100th Post – An Interview With A Narcissistic Piece of Shit

This particular post has been planned by me for quite some time, hmm, since August 2nd to be accurate. Post number 100. Now that is interesting.

Four awards, three nights, if I’d said I was feeling excited that would have been the understatement of the year, well, the month at least. And before some self-righteous saviour of humanity tells me these blogging awards are a gimmick to increase web traffic, I’ve got two words for you, fuck you.

Now one of my friends, not the blogging kind, the real kind, told me I’m generally a very nice person who keeps a lot in his silence but when I write I become someone who is too rude, aggressive and has an attitude. Well let me clarify something, I’m usually like that, at least to hypocrites. I was nice to her, sorry, I am nice to her because she has an equally curious interest in writing. I know, I just ended up being a hypocrite. I guess, even I judge others after all. Or maybe it’s all in my head.

Oh wait, that gives me an idea

Talking to yourself, that’s not madness. Everyone talks to themselves, one way or another. Not talking to yourself, now that’s where true madness lies. There are certain mornings when you just wake up defeated, today was one of those mornings. 29 days, 99 posts.

In every nomination post, everyone writes the last line as have fun, don’t they? So let me do a little experiment. The idea is to be creative, isn’t it? Well, so let me break few more rules, it feels good to be the villain sometimes.

I’d written, as an afterthought to “A Love Story? – Chapter Fifteen,” that I’ll be writing an interview with a narcissistic piece of shit. Welcome to the life of Nitesh Mishra. Only self obsessed idiots have the audacity or more accurately, idiocy to self interview themselves. There is a world within my head, a world that makes sense, a world where I do not worry about God, religion, politics, injustice, a world where I always feel comfortable and in control. Welcome to the life of a self-obsessed narcissistic piece of shit. Yep, that’s me.

Here is the interview of Nitesh Mishra, a self taught idiot by Nitesh Mishra, a narcissistic piece of shit.

**

You know, those scene in movies where there is very depressing music playing, suddenly the camera zooms to some withered dry branches of tree, all over there is gray mist, and the main character is walking into complete unknown. That’s how pathetic my morning looked like today. But instead of walking into complete unknown, I needed to leave my home by 7:15, you know, to avoid traffic jam. I’ve the luxury of reaching my lab at AIIMS until 10:30 but I reach the lab by 8:45, simply to avoid, or decrease, the burden of morning commute.

Thank god for thrash metal, one simple song and it suddenly brightens my day. I mean can you believe that, among the melodies of pop, I look for the total chaos of thrash. People have always underestimated metal, and yet it lives on, four decades now, in the simplest form, metal has always been an underdog. “Hit the lights.” Last night, I watched a documentary, “Heavy – the story of metal,” it was a nice title, and I just couldn’t believe the fact that glam metal used to be such a big deal, I mean, honestly, metal has always been about adrenaline, and they tried messing it with glamour, what the fuck was that?

As I was walking towards the Metro station, my narcissistic alter ego and me, we were having a healthy argument whether we should buy a digital drawing tablet or not. My point was simple in the sense that I do not currently have that much time, my schedule generally remains quite busy. His argument was, we need to make hyper realistic drawings for people to really like us. I know, narcissistic. I simply said, I’m a prolific writer, I can write whenever I want, while travelling in the sharing autos, metro or buses, while I’m on my usual evening stroll or while I’m taking stairs. I cannot sketch that way, sketching requires dedicated space and routine. And it doesn’t mean I don’t love sketching, it simply means I’m an average sketcher. But I’m a prolific writer.

When that conversation steered towards recognition and fame is something I am having trouble remembering.

There is a saying, if you want to see someone’s true character, give them power. You don’t need to discuss Trump for that, DMRC alone has proven the statement correct. Sadly, pathetic idiots like me do not want to take buses, simply to avoid traffic jams and well, DMRC knows exactly how to use that to their advantage.

It’s 12th August today, three days away from India’s independence day. 15th August. So, suddenly every security official starts feeling that they are doing God’s work and suddenly the faith of humanity depends on one overweight idiot who’ll ensure whether your handkerchief can be used to stab someone or not. You backpack goes through uv-vis, you go through a metal detector but no, that overweight idiot has taken the vow that he’ll save humanity today.

I’m the least judgemental person you’ll ever know. I don’t have to like your opinion but I’ll understand it. See, even I can be a hypocrite without even realising it. So if it can happen to me, why can’t it happen to someone else and then who am I to judge. I’m a human being, I cannot stop having opinions. But I do not force them onto anyone, as I said, I’ll understand. So I guess, I understand their need to feel relevant too.

I have this habit, I ask myself a question and then I answer myself, that is how I brainstorm. Either way, the very first question I needed to answer was, “Why I started blogging?”

