Bitter Chocolate
Corollaries of an extraordinarily explosive relationship!

(column by Karan Karayi)

As the twin towers came hurtling down like a stack of cards on 9/11, so did the lives of those caught in the crosshairs of that fateful day, as has been chronicled adinfnitum. The affected meander through life with eyes wide open and minds firmly shut, distraught with the turn of events. And in what can only be termed a volte-face on conventional coverage of the horrific happenings, Ken Kalfus makes one peruse the ponderings of twisted souls deriving a perverse sense of pleasure from this titanic tragedy, in A Disorder Peculiar to the Country. Heaven hath no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

Both halves of this euphemism manifest themselves here. Meet Marshall and Joyce Harriman, a brace of conjugal jihadis embodying the nuclear-family-in nuclear- meltdown. All out of love and in the throes of an acrimonious divorce they wrangle, when like a bolt from the blue life comes thundering down the luckless Twin Towers. On a warm summer morning, Joyce makes a beeline for Newark Airport to catch a flight to San Francisco (the doomed United Flight 93) and Marshall trudges to his office in the World Trade Center. She misses boarding the flight, and he’s late for work, but in a city soon wrecked by devastation with millions venting their angst and trepidation at this cruel throw of dice, each believes the other to be deceased, furtively (and wickedly) jubilant at this unforeseen bounty showered their way! Nevertheless, serendipity does not strike at the dawn of epiphany.

When the truth hits home, it serves as a jarring recall to reality and a co-existence in their Brooklyn Heights apartment that sees them locked in marital combat for conquest of dominion. Their pettiness plumbs new depths as they set about penning their own edition of ‘Divorce for Dummies’, replete with a risqué replication of the aftermath of the War on Terror – the conflict in Afghanistan, economic vicissitudes, the carnal calamity that was Abu Ghraib, and the clash of cultures – serving as backdrop. As if that didn’t emulate the society they reside in enough, there’s a litany of phone tapping, fake anthrax attacks and vain suicide bombing attempts that transpires in this face-off , metamorphosing A Disorder Peculiar to the Country into a glib stab at contemporary society where antagonists so close to each other yet fiercely intent on retribution viciously spew venom and march to the beat of their own drum, all the while falling deeper into their private abyss, callously oblivious of latter-day sensibilities.

Kalfus pries away the iron-clad façade of New Yorkers and casts it into an entirely new perspective, replete with a mordant wit that borders on the absurd yet leans towards the perspicacious, as he holds a mirror to the cultural cataclysm that he fears his homeland is careening towards. Withering scorn is poured upon the protagonists in a tongue-in-cheek narrative that never fails to delineate the decadent morass that collective consciousness has descended into. Egregiously, the variegated vendettas are delved into in painstaking detail that albeit, concomitantly leads to the storyline turning fl acid in spots, as each partner vies to outdo the other in averring that “treachery has its own reward.”

(End of Karan Karayi column)

Blah-Blah!

Time to Mel'low?
In this Year of Living Dangerously, Mel Gibson has managed to get himself embroiled in another anti- Semitic controversy. When caught driving under the influence of alcohol in late July, he let out a barrage of anti-Jew insults. Being the Good Samaritan that he is, he did apologise profusely for being inebriated & saying things, which he later stated are “despicable.” Really Mel! If only apologising were the straightforward solution to "despicable" statements... Sigh!

Milk it to Perfection
A beauty trend made famous by the world-renowned glamour queen, Cleopatra, milk is now passé for just being a drink. The National Research Centre on Camel (yes, NRCC! There is such an organisation!) in Rajasthan claims that camel milk keeps age at bay by making skin wrinkle-free. With this new research, cows are facing some serious competition, since the NRCC team has already developed an anti wrinkle camel milk cream, cheaper and more feasible than taking milk baths. Trust us Indians on world-class innovations!

Gay Pride?
Female fans of Lance Bass, of former boyband *NSync, can kiss any high-flying dreams of meeting this heart-throb and having him fall in love with them Bye Bye Bye. Yep, Lance is the most recent to join the alarmingly increasing group of young, good-looking men in showbiz who have taken to “coming out”. With their new, er, options, many a woman is left dejected…You sure are Tearin’ Up thousands of hearts Lance! d-class innovations!

Amrita A(u)rora
It’s the same tune that every aspiring actress, yet perpetual "item-girl", sings. Yep, by now we know that item songs are "so great, so wonderful, so utterly fabulous; heck, who needs acting?" So say Rakhi Sawant, Mumait Khan and so says erstwhile VJ, sometime cameo girl and most-of-the-time item girl, Amrita Arora. Amrita hasn’t quite managed to make an impact on the big screen yet, one reason perhaps for the acerbic criticism on her cameo roles. But then, did you know that even Robert DeNiro & Angelina Jolie have done cameos? Not to forget big sis Malaika & Aishwarya Rai, who've done item numbers! Unless you do something fast, dear Amrita, the a(u)roar of your career might well be past!

Harry Pott(y)er
The famed young wizard is rumoured to be making his West End debut in the (unpronounceable) play Equus, about a mentally un‘stable’ stable-boy who has an erotic relationship with horses, and ends up blinding 6 of them with a metal spike (Tough love, eh?). Harry Potter fans may want to steer clear of this play since it will feature a stark naked Daniel Radcliff e simulating sexual pleasure while riding a horse; this little one is certainly all grown up now!

‘Bears are not item numbers’
After shooting to fame in Hollywood with models and celebrity activists willing to stripall for the sake of protesting against the fur trade, PETA is gaining a firm foothold in Bollywood. Now stars like John Abraham, Shilpa Shetty and screen siren Yana Gupta have jumped onto the bandwagon of protecting animal rights. Yana is all set to star in a PETA ad campaign ‘bear’ing a message against using bears to provide entertainment, like street dancing, calling it “painful” and “traumatising” for the bears. Thank you ‘bear’y much Yana!