Once I’d “settled into” my guest room, it was time to eat. Remember the part of the dream where I would smoke and drink ? It also included buying packaged food and heating/cooking it at home. As evening grew into night, this part bit the dust.

I’d been acquainted with a restaurant about a mile away from where I lived. Around 8:30pm in the evening, I headed out, locking up the room carefully. The cooperative was deserted by this time, giving me the eerie feeling of being literally in a ghost town. The road leading to the restaurant (really the ghat, but I learnt that later) was also semi-deserted and many shops were shutting down. Coming from a city that doesn’t sleep at least till midnight, this was both a surprise and a worry.

Now let me get some things about Tehatta restaurants – and “mofussil” restaurants in general – out of the way. One, they call themselves hotels. Places with the critical component of real hotels – staying rooms – call themselves lodges and guest houses. The twain generally do not meet (I can recall only one example of a hotel providing living quarters – the one at Pantha Tirtha in Krishnanagar).

Secondly, they serve a set meal, with additions based on your choices. Think of it as a Zinger Meal, in which you can throw in additional items with a markup each time. Here, however, the basic meal consisted of daal (with the consistency of swamp water), spicy veg curry and an assortment of fries (potato fries, kochu fries, corolla fries, etc etc.). You could even get some chutnee on occasion. The additions included fish, eggs, chicken (on occasion) and double helpings of the non-veg parts. Base price Rs. 45. With Egg – Rs 55, With Fish – Rs. 60, with chicken Rs. 70. With mutton (rarely) Rs. 100.

In those early days I didn’t have the confidence of dealing with spicy non-veg dishes,  and stuck to the basic veg menu. Out of pity perhaps, I was given some additional fries every time. And for some reason (hopefully not pity), they always referred to me as “Sir”. This, as you’d have guessed, was also not among the Dickensian touches I’d have liked to my fantasy.

The remainder of the day – or night – passed uneventfully. Getting up the next day, I made a shopping list of things I’d need. It was winter, and one of the first things I’d need would be a heater. Also, the bucket. Extension cords, some snacks and real estate renting research. For all this, I’d need money.

One good thing about Tehatta was the large amount of financial institutions it had. There was the State Bank, Allahabad Bank, Canara Bank and United Bank of India. Then there were the ATMs – three of SBI, one of the other banks (except UBI). Now my salary from BESC had been credited to Uco Bank, so it really didn’t matter which ATM I used. After a heart-stopping moment when the Diebold (yep, that’s the name) machine simply stopped making any noise while coughing up my money, I had the cash to get the necessities.

I got hold all the things, except the bucket. While shopping for key rings (an added item), I was helpfully told about the possibility of a house being available for rent. After lunch, the shopkeeper and I set off to see the place that would eventually become my “camp” for most of my time in Tehatta. That done, I went back, rested, then set out and “booked” the bucket on my way to the hotel. On  the way back, I picked up my first steel bucket and clanged it back to the guest house. I fancied myself a lone silhouette on a dark road, walking home wearily, bucket in hand. It’d have been unconventional, no ?

The next day, I went to the college again. The OIC had turned up, as had the half a dozen teachers who had joined before me. Two were quite senior, the others roundabout my age,  and with as much experience as me. The staff room, even with the teachers in it, was rather empty. I’d come from a staff room where taking any chair from its place elicited loud complaints from the person who sat there, and his/her entire clique. Here, you could simply sit in any chair and not be disturbed at all. Even better, the chairs were the padded swivelling type that are usually reserved for dignitaries and corporate officials.

Beyond submitting my joining papers, I had little else to do, so I decided to head back to Kolkata as soon as the situation allowed. For one, I was running out of clean clothes. For another, I was already yearning for the comfort of my bed, the convenience of having things handed to you instead of going out and buying them, and above all, the familiarity of the city. I wanted more adventure, just not now.

The details of the journey will be covered in a piece dedicated to the journeys. For now, let me just add that I submitted my salary papers on the way  at Krishnanagar and then took the train home. My first tryst with Tehatta was over.

Over the next couple of weeks, I got to know the students better, met my HOD and chatted over a variety of things, and finally, finalized the house. Amidst it all, I got a call from my ex-girlfriend informing me that the MPhil form-fillup deadline was approaching, and I should move fast. You’d think I’d rush to complete the formalities, when actually, I’d decided that MPhil could wait. I probably wouldn’t be able to complete my MPhil staying in Tehatta. And even if I did, I wouldn’t do a good job.

Two hours of consultation with my parents later, it was time for a mea culpa on my part. I called the official who dealt with these things, learnt that the deadline was nearly over, and then called my caretaker. He politely told me that he would be up, and even if he wasn’t, I wouldn’t have any problems leaving.

Hectic packing and little sleep later, I was off at seven to a place called Howlia More. Before you point it you, I’d tell you that I’ve already exhausted the wordplay associated with the name. I could say, for instance, that the wind was howling as I headed into Howlia on the morning of 15th December 2015. I could also say that my soul was howling at the thought of navigating my way back from Tehatta to Kolkata for only the second time, and in a way that would allow me to reach before the university closed for the day.

