man 2 as a child (though he stayed outside and probably had a smoke) and he was a phenomenal Scrabble player.

e.e cummings wrote in a poem

“He sang his didn’t, he danced his did”

This line quoted above is what describes my father best. The world lost Atish Mitra too soon, and seeing as his birthday is tomorrow, I want to remember him with a song. Please scroll below for a vocal cover of James Blunt’s Monsters which I dedicate to a man who was less my parent and in all respects my best friend.

The Storm (14th September 2025)

 It is not easy being a pop culture enthusiast or a nerd. In general, people will not get your references, you will be bullied for your passion and misunderstood for the largest part of your life by so many people who are close to you. You may or may not have the maturity to chalk this up life being what it is, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury which at the end of the day actually signifies nothing.

But then, aren’t all lives stories? Isn’t freedom the right of all sentient beings and do we not have a poet who reminded us to dream of a heaven of freedom, endlessly?

14^th September 2025. 7:41AM. I am having a panic attack. Where is the bus? I’m dressed in a polo t shirt and a pair of my father’s black jeans with an unbuttoned green shirt shrugged on over the ensemble. I am 31 years old and I am going to watch a cartoon with 350 people. Where is the bus?

You’re thinking, “How can he be 31 and behaving like a schoolboy? Also, wasn’t 14^th September a Sunday?” You are right, it was. It was also kind of historic, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

14^th September 2025. 8:00AM. I see a figure walking towards me carrying a katana made of wood. We embrace. In his eyes is a light I have seen before. He’s home and he’s here to rock and roll. A white cab pulls up and a man in a red wig and haori steps out, smiles at me and says,”Hey. You’re here. Take these bags. Let’s go.”

14^th September 2025. 9:00AM. I’m walking up and down the lobby of a theater testing the acoustics. Some extreme panic seizes me.  I look up and I see my friends working on a large poster of the cartoon we’ve come to watch. I see college students standing on wheelchairs and I know, we’re going to be okay. I see an image in my mind of a crowd of thousands at a metal concert holding up a crippled man’s wheelchair so he can see the band. In that moment, my panic leaves me. I am calm. I am bringing a storm.

14^th September 2025. 10:11AM. I have put on makeup, which feels like war paint. I am no longer 31 years old.  I am a Demon Slayer in Japan, the Stone Hashira and my friend in the adjacent chair is no longer 25 and 6 feet tall. He’s Muzan, Omega Level threat and ruler of the Infinity Castle.

14^th September 2025. I’ve lost track of time. In front of me are two extremely senior people. Ma’am is 57+ and sir is 61+. I shake their hands and the entire crowd roars in welcome. I told you it was going to be historic earlier, did I not? We’re still here to watch a cartoon. On my right, I see my friend. I wave and I head over to see her nails, specially made to order to sync with today’s cartoon.

14^th September 2025. The unity of a dark theater. 350 people, seated. I make my way to my seat. I enter a different world than the one of calculators and mathematics and tall buildings. In this world, is a home which I have resided in since I was a youngling. In this world is a curious peace. As the first demon is decapitated, someone yells a cheer. That cheer becomes a roar. That roar becomes an echo. That echo is a chant.

I am home.

How did we come to this you ask? Let me tell you about one boy’s dream which he hung on to and created a space he shared with two of his friends. Let me tell you of the ridicule, the bullying and the jealousy when others saw that they could not be these three people.

And let me tell you of those who believed in them.

It took us all five years to get to 14^th September 2025. It took so much to stand there in front of those people. The body pain I felt on the 15^th was peanuts compared to what I was a part of.

We hope that next time, this dream of ours makes you want to dream again, to be a child, to remember summer vacations on your grandmother’s lap, away from the sound and fury, hearing of the same demons that we saw slain in front of us. We hope that for the sake of the child in you, you come home.

Behold, the power of a cartoon! By the way, we call it anime in this home.

The Bilge Master

 

Kingdoms (Break Me, Shake Me, Devastate Me)

 I was reading Annabel Lee and got to wondering about that kingdom by the sea. We got to know only one story about that kingdom and that story broke our hearts, but what if there were other maidens or youths and they too had high born kinsmen?

I live alone now and some say I love fiercely, but still others say I am abrasive. I personally spend a lot of time blushing fiercely and joking about diabetes. But what of my kingdom in the forested glade where there are dogs and that one neighbor who sends me eggs and guava juice for succor? What of the paintings in my dwelling that I recently put up again? What of the books and the milestone I got of making a vegetarian dish from the very first principles today? If everything Midas touches turns to gold and if Hemingway wanted to be ruined by the one he loved as a token of that love, then what am I trying to achieve? Maybe I’m waiting for someone to “break me, shake me, devastate me” or I’m just a guy wanting to be held, thrilled, kissed and killed.

In a Pratchett-esque twist of events I’m also marveling at things like the Justice League taking on a literal angel and a rookie Green Arrow prowling the Watchtower wondering who it is he’s up against. Certainly Stephen Amell and his pushps or gravity defying chin ups didn’t prepare his kid for an antagonist of this magnitude.

Thus life goes on in my kingdom. Maybe one day an Annabel Lee will come along, or someone will give me a cask of wine or maybe appeal to me to rescue him from a ramshackle house where someone’s beating heart is driving him slowly insane.

Or maybe, I’ll stop feeling disgusted long enough to pick up that gentleman racist who wrote of Pinkman and his model which was brought to life by Del Toro recently.

Or maybe I’ll hunt down my creator and ask him to take accountability for my existence only to watch him die and leave me to face this world all alone.

Thankfully, I don’t know any mad scientists with God complexes so that last one will remain in a book.

The Bilge Master