Don't Panic at the Disco!

or how to craft your personality around a single book (hint: not the Bible)

According to one theory, what we know and see as the universe was created in a time-travelling mishap. Against her mother’s advice, an ape-descendent of a planet called Earth once, drank a glass of milk after she had fish curry. This insult to the natural order of things caused a seismic shift in the fabric of reality, which then resulted in her atoms to be sucked out of her present time and transported back to the nothingness before there was anything. At this point, where there was no time and no space, she found a calm that she had never had before, a place where no one would say I told you not to drink milk after eating fish curry. All time passed and no time passed. Taking in this serenity of the moment– a moment which was but also wasn’t– she felt an uneasiness in her gut and puked out her insides. This cosmic expulsion led to the start of what we know and see as the universe. The ape-descendent had caused a grandmother paradox of the zeroeth level and started the very universe she will inhabit billions of years later. This is not her story.

This is how my novel (in progress) originally began. And the last line is a straight up lift from a book that I and many other kooks like me consider to be a classic on par with all the other tomes that make you sad and shit. I’ll most probably change this line and get to something which runs parallel to my current sensibilities (mostly fart jokes).

But I can’t deny the influence this book has had on me. I physically can’t even if I wanted to. It is there with me always, permanently embedded as shown in Exhibit (A) below.

Exhibit (A)

Why would I go ahead and do this to myself? Why? Just… why? You’re a good question.

Moving on, let’s talk about the book: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (and its trilogy in five parts)

Unlike many, my first introduction to this world was through the much-maligned 2005 movie which I watched probably through totally super-duper legal channels in 2016 and my brains were smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick… okay I’ll stop stealing from the book. Let’s just say I was blown over.

Firstly, the cast was almost perfect. My Arthur, Ford, Marvin and Slartibartfast are the actors who played them in the movie. The narration in my head is Stephen Fry, of course. The man could read me Sanskrit scriptures in his dulcet tones as I’m being pyred and I’d burn happy. The writing of the asides and their matter-of-fact tone is what drew me to the story and that is accompanied with the brilliantly funny animation (which was Kurzgesagt before Kurzgesagt was Kurzgesagt). The second half of the movie falls flat on its ass which I later learned is why the ones who love the book hate it.

But it was seminal for me, (Sidenote: do not look up the origins of this word) as I dove straight into the books and came away with the fact that it is possible to write words which are unabashed critiques of bureaucracy and religion, and be deeply philosophical about the nature of life, universe, everything while being thoroughly silly and absurd. It has the perfect mix of the Monty Python-esque irreverent, self-referential British humour and infinities of space. It is, in fact, 42.

In my writers’ group, I’m known as the sci-fi guy but truth be told, I find traditional nuts-and-bolts sci-fi to be incredibly dull (looking at you Asimov). I love the ones that deal with ideas and the absurdity of thinking that we are at the centre of the universe– that anyone is thinking about you is a ridiculous idea. It is extremely freeing when you recognize your insignificance and realize that Shit, I can do what I want! (Still, we have to pay all the credit card “convert this transaction to EMI” bills but you get the grandiosity of the idea no? No? Ah well.)

In a few hours, I’m gonna be at a book club where they’ll be discussing the book in a bar while drinking a Paan (not a typo) Galactic Gargle Blaster. Should be fun. I may or may not edit this to reflect on my thoughts after that but then again after this ritual inebriation, I’ll be at a house party hopefully getting to a state where I am not able to form reflective thoughts anymore.

[4:42 am update: The meetup was buttloads (which I recently learned was an actual unit of measurement) of fun, met old friends, won the quiz and sassed some hoopy froods. Now, at almost 5 am, I'm bleary eyed typing this in the cab on the way home after that house party, I can say that it was a really really fun day!

Oh don't give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit…]

it me!

Also here’s my raggedy-ass Kindle cover that I, in a 4 am panic-induced insomnia, found it calming to decorate with glow-in-the-dark tape glowing in bright UV light. (This was way before the tattoo). And to answer your question, yes I do have glow-in-the-dark tape and a UV torch at hand. Don’t ask why.

Sidequest: Pune Writers’ Group

I’ll plug my aforementioned writer’s group here. We are called (very imaginatively) Pune Writers’ Group, where I am one of the organizers and have been hosting the Thursday Writing Session at Pagdandi, Baner, Pune (duh) every Thursday for the last… jeez… Seven years now! What! Sorry I got emotional there for a bit. Pass me a tissue please. *blows nose*

Ah okay, so despite the apparent death of our Instagram page, we are going pretty strong with up to 4 sessions a week, every week with TWS and another session at Kitaabi Chai, NIBM Road, Pune (duh -uh) being the only offline ones. All others are online. We have critique sessions, Classic books’ book clubs, sessions dedicated to Poetry, Short Stories and Philosophy, Guest sessions, Book Launches etc (the etc here is not used as a way to end the list and emphasize that there is more. I genuinely don’t remember all of the things that we do). I have my intro spiel by-hearted and you’ll get to listen to it if you join in on a Thursday.

That is my snake-oil salesman thing done but there’s nothing to sell! Everything is free! Which doesn’t make any sense for, as writers of primarily fiction and poetry, we are not slated to rake in the bank much at all! Which again begs the question as to why we do this. Madness! Pure madness! And I’m glad to have a bunch of other sane people in this asylum with me.

Reccs:

In this section, I want to recommend things I have read, or watched, or eaten at 3 am while hunched over letting the fridge’s frigid bulb illuminate my guilty face that’s getting fatter night after night of ravenous misadventures, or some fun quirky songs I’ve listened to in the past week.

This week’s recc: A Starstruck Odyssey (Dimension 20)

Continuing our theme of high-sci-fi absurdity, this season of D20 is one of the few closest things that touches the world of H2G2. I’m new to the world of TTRPG (Tabletop Role Playing Games like Dungeons & Dragons) and some concepts are harder to grasp but they do such a good job with D20 that it feels like you are in the game itself. I’ll wax soliloquies about Dropout (erstwhile CollegeHumor) in a future post but for now, I highly recc this particular campaign. Go watch it!