Fancy language and self-doubt in tow, I found a bus and headed towards Krishnanagar. With the wind really howling now (the conductor insisted on keeping at least one window open), we whizzed past the countryside and reached Krishnanagar. Turns out, there was a Sealdah local due in just a while, and even more fortunately, the crowd wasn’t exactly WWE grade. I reached Kolkata around 1, and three hours of cross-Kolkata rushing about later, had submitted the form.

Yet this wasn’t the last screw up of the year. On the last day – 21st of December – we had the annual sports day. Given that I had just joined and had no role, all I had to do was turn up for the day and watch. Sadly, due to a particularly bad train journey, my feet refused to cooperate. The result was more tense moments, followed by a whole week in bed with Amazon providing me the books I needed to pass the MPhil coursework exam. Staying under blankets for a whole week while studying and sipping unhealthy amounts of coffee is a good thing. In excess quantity really.

I won’t go into the other anxieties related to getting my salary started, getting through coursework exams with the college session in full flow and the other issues that plagued my early months. After all, I’ve titled this piece “Meanings” and not “Anxieties of a New Job”. Instead, I’d go into the remaining one year of Tehatta with a more “general” approach than a narrative one, hoping – as ever – that I piss off as few people as possible.

The city of joy loves controversies, and it does so more than ever when the issue revolves around elitism and the target is easily accessible but a bit hard to access using the average Bengali’s finances. Even better if it allows them to justify their own yearnings for being a class apart from the rest. None too surprisingly then, they pounced on a simple incident involving a restaurant’s refusal to serve a driver. As if they would take their drivers to dine with them any day. As if they would be able to afford drivers in the first place. As if….the point of this post is not to rant about the contradictions of the Bengali mind. Enough has been said about it,  and more will be said in coffee parlours and over hilsa fish. Let’s leave that for now.

 

The point that I wish to focus upon is the rationale behind the restaurant – Mocambo’s  – action  and what my reaction to it speaks about me. Alright,  first the event. Apparently,  some woman who had not spent much  time in Kolkata before was here for a week, and being the quintessential elitist that such people generally are (I’m generalizing here, and happily doing so), she decided to head to Mocambo. What separated her from the rest was that somewhere inside she had a sense of guilt regarding her behaviour with her driver. To ensure that she gets her rightful place in heaven (or wherever she intends to go when she’s done with Tata Motors and this life), she decided to treat her driver to Mocambo. Said driver probably wasn’t informed beforehand, since everyone knows that going to Mocambo involves  some amount of dressing up. The result was that said driver and said guilty city-hopper were politely given the boot.

 

But why ? According to the aggreived party, the reason  was that the driver was not dressed properly and spoke in “Indian” languages. That’s apparently the reason that Mocambo gave. If indeed they said what they said, you could bet that the management and staff of the restaurant would make very very poor politicians. Not only did they say the obvious in the face of an angry patron, they phrased it in very poor language. I mean, couldn’t you just say that you have a dress code of sorts ? An informal one that the driver was not following. And couldn’t you simply omit the part about Indian langugaes ? This is the sort of stuff angry and time-wasting litigation is made of, and if the Bengalis had the guts they would already be quequeing up outside courts instead of writing sad statii and sendingg letters to the PM and who-not that will probably never be read (if you receive the same email 100,000 times, chances are your spam filter will kick in). But even then, the ratingg of Mocambo on Zomato has fallen overnight to 1 out of 5, courtesy of a lot of people who vented their anger in extremely despicable language. Indeed, if this is the language that anyone in Mocambo or any other restaurant (or dhaba, or joint, or whatever) used, I’d personally request that person to be thrown out.

 

But that still doesn’t tell us why Mocambo threw them out. I mean, they could simply have allowed an exception and tried to get rid of the unwelcome company as soon as possible. Perhaps the answer lies in a reply that a certain Sabina Yasmin received when messaging Mocambo. The restaurant used the term “fine dining” and argued that allowingg people of the driver’s ilk inside would ruin the experience of the other patrons. This all may seem elitist, and classist, and “racist” (really ?) but consider for a moment why people go to Mocambo. Is it for the fine food ? Some indeed do. Is it for the fact that it is located in the heart of Kolkata and is quite close to the business districts ? For that matter, Flury’s and Trinca’s and a good number of other restaurants are too. In fact, they are all crammed into one stretch of road that otherwise has nothing remarkable.

 

No. Most people go to Mocambo for the experience. They want to feel that they are back in the old Calcutta of the sahibs and the memsahibs. They want to feel as if they are entering a place that is reminiscent of the old Uttam Kumar flicks and stories they have read. And unwittingly, they want an experience that probably would have been denied to their forefathers. In other words, they want an experience outside their class, or, in their eyes,  confirming their class when a good many other things, from having to clean their own houses to bickering with “chhoto lok” neighbours, seems to suggest a certain fall from grace. In still other words, they become classist or wish to express their classism when they go to Mocambo.

