Conceivation

Published on July 18, 2010 in Silly. 57 Comments

[You may want to avoid this post if you want to see "Inception" without knowing anything of the plot and its assumptions. Also a full understanding of this post would require having seen the movie since it  has many "Inception" references. Else I believe it is quite spoiler-free. I would give the movie 8/10 and not 10/10 because my expectations were pegged a bit higher. Still it is quite a mind-bending ride.]

I was sitting in on the famous class on  symbology and of course horny-othology offered by Robert Langda Don at the Lund University. I was mesmerized. In that I was not alone. It seemed that his class, consisting solely of nubile 40 year old aunties with chotis and the sequined short top and shorts of the kind I last saw during the “Girl Eats Girl” act in Ajanta Circus at the Park Circus Melaground,  were also entirely taken in by him.

I of course had been dying to meet him ever since I read his world-famous adventures Da Vinci Da Gupt Katha and Pariyon aur Haiwanon . I felt ecstatic at being finally in his class, though how I got there I could not remember.

Today Langda Don was explaining the hidden messages inside the new Rupee symbol, by rotating it 45 degrees. What started as a discourse on symbolic isomorphism,  soon became a fascinating exposition on how the Communist party forms the hidden basis of much of what is modern India (for example the Lal of Arun Lal) with its conspiratorial tentacles so deep that some of those perceived as its strongest critics like Mamata Banerjee are actually hard-core Communists. I of course was there to talk to him and since it was not possible in class, I waited till he had excused himself for  a bathroom break with his famous “Chal phot chokri” call for class intermission.

Siding slowly into the adjacent cubicle and trying not to see first hand why he was known as Prabhuji, I introduced myself as a fan of his work. He grunted an acknowledgment. I then asked him about the latest Dhan Brown adventure “Khoya Chinh” and his stellar role in it.

The Langda Don was not happy.

“I am sick and tired of the same Dhan Brown plot. Honestly. Every novel starts out with some grand poobah getting killed or kidnapped and our hero being dramatically called in. Then a sinister conspiracy involving some secret society is introduced. In order to save the world from this evil plan,  the hero embarks on a breathless journey accompanied by a female companion who just happens to be thrown in his way. His enemies are always—the ticking clock, the law and a crazed assassin, so weird, as to make Anupam Kher’s character with purple jacket and mohawk in Mast Kalandar appear normal. Even though the fate of the universe is in his hands, he always has time to give fundae like how Mayawati’s statues have Masonic motifs and how the messages of the Illuminati are hidden in the pages of Grihasobha. And most disappointingly at the end when the secret is ultimately revealed, it is never really one of the “Yeh andar ki baat hai” things the world has always wanted to know—-like what exactly transpired between Modi and Tharoor regarding the Cochi franchise and how Ravindra Jadeja manages to get selected, but instead something that makes readers say “Bus? Is that all?” And as a man who likes ladies I can tell you that’s not what you want to hear after going at her for 387 pages.”

I realized I had touched a raw nerve. Or rather a whole knotted collection of them. I looked nervously away from his cubicle.

The Langda Don continued.

“Now-a-days I am working on my a new project. It is called “Conceivation”. It is a technique wherein I insert myself into the dreams of women and plant a seed of an….emmm…idea in their subconscious without them being aware of it. When they wake up, they just go ape-shit crazy over me, singing under waterfalls or dancing thunk-a-thunk on green hills even though I am like four times older than they are. Yes that’s the secret of my animal magnetism. Let me tell you that this is a much more complicated thing to do than the proceedure of “Lootna” or Extraction which my colleague Professor Shakti K pioneered.”

I felt enlightened. For so many years I had never quite come to understand how every woman finds Prabhuji so irresistible despite everything. Now I knew.

“Yes I see you are understanding. I am sure you have wondered why in a Hindi movie when a woman, in the course of a seduction number, takes one item of clothing after another, each inner garment is shown to be even more covering than the outer. The paradox is resolved once you realize that  clothes are like dreams. Both have hierarchies and just as there are clothes inside clothes there are dreams inside dreams, with time expanding as you go down down the dream hierarchy. What is ten seconds in a Level 1 dream is a few minutes in a Level 2 dream and then a few hours in….you get the drift…”

I shook my head.

“Aha…so a inch in a Level 1 attire translates to a foot in a Level 2 attire…..”

“Perfect. Here is another factoid.  Did you know that the laws of physics are composed as one goes down the dreams hierarchy. For example, say you are in a Level 2 dream, having gone off to sleep in a Level 1 dream. Now if the car in which you are in the Level 1 dream swerves, the effect of its motion will be reflected through “composition” into the Level 2 dreamscape. Since Hindi movies are nothing but dreams layered upon another, this would explain for instance why the bullet follows the crazy path as it does in the last scene of Ravana….”

“Or how you can fly in the air and circle-kick ten baddies or how Dr. Rajni can rip space-time with a flip of his spectacles.”

“No that is a bit different. You see we, a very few like Dr. Rajni and Prof Garamendra are dream architects. We have the power to define the laws of physics and the curvature of the universes we create for our audience. So what to you appears to be “bakwaas” is actually the manifestations of our imaginations. Like Ooty.”

Something had been eating away at me for some time. I said it aloud.

“All these ideas sound suspiciously similar to those expressed in Christopher Nolan’s movie Inception….have you seen it?”

The moment these words left my mouth, I was already regretting having said them.

“Us Nolan ki naam ka kutta na paloon. He stole the whole idea from the song “Nayanon mein sapna, sapnon mein sajna, sajna pe dil aa gya”. If you remember that sequence with the thousands of matkes and Jeetendra’s white shoes, the exact same pair that the Rabbit who went down the hole in Alice in Wonderland wore, it had a very dream-like quality about it. Also note please the recursive nature of dreams alluded to in the song—the Sapna in “Nayanon mein Sapna” becoming the Sapna in “Sapnon Mein Sajna” with that Sajna in turn becoming the Sajna in “Sajna pe dil aa gya”. This concept was exactly what Nolan flicked for his flick. Also to note the whole theme of Sajna and Dil. Isn’t that what “Inception” was all about? A love story? Hah. Next you will be saying Nolan invented Nolan-Gur-er Sondesh. I curse some horrible fate to befall that man……”

Langda Don finished what he had been doing and turned towards me, still quite irritated.

“This conversation is over. If you will kindly excuse me, I have to get back to class to start the topic of subliminal messages hidden in Hindi movie songs like the “Teri * ki * “  present in “Yaaron mein pagal ho gya” from the movie Aflatoon and a comparison of the rhetorical devices used in Readers Digest and Human Digest. ”

With that, he turned. Right at that moment, an ear-piercing “Tera surroooooooor” pierced my ears and I realized I was falling, falling.

Presently I was in my living room. A small top was spinning on the seat handle, my very own totem, straight and proud. A song drifted into my ears.  “Latoo Latooo Hui Main Lattoo”.  Ghajini was playing on the TV.

Mortally scared of the fate of Memento befalling Inception, of a dream turned to a nightmare, brought about by Prabhuji’s curse, I started praying for the soul of Christoper Nolan.

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