Let me say this, people tend to believe I’m a stoic with an overinflated ego. Maybe they are right. But in reality, at least I believe it to be real, I equally struggle with my emotions. I just don’t know how to show them any more. Everyone is expecting something different from me. So I started writing. It made more sense, I’ve been continuously writing for eighteen months now. In retrospect, it seems quite a lot. Anyway, so I’ve written some hundred thousand words so far, and they are a rambling of sorts. Things I feel, how I perceive certain actions, some random dialogues, few descriptions and whatnot. Now when I started arranging it all in one coherent prose, I started struggling. Now the more I read, how to arrange your novel, how to write your novel, in what point of view to write your novel, the less I wrote. I felt like a worthless shit, I felt my writing was nothing more than some usual crap. Which is how I came up with this line, “I do not write well when I read.”

So, I started this blog to understand my writing better. Seems selfish, I know. Either way, I’ve been experimenting a lot recently, first person views, stream of consciousness, dialogues based scenes, minimalistic description. I’ve been enjoying it so far and I believe I’ve developed a writing style which is unique to me. While we are on that note, when a character says he or she is drinking coffee in a cafe, I do not need you to describe how many Baristas are there, how many customers are there, what colour the top of the girl or boy the main character is staring, is. I do not want to know the size of everyone’s biceps or boobs for that matter. When you say I’m drinking coffee, I’m going to imagine the cafe where I drank coffee last evening. The iceberg approach, my dear friends.

Question number two was, “Why does writing appeal to you?”

OK, it might sound strange, but there is just too much shit that I’ve absorbed in my life, for once, I would just like to forget all that makes me who I am and start all over again. I’d like to lose it all and find myself again. You know, it’s fucked up but I do miss that numbness I used to embrace in my teenage years, for once and before you judge me, for only once, I’d like to be numb again. Writing allows me to do that.

“You dumb fuck,” my alter ego said, in his usual sarcastic tone to which I simply replied, “Hey, don’t bring my parents into it.”

Fine, question number three, “Which post on your blog did you write on an impulse?”

“I do not force myself to write any more. I did that for a long time. I used to write, edit, re-edit and then re-edit (OK maybe 100 more times). These days I write when I feel like writing (luckily it’s throughout the day), so most of my writing are spontaneous now. Anything that I’ve written in last few months, I haven’t edited more than once. But if I’ve to choose, it will be “The Heretic Anthem.”

Even my alter ego cannot stop from judging my narcissistic tendencies sometimes, “And what do you feel about that post now?”

“How I feel about it now, that’s a complicated statement. I wrote it because I didn’t wanted to feel it any more.”

“Which is your favourite animal, and why?” A grin embraced my face on that particular question.

“Wolves, they are equally loyal and badass and then there is Wolverine, so what is not to like.”

“Which movie influenced your writing, and why?” There are just so many, why only one.

“Predestination, which made me read Robert A Heinlein’s short story, “All You Zombies.” And that story just changed everything.”

“Which character (from any film/ novel/ show/ you get what I mean) can you most relate to? Why?” Now this question has been asked by one too many people in my life. On a side note, I do use “One too many times” one too many times.

“Dr. Gregory House. If you’ve read what I’ve written so far, which I would like to believe that you did, watch this clip, you’ll understand.”

“Which is the most inspiring piece of art that you’ve ever come across? (Can be a movie, play, book… anything.)”

“Can I cheat a little? This particular one which I made. After all it brought me out of my artist’s block so I’m always going to be grateful to it.”

“If you could choose to be a different living form (plant, animal, even a microbe), which one would that be?”

“Didn’t I just answered it, duh, wolves.”

“Dude, it’s getting too predictable.”

“Come on, there’s only so much I can say before it starts sounding repetitive.”

“Okay, first of all, Why are you running, we aren’t in any hurry? And second, your favourite quote.”

“I’m not running, I just walk fast. And is that the point of an interview, to quote someone else’s word? I’ve said some rather nice one of my own. Well, if I must, there is one by Franz Kafka, the gist of which is something like this, I love when I say “the gist of it,” either way, it means that a good book should be like a slap on the face.”

“Alright, you narcissistic piece of shit, I’ll ask you your favourite quote also.”

“As in one I’ve written?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm, there are just too many, but if I should choose one, it goes something like this, “We all are perfectly imperfect or imperfectly perfect, but it always means the same, we are human.”

“So this question is from one of your good friends.”

“Hmm, I only have four. I wonder which one it is.”

“How does solitude works for you?”

“Alright, first let me just put my headphones and start my playlist.”

“Slipknot, again, I mean, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Too much, I guess.” The otherwise grim tale was suddenly braced with a smile on those particular words.

“Solitude?”