 

Now if this is true, why in the name of the Good Queen Victoria would the restaurant want to break away from it ? Neither the management nor the staff nor anything but the apperance of the place has continued from the days of the British. So if the restaurant was to give up its aura of elitism, what would it have left ? Why would people shell out beaucoup bucks to eat what is offered (to some extent) by a much cheaper Oly Pub ? It is this experience of dining where the whites supposedly dined, eating what they supposedly ate and feeling oneself in their supposed imagined hypothetical company, that adds a premium to the food of Mocambo. Ample proof of this is to be found when you find Bengalis (and that obnoxious category called Bongs) referring to Mocambo in particular and Park Street (where it is located) in general as representing the old Calcutta, the polar opposite of the rajbaris (palatial houses) of the zamindars.  It is quintessential British Calcutta as imagined by the Bengalis, and Mocambo caters to this imagination.

 

Now imagine if you’d gone there to realise this imaginary world (and fill your stomach while emptying your wallet), and you found that a person in slippers and an untucked shirt was dining. No matter whose company he had. No matter what the year was, or what the Constitution said. Your experience would still be ruined. You may  well feel that the dirty slippers of your humdrum existence had suddenly appeared in a fantasy world that you were living in. You may identify your own neighborhood servant, or dhobi, or someone else, in the man. The familiar would destroy the exotic, and the premium you paid for the experience would sudddenly not seem worth it.

 

Could Mocambo  take the risk ? Probably not.

 

But what does this tell us about ourselves ? I will not generalize here, for I have already generalized way too much and may be accused of indulging in some weird mumbo jumbo such as “essentialism”. But I can talk about myself here. What do experiences mean to me ? Do I crave them, and what do I make of them ? What am I willing to  give in order to enjoy them ?

 

For a very long time, yours truly was convinced that experiences were someting ethereal. What mattered was the hard stuff – how much you had, how much could what you had do, how much did  what you have cost you, etc. It was all about quantity. I could revel in the fact that what my phone could do was equal to what a Samsung phone costing three times mine would. I could bask in the afterglow of having obtained free drinks or cigarettes or even money. I could dance to the tune of any company that was willing to offer free data or calling minutes. I was always ready to take the lowest possible road, and be happy that I could, at the end of the day, say that I had to give up the least to achieve what I did.

 

At other times, I felt I had something to prove. I could prove that I could have a Patiala peg or a flaming peg or some other monstrosity in a certain  way. I could prove that I could have a certain amount of drinks or fags and still be in my senses. I could prove that I had sex at a certain age and with a certain minimum of effort. I could prove all this, and live up to peer pressure and the standards that I sometimes faced, sometimes made up. At the end of the day, I could still say that I truimphed in this test or that test of strength, or capacity or libido. And tha would add to my self-legitimacy.

 

But times change and so does the heart. The friends who wished to impose standards have usually drifted far, or are themselves coping with the realization that they are no longer the hip crowd of the rap videos. The standards I imagined have proved to be hollow, for once I achieved them, i neither got good memories nor anything to show for the trouble. And finally, repeated gadget failures and an endless cycle of technical problems have forced me to reevaluate the meaning of value for money.

 

Yet what stands above all this is the fact that I have come to value experience more than cost or anything else. Experience on my own terms and following my own capacities. Now when I drink, I drink in order to enjoy the taste and get the “feel”, not to prove how much I can drink. I shifted to postpaid two years ago, and haven’t changed my plan for a year and a half. Recently, when I bought the Macbook Air, it was partly because of the desire to experience Apple and partly because I wanted something that would be a true companion and not a cheap knockoff. In all this, I have come to value the experience gleaned.

 

But what does this experience mean ? At one level, this experience makes life easier and better. You find your sweet spot, your comfort zone, and you stay within it. There is no longer the need to constantly move with the crowd to the latest “in” thing. At one time I used to wonder why people still stick to old phones instead of joining the smartphone revolution. Approaching 25, I realize that many things make our life comfortable, and we no longer find any reason to move out of these comfort zones and grapple with new stuff. Perhaps we can’t, because the problems and work that life involves is steadily  rising, and you want as many assured “working” things in life as possible.

 

At another level however, experiences imply memories. At one point in my late teens and early 20s, I used to value the peg or the plan  because of the memories it could produce. Perhaps talking to my girlfriend for hours on end produced memories. Perhaps the experience of falling flat on your face (or back) after a particularly harsh shot of tequila produced memories. But they no longer do.

 

Rather, they no longer excite the mind as they used to. So I’ve begun to seek experiences that would make sense and give life more meaning. I’ve begun to seek experiences that are not necessarily the cheapest, the easiest or the coolest. I’ve begun to seek experiences, and value experiences, that stay in my mind as something worthwhile and something I may want to repeat. Hence, the Antiquity Blue, hence the Macbook Air, hence a good many other things. Hence the drinking with colleagues, hence the dining at good restaurants…..

