Thursday 29 November 2012

A perverse kind of Dystopian Porn


Following is an excerpt from the chapter Rai's Journey in The Destiny of Shaitan.

The morning following a rave, Rai nurses a fierce hangover and a broken heart in the sunshine at Nina’s café. It is one of the few surviving coffee shops in the city, serving up steaming cups of the rare brew. Already coffee beans are in short supply in the galaxy. Only the better-off can afford it. The rest can only stare at the steaming concoction with greed and lust. The café is tiny and has only four tables. The dozen chairs are so small Rai can just barely squeeze his five-foot-eight frame into one.
After fumbling for his sunglasses, he puts them on and presses his right palm against the fierce pounding in his temples, which springs out of nowhere. The morning is hot, the temperature already in the eighties. The small ceiling fans overhead lazily turn the air, which settles right back down, hot and dusty on his brow.
Rai is dressed for the heat, but a thin trickle of sweat runs down his back. His once pristine white kurta, a loose shirt-like item worn by many in the city, is creased from the night. He wearily stretches out his jean-clad legs ending in open sandals in front of him.
Obviously a coffee is not the answer, he thinks. Then sighs, wondering if anything can heal the hole in his heart.
 The temple next door is one of the many replicas of the original temple of Mumbadevi that have sprung up all over the city. Opposite is a new age shop with roaring business, hosting females of many species from different parts of the world who have come to get their chakras fixed.
Just then the old woman next to Rai, with skin stretched so tight across her face that he is sure it will snap any minute, makes appreciative noises. Nina serves her a tofu, which trembles in its dish.
“Oh my,” says the old woman, fanning herself with red-tipped fingers. “Too much. Too much. I wanted just a little.”
Well eat up, bitch, thinks Rai.
There seems to be too many of these old women around with acid-peeled faces, white tights, and yellow, nicotine-stained fingers, hanging onto equally-aged companions dressed in ridiculous holiday attire. Light blue cardigans, ironed jeans, and old-fashioned Nikons with large lenses adorn them. All of the tourists smile at the quaint scene of the Indian temple with the café opposite playing Bollywood love songs, as if they have come to gloat at the remnants of the once proud city.
Bombay retains a certain exotic appeal, definitely more than whichever city these pests come from.
He wonders again why people still like to play tourist when so much of Earth has been destroyed by natural disasters over the last decade. Few Earth cities are worth visiting these days.
What is the appeal in going from one broken metropolis to the next? Some perverse kind of dystopian porn? 

If you liked the excerpt then do download The Destiny of Shaitan (99p/ 1.22c) from Amazon here http://tiny.cc/szqsewReach me here:
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