“Hmm, so solitude, there is a very depressing line for it, When you’re sitting in a room full of people and yet you have never felt more alone. All you feel around you is an everlasting rain. Water drops that fall on your skin and yet your skin burns. I do not feel any of that, I feel invigorated when I’m alone, when all I have is you, my filth and my twisted thoughts. No one judges me. I can be myself. Solitude, it works well for me.”

“What is your favourite book and why?”

“You mean to say, other than the one I’m writing.”

“Just answer the question, you dumb fuck.”

“For the last time, don’t bring my parents into it.”

“Whatever.”

“The Sellout by Paul Beatty.”

“What?”

“The answer to your question, you self absorbed shit.”

“Fine, next question, what inspires you to write, especially when you have writer’s block?”

“Oh, Writer’s Block. You know I wrote a story about that.”

“I know everything about you, you idiot.”

“Yeah, yeah, fine, the answer is you. You just never stay silent, and I just never stop talking to you. See, I’m doing it right now.”

“Aww.”

“Don’t be a girl.”

“Give a random fact about yourself.”

“Seriously, you had to ask this, I’ve been doing it for two thousand words now. Fine, you know, everyone I know they are quite easily amused. You’re the only one who’s challenging.”

“You praise me just a little too much.”

“I do not lie, contrary to what you like to believe, I state the facts, if they end up being praise, what can I do about that?”

“Okay, one thing you’d like to change about yourself.”

“Nothing. I am who I am. I’m defined by my choices, not by chance. I always chose to be the best. After a while you expect more from yourself, there’s unnecessary pressure but it is there none the less. We chase the high of being best among thirty kids and then somewhere we lose our grasp and suddenly that desire is replaced by the need to be better than everyone else. One day my kingdom will fall and the whole world would pass me by. But I’ll still be defined by my choices.”

“You just cannot shut up, can you?”

“Duck face.”

“What do you do when you’re sad?”

“I talk to you, I write and I sketch. I do not sulk. And if everything else fails, I listen to Slipknot.”

“Uh, not again.”

“If you’re 555 then I’m?

“666. Happy now?”

“Do you think practicing detachment is the way out?”

“Way out from what?”

“Hmm, that’s all it says.”

“Either way, if you’re asking in grander terms of self-worth, yeah sure, why not? Don’t forget, I can count the number of people I care about on fingers of one hand. So my opinion would be partial. I’ve practiced detachment my whole life.”

“What is your biggest weakness?”

“Hmm, why do anyone asks this? I like to believe that I do not have any. See, I’m a narcissistic piece of shit. It’s just it’s easier that way, I do not end up blaming my shortcomings on my weaknesses. High standards. I wrote a Flash Fiction for that, “Being an idealist, everything seemed broken.”

“What do you feel when you look at the sky?”

“Sunlight.”

“Fuck.”

“Oh, terrible humor. Sorry, another nerd joke. I do not believe in God, generally looking at the sky is associated with the concept of divinity. I honestly feel nothing of that sort. And either way, I generally walk with my head down than up.”

“What is one thing that disgusts you?”

“Hypocrisy.”

“Alright, before it becomes too political, how many pets have you had in your lifetime and what were they?”

“None, never had the luxury of feeding one extra mouth.”

“Do you cook or bake? What is the best dish you make?”

“I Cook. Does tea count? Another terrible joke, um, Fried rice with hot and sour soup.”

“How did you develop your blog style?”

“Now that is one question on which I can write an entire post. Hmm, so I say this to everyone I know, “I write the way I talk.” This is what I did with this blog too, I write what is close to my heart, what resonates with me, in simple terms, I write what I know. And all I know is realism and pessimism.”

“What inspires you to blog?”

“Would I sound rude if I say nothing? I write because I have to, otherwise I just might go insane. And that is why I blog. Works like a therapy, I guess. And let’s be honest, none of us has published a tale of two cities (at least I haven’t) so we all are relatively new in the realm of English alphabets. It’ll end up improving my writing skills too, that’s another reason I often give myself.”

“Are you attached to any one possession of yours? If yes, why?”

“My sketching pens, I go crazy when anyone else touches them.”

“Have you ever been to a place that caused a radical change in your beliefs?”

“I’m not a very religious person, if that’s what you want to know.”

“Dude, just die.”

“Hey, don’t look at me like that, I’m imagining you after all, aren’t I?”

**

Post-script:

I just had too much fun writing this, I’ll nominate the bloggers in next post. It has already gotten too long. And I do not want to just name the bloggers, that’s way too simple. I am a bit dramatic after all, aren’t I? So, next one tomorrow. Now let’s see whether I can write the next chapter of “A Love Story?” today or not.

Pingbacks:

The Quill

Blogger In A Blog World

The Bag Lady

A Thought Process

A Writer’s Voice