 

Good restaurants ? Would I include Mocambo ? Probably yes, I would, even after what happened. I won’t set any standards for myself, as an English-speaking Bengali, as a middle-class Bengali, or any other form of human being. No, I would neither set any standards for myself with regard to the behaviour I would limit myself to there, for I know what is civilized and I won’t let them preach. But I would still go. I wouuld still want to know what sort of food they make, and what ambience they have, and what these would be like in the company of my family. Or friends, if I can persuade them to come along. If that made me feel a class apart from the rest of humanity, or made me want to be a White in the age of White supremacy, so be it. Why ? Because these would produce memories, and those are what I seek. And if I like what I find, I may go again, and again, till such time as I don’t seek that experience anymore.

 

After all, a great experience and a refreshing memory are worth more than any faux ideal, any angry hashtag or any amount of hypocritical disdain, because experiencces and memories, my friend, are what make up life.

It burns!

It burns every time you login and see that update about a girl being “In A Relationship”. When that girl is the girl you have a crush on, you have followed ardently for three years and have liked virtually every photo you could lay your hands on. When that girl was the girl with whom you’ve imagined a thousand happy outings, a thousand funny conversations, a thousand moments of physical intimacy. When you’ve believed at one point, or more than one point, that you may actually be able to, somehow or the other, be able to express your love for her.

But you’ve never spoken to her.

No, never spoken a single word, for she was never there in your realm, in your mundane world, in your rigmarole existence. No, she was not a figment of your imagination. She was real, is real, will be real till she dies. Dies a very human death, the death of a human being. For she is a human being, far far away. Beyond the limits of human contact, physical or verbal. Beyond the limits of your love, where that love is the love of mutual trust and care, of mutual understanding, of expression. Yes, the love that is expressed between individuals, accepted and fostered, rejected and withered, but never kept within oneself. The love that we celebrate.

No, that is not the love I speak of, not the love I had for her. Was it the quality of love? No, the love was normal, the very human love made up of emotions and hormones. Yet it was a different type, different in that it was not meant to be expressed, although I often came very close to expressing it. Yet I fell back, realizing that to express the love would be to lose it, to transform her into someone I may not relate with at all.

Let me explain.

Back in 2013, when I was heading into the first year of my MA first year exams, I realized that I had a lot of spare time. Making adequate use of such time demanded that I use a special account (the history of which shall be told elsewhere) to find people who I wouldn’t normally  deal with. In other, and more prosaic, words, I sought to add girls from “phoren” countries in the hope that my hormones would be satisfied with some extensive window-shopping. So it happened that I ended up adding a lot of people from a certain district of a certain country by means of Facebook’s helpful comments (that history too can wait).

At some point during my search for females, I added her. She wasn’t one of the initial attractions, for she seemed to be least interested in putting up suggestive poses and clicking beach selfies (ah those beach selfies!) But I did add her, and paid no more mind to it.

Gradually however, she began to have an impact on my hormones. Hormones that weren’t directly related to woman parts, but rather, the heart. Yes, I began to fall in love with her, and not her body or her ability to shake the booty. This was something I had never intended, for the basic premise of staying on and continuing to add people was that I maintain a somewhat shadowy identity. Maintaining one demanded that I limit conversation to a level where I cannot be clearly determined to be anything. Why? Because we Indians have developed such cheesy tastes that any girl thinks twice (and Indian girls think thrice) before adding an unknown Indian guy to her friend list. Yes, we are the proud claimants of the title of the “Most Creepy Men on Earth”. Cheers to us!

Anyhow, I also realized that if I did initiate conversation, it could well turn out that the girl whom I was falling in love with was someone who was fundamentally incompatible. Forget the logistics of loving a girl living in Europe, forget the logic of fearing incompatibility with a person I’ve not even talked with, forget every damn bit of logic ever. I was scared of losing the girl I had in my mind, and also, more pragmatically, access to the pictures that allowed me to conjure up that image. I was scared.

So it happened that even when I stopped adding girls, stopped checking out other girls’ selfies and even stopped bothering about the 100 odd “Friends” I had on the account, I couldn’t forget her. I logged in to check out her selfies, her images, her life. Not a word was understood of the statuses she posted, or the comments she made, or the life she lived. Yet, I was privy to virtually all the conversation and media that she cared to put up on Facebook. I was a deaf man staring at her across the street.

In real life, she’d have reported me to the Reichpolizei. On facebook, she probably appreciated the extra “Like” I provided.

Yet for me she was so much more than an image. She was a living creature, a creature who was lovable, adorable and made for me. Just me. She had virtually all the qualities I sought in a girl, and on top, she was beautiful. She was as beautiful as the models on Flipkart or Myntra (which, on second thought, wasn’t exactly off point since a majority of firangi models working for Indian brands come from Eastern Europe). She was caring, compassionate, able to understand my feelings, able to predict what I felt. And oh, I loved her so, cared for her so, attended to her every need.

Yes, we’d meet at the airport someday (I’d pay the airfare somehow), and then I shall bring her home. Then she shall become a part of my life. My real life, my mundane life. She shall become my wife. (Reading it out after typing gives me the distinct feeling of scripting an AIB show).

Anyhow, this one-sided, never-expressed love went on growing till, inevitably she fell in love(I use the word with purpose given that the girls you fall in love with inevitably end up in relationships. This is in no way a comment on the general state or proclivities of womankind). I assume she fell in love and did not manipulate someone for her own needs through the show of love. For how could she, she who was in my heart, be so wicked? So she was in love with someone. Someone Romanian with big muscles and a look that suggested that she was his personal fief. I was heartbroken.

I began hoping that she would have a breakup. And my hopes were finally granted.

One fine day I logged in and her “in a relationship” was not visible. My heart skipped a beat. Hitting “About” on her profile got me the good news. She was indeed Single. Aye, she was there again, for me! My love took off again.

Time flies. It has been two years since the events described above. It would be months between my logins (time enough for any real girlfriend to give up on me) but she would always be there. In orchards, in front of cars, in fields, in classrooms, in parking lots, in snow covered rinks, in various places of the town she calls home. Yet she would always be in my heart, my imagination coming up with endless scenarios and in time, as our love “matured”, positions.

Sometimes I thought I would talk to her as some guy from Europe. Sometimes I thought I’d talk to her from my personal account, as myself. Sometimes I thought I’d obtain her email and mail her my feelings. I felt that if she did respond, I’d at least have a tale to tell my grandchildren. If she did not and blocked me, I’d still go out with guns blazing. Actually, and prudently, I did nothing.

So two years have passed. It had been a while since I had last logged in. Someone, for some evil reason, had posted a picture of Shruti Haasan on my wall. Going against the run of general male behaviour, I promptly logged out and logged into “her” account.

The first picture was of her. It was hazy, clicked probably at night using a selfie camera. Yet it showed those large eyes, that auburn hair, that beautiful smile, those perfect cheeks, those….okay okay I get it, I’m not writing a porn novella here. Anyhow, it almost sent me on an emotional ride again.

I scrolled down, hoping for another image. But my luck had run out. Below was that damned relationship status message, posted just hours after that selfie.

My mind went into overdrive. I remembered how she had broken up the first time. How long had it taken? I tried consoling myself that the same would happen again, probably even faster (damn I’m evil, I’m repugnantly evil). But somewhere inside I knew that this time, I probably wouldn’t be able to hold on, to wait for her.

And so as I grieve for my love and try keyboard torture as emotional therapy, I find myself churning out these creepy lines. Perhaps this is just as well, for a record may well be all that I have left of her once she, or her new boyfriend, decides to prune her friend list of unknown male elements.

But let it be known to those who read my blog that I have loved one that I have never spoken to, never touched, never understood in real life. Let it be known that such love, howsoever creepy, was true. Let it be known that it was celebrated by one when it grew, and grieved for by one when it died. Let it be known that I too, suffered from unrequited love.

But you are not satisfied ? You wish for spicy details, of how I spent summer nights rolling about with pillows on sweaty bedsheets and her image in my mind ? No ? Oh, so you just want her details?

Wait, for I shall raise a toast to her!

I raise this toast to Vasilica, to Suceava, to Romania! I hope you fare well, with whoever you are, in snow and in dust, in Communism and in market economy, in Russian control and in NATO’s arms. I hope someday, Vasi, you find this post. I hope you realize my love, and it freaks you out. I hope it causes you to unfriend me, to block me.

For I have known ethereal love, for I have loved Ether, and if I cannot have you, in Ether shall my love for you, disappear.

Take care, Vasi!

(And so ends the creepiest post that I shall have ever written.)

The moment you read a heading like this, you probably think the Net Neutrality (see my articles on the topic) has lost, or Facebook has signed some new deal, or invested in groundbreaking tech. It could be all of this, and I’d be happy if it were. But this article is – somewhat belatedly – a celebration of something entirely different. This time, I’ll celebrate the victory of Facebook’s purpose, and a lot more.

Let’s go back to when it all began. 2005 was it ? 2007 ? Somewhere around that time. Remember hi5 ? Remember Orkut ? And then we all came to Facebook.

Pourquoi ?

Well, ostensibly so we could all connect on social media. That was a big word, and a tad unnecessary at the time. I mean, we had phones and SMS and email right? And early Facebook was too rudimentary to be something really revolutionary right ? Right ?

Looking back, it was, but we still climbed the bandwagon. We sought out friends who had already joined, and asked others to join, and still others. Then when we felt enough people weren’t around in the chat, or posting updates, we added more people. People we didn’t know, we didn’t care about and frankly, people we only wanted to like our stuff.

This serve the purpose of social media – connecting people remotely in a manner as close to real life as possible. Numerous memes have been made about how acting like we do on Facebook would land us in real trouble in real life, but it’s hard to deny that we have turned Facebook into a second life. (which reminds me, what became of Second Life, the social game ?)

How so ? For beginners, we met friends and talked with them, as we do in real life. Then we added people we didn’t know, as we would in real life. We were circumspect, wondering what sort of people they would be. Some turned out to be idiots (or creeps, or jerks, or sickos, or perverts, if girls were involved) but others became friends. This was like going to a party and meeting new people. Except that every moment was a party, and we already knew something about each person we met courtesy the About section.

So that’s what it became, a place to meet and greet, chat and chatter, snarl and snooze. Maybe not snooze, though I distinctly remember the “moon” icon next to people’s chat icons. Maybe also not meet, because many a times we never met the people who we met regularly online. Maybe nothing, but in the end, we got to “know” a lot more people. Once we knew them, we learned some of them were fake, while others were simply out there to get something out of us. The filtering went on, and we found “true” friends. Sort of, kind of…..

But was it all ? Yes, it was. What did we do beyond clicking photos and uploading them, sending texts and pokes, playing games and sending requests and generally making asses of ourselves ? Did we realize that there could be more to it ? Nope, we did not. It would always remain a place to chat with friends, an auxiliary to our physical existence.

Saying all that has changed would be a massive understatement. Perhaps we could say that our physical existence has become an auxiliary to our Facebook life. But that would truly be hyperbole. So what do we say ?

First, we could say that Facebook has become a place where you could meet a range of people with specific political and social ideas. So Facebook has become not just a place to meet people, but to meet ideas. You could say that was always the case, but the quality and depth of the ideas has changed. As more and more intellectuals and radicals join the platform, debates arise which earlier would never have taken place. Sifting through my old posts, I’m surprised to find how, even when I was an active student activist, I seldom made political statements on Facebook. Reason is, there was very little debate.

Nowadays however, everything that happens anywhere is instantly put before us in the most strongly worded – and sometimes – well-considered manner possible. Every medium of communication, be it TV, newspaper or even the streets themselves, have an echo on Facebook. It is impossible to escape, and why should you ? Isn’t interaction with ideas and politics a facet of the political animal ? Now the political animal has gone on the WWW and the result is a devastating amount of information, ideas and debates.
Second, and related to the first, is the ability of everyone to have an impact. Pretty girls post selfies and they garner thousands of likes, which spurs them to create entire quasi-communities of admirers. That’s impact for you. Err, no, that’s not it.

Impact can be seen when small issues, otherwise buried in half inch articles, become posts in their own right. Someone is suffering from cancer and needs funds. Why would a newspaper or channel cover him/her ? But a facebook post manages that and hopefully, funds do turn up. The funny part is that most of these small issues are brought up by people who we don’t know. Some are friends of friends while others are individuals we “follow”. Or pages we “like”. Through these, we are exposed to a far wider range of facts and information that we could ever have if we’d confined ourselves to friends on facebook. Real life friends that is.

Third, rather amusingly, Facebook friendships have come to reflect real life friendships. You could always defriend (a new word, mind you) someone for hurting your feelings. But what about political opinions ? What if you don’t want to hear what you consider to be leftist or rightist or something-ist hogwash ? Unfriend (another new word!!) immediately. If needed, block him/her. This would be the equivalent of refusing to talk to someone you meet on the street because of “differences”. Some may say it is childish, others may say it is one’s freedom to meet or refuse to do so. Whatever it is, Facebook has now taken on another aspect of our real lives.

Fourth, and rather regrettably, we are entering the era of the online hujuk and keccha. Remember a certain Hutom writing in the 19^th Century ? back then, due to poor literacy, the ordinary folk believes whatever was told to them. Nowadays, if we hear anything on the street, we’re likely to Google it. Read it in a nicely worded and colourful post, and you believe it. Stupid claims, like India’s national anthem being called the best anthem in the world, are examples of hujuk. The Delhi case in which a girl claimed to have been threatened (only to be found with AAP political motives later) is an example of keccha.

Fifth, we have become expert stalkers. At least us guys. Clicking photos of girls in public (or private I guess) without permission is an offence. Following a girl to know her whereabouts is an offence too. Making lewd gestures at her is an offence too. Theoretically, all of these are probably offences in the cyber world under the Indian Information Act I guess. In reality, who’s stopping you from hitting “See Full Size” (oh the innuendo!) beneath a girl’s photo, photoshopping it, “following” her to see all her public posts and then sending all sorts of crap stuff to her.

This has caused a lot of trouble for girls, and guys. For girls, the trouble is twofold. First, as barriers of communication break down and we add people outside our social circles (and classes) to get more likes, we end up adding people with mentalities that are very different. The crasser among them end up sending what would be classed as positively obscene comments to girls after “falling in love” with them. What follows is a lot of howling and growling and blocking. But does police complaint follow ? We are all safe behind computers right, so why complain? And obviously, it’s the girl’s fault she put up the picture which led to the comment in the first place. So much like society itself, no ?

The second problem is that there are some smooth movers and shakers. These guys, whom the girl would probably avoid if she could see them in public from the very beginning, create false identities, luring them into meeting them. The rest, as they say, is criminal history.

But guys have trouble too. Trust me, there are sad and honest guys out there who spend a substantial amount of time poring over a variety of girls’ DPs (variety referring to both DPs and girls) and occasionally, masturbating over them. They want to establish friendly relations, and see if any of them go to the point of a relationship. But hey, how do you know a pervert from a genuine friendly guy (even if he is secretly perverted) ? About sections are becoming increasingly blank, friend lists and relationship staii are disappearing from public view and so are, of course, the bread and butter of the frustrated youth – girls’ selfies. One part of mankind is pushing entire man-kind towards doom. Just like real life.

But while we cry over blank About sections, people who have unfriended us and growl over differences of opinion (and all the while ogle at the selfies we do get and the gobble the “information” and the information we get), let us sit back and wonder how far Facebook has become a copy of real life. In lines and lines of code, which none of us will ever bother to fish out and study, we have thrown in our emotions, our life’s memories, our hopes and dreams and all the communications that hold up the tapestry of life. In doing so, we have, feature at a time, made Facebook a home we can never leave without serious withdrawal symptoms.

Here, and only here, do we feel part of our friend circle, ideological circle, pervert circle and along with these, the circle of like-minded and opposite-minded people across the world, regardless of where we are. In this sense, Facebook has succeeded in its mission of bringing friends – in the real and the broader, global sense, together. And it has succeeded in creating a world that is so much richer than anything we can have at any one moment, at least in terms of sheer information. It has created attitudes and tendencies that mimic real life with real life consequences. And it has created a generation that truly holds facebook above a lot in life. For better or worse, facebook has achieved a lot more that it – or we – ever imagined.

 

They say if you tell a lie sufficient times, it gets the ring of truth. In the age of Facebook, you don’t even have to say it all that many times. Make something anti-corporate, anti-government and on-so-people-friendly and you would go viral. Except viral fever of course, because though the corporates make meds against it and the government uses them to combat it and the virus is so people friendly, we still don’t like viral fever. But never mind.

The issue at stake here is net neutrality. As I’d said earlier, this means that service providers and regulators should not distinguish between two packets of internet data based on where they come from or where they’re going. So a packet containing a request for porn from some shady site should have the same respect and indifference attached to it as a search for a job to timesjobs. Yeah, that’s what it means dear barking dogs!

Propped up against this, supposedly, is Facebook’s Free Basics. This program, provided through Reliance, aims to give the poor and unconnected the ability to access internet services that would make the most difference in their lives. Such services have been parcelled out using apps, and a bouquet of apps are provided whose data usage will not be charged. So they get the basic stuff for free. Hence free basics.

Now barking dogs have great power, especially when they keep their asses firmly attached to their seats and hammer away at keyboards. Like I’m doing. Problem is I’m one and my anti-people headline won’t attract those do-gooders. But I’ll still have my say.

You see yappers, you’ve basically gotten your knickers in a bunch over the word “Basics”. Yep, you think basics should be providing such things as videos, multimedia content, HTML5 games and so on. Yeah, because the poor of the country so totally need to play and fap off right? Yeah they do, but why should Facebook pay for that?

The poor, rather, need information regarding agriculture, jobs, weather and education. They need to know prices so they’re not duped. They need to know where jobs are available. They need to know where to obtain this and obtain that. This and that, of course, are beyond your – and my – comprehension because we speak in English and our needs are so very different. I admit it, so should you pretty puppy.

Now let’s talk of the things they’re not getting – videos for one. Who needs videos ? For every educational video seen, 10 porn videos are viewed. Oh and Bollywood videos too, I’ll include them in the porn category (non-essential you see). Furthermore, videos are typically large and even with the best compression, it would take ages for the streaming to succeed considering the state of the infrastructure in those areas. Since many of the educational videos deal with technical issues, it is pointless to watch even compressed videos with low pixel dimensions anyway.

Secondly, there is this criticism that Facebook isn’t showing ads. That’s a good thing right ? Hell no! They’re not showing ads so they’ll show ads in the future. The mongoose didn’t attack the baby ? It will in the future, so kill it! Facebook aims Free Basics at sections of the populace that have limited purchasing power. Most ads target the middle classes. Tailoring ads to the underprivileged will be a challenge in itself. Chances are that such a challenge and the costs attached will have diminishing ROI because the poor simply won’t buy!

Thirdly, it has been argued that there are very few Indian sites and services on the bandwagon. Facebook is inviting one and all to join the platform and more are joining everyday. By the time this controversy gets over, some more may have already joined. So while it makes sense to say that the service is not very India-oriented at the moment, that’s not to say that it won’t be in the future. C’mon doggies, you said there will be ads in the future. You should be saying that there will be more Indian services in the future. It’s your own logic!

Fourthly, there is that pernicious argument that Facebook is spending money on marketing that it could logically have spent on making internet free for everyone. What hypocrisy! You raised hue and cry and got TRAI to shut it down. For this reason, Facebook has to spend money on marketing to get the message out. You yourself brought this about, and then you blame Facebook.

Finally, it is argued – ad nauseam – that Free Basics should be Free Internet. This means Free Internet for all. To these freeloaders, I have only one thing to say –

ফেসবুকে কি তোমার সোসুর বসে আছে ?

In case you can’t read Bengali, it basically means means – is your father-in-law operating Facebook ? In other words, what right do you have to demand that everything be free ? Has any move been made to make all internet free for everyone ? Either by the government or by a corporate body ? No, because the costs involved would be too high.

Instead, Facebook aims at creating a platform that everyone can access but only those who are truly underprivileged would stick to. Others would move to full internet services and for that matter, paid internet services. This would allow more people to gradually move to complete internet usage as their economic situation improves.

Now you ask – is Facebook doing all this for charity ? Nope, nope and again nope. Facebook hopes to draw in people from regions and sections that are facing the technological divide created by poverty and poor infrastructure. By making one aspect of the internet experience free, it hopes that they would become users of its services and someday, become users of its games and ads and so generate revenue for it. So yes, it is turning poor into future consumers. That’s the logic of capitalism my friend.

Again, Reliance is seeking to expand in areas where internet reach is weak. It hopes that people would soon grow tired of Free Basics and move to paid Reliance internet and other services. At the very least, they would not ditch Reliance because they know that even if they don’t need internet at all times, it is still available. This would give Reliance an edge over other telcos.

Why is all this customer-making good ? Because it creates internet educated people where there were none. In doing so, it creates members of a vast community that can access information – if not today, tomorrow – that is useful. Imagine a world where flood warning and rise and fall in prices are communicated directly to the farmer without any intermediary, courtesy the internet. Imagine a world where the farmer can rally people in his support against economic or social repression. We howl about farmer suicides and oppression of Dalits. Bringing them on the internet platform gives them a voice. A small voice in the beginning, but a voice nonetheless.

Finally, because other companies would be lagging behind, they too would launch their own schemes. These schemes would create competition and allow for wider and still wider range of services to be accessed. Imagine a poor person having two SIMs – accessing Bing for free on one SIM and Google on the other. What’s the harm in this scenario ?

For all this, Facebook and Reliance’s initiative is to be welcomed simply because it proves that capitalism, when allowed to run its course, automatically opens up new markets and creates new customers. These customers, by the very logic of economics, become members of a broader community of people who interact, learn and educate others. This is the power of capitalism and this is the power of Free Basics!

Life moves on, and when it does, you have to move too. By moving I don’t mean the physical act of moving – that’s always there for the muscles and body fluids (pardon the reference!) to handle. I’m talking about moving from one mental plane to another, of acclimatizing to new conditions and situations even when you’re not physically moving. I’m talking about moving from one phase of life to another.

In my case, I’m talking about moving from being a student to being a professional.

In itself, I’d made this move long ago. The day I began content writing, I was no longer just a student. I was someone peddling my skills for money in an international workplace. A bidder soliciting clients and hoping to earn enough money by the hour. Yes, the snooty middle class might not like this definition of work, but that’s what all self-employed professionals are.

Content writing provided me with a lot – still does. But at some point, I moved on again. To Rani Birla, where I began teaching as a Guest Lecturer. I remained a content writer, and for most, I remained a content writer only. I also remained a student and so, in a way, not much changed.

Yet I moved on again, again. Another college, another set of colleagues, another set of students. There were a number of differences with Rani Birla, but I negotiated these, moved in and settled in. Eventually though, I came across a certain situation where the meaning of moving in changed dramatically.

You see, I’d always gone to official dinners as a kid, someone who went there by virtue of being my father’ son. The son of a professional who was part of a fraternity of co-workers. I lived in the glow of my father’s identity. I was comfortable and happy with that. I was happy smiling at all, being complemented for my height and not so much for my girth (I’m fat!). I was used to calling everyone aunty/uncle, finding the right companions amongst kids my age and enjoying the good food.

The food was good in this case, but everything else had changed. You see, I’d been invited by a colleague of mine to her home as part of a social gathering. This colleague was my senior and in many ways, one of the most respected in the college. Along with me were a number of senior colleagues and some junior ones of my own age. All professionals who were employed by the college. It was a professional fraternity meeting in a non-professional setting.

I knew how to behave with my colleagues and I knew how to handle professional environments. This was not so different, but was strangely different. For one, there were children. Children of senior colleagues, children who seemed to approach my own age. I was suddenly taken back to the time when I myself was the oldest kid amongst many kids. Then I realized that I was no longer a kid who was there by virtue of my parent’s position. I was there by virtue of my own position – I was the professional. I controlled myself, exchanged obligatory smiles and settled down to talk with my colleagues.

We sat across a carpet, on the floor, on chairs and divans. It was different as it was not a staff room. The host’s daughter brought us cold drinks. Normally, this would be no big deal – I’d done as much when my father’s colleagues visited. But again, I wondered, should I offer to help? I wasn’t the only one having such thoughts – one of my colleagues wondered the same aloud. It was a strange setting, and we were just getting accustomed to it.

Talk flowed with drink (cold drinks, strictly) and I allowed my muscles to relax. Normally, such relaxation would not be becoming of a professional workplace. There I sat alert, ready to take on my responsibilities. Here, there were none. What there were seemed to be vague and new. Instead of documents and answer scripts, there were drinks and plates going around. What should I do? How much should I relax and participate in the discussion? My body was relaxing gradually but my mind was stiff.

Eventually, the time came for some rituals. Rituals that I had no inkling would be performed and which I had no idea were performed at all. Apparently it was a sort of blessing system for people who would be getting married in the near future. Remaining on the periphery, I saw how professionals took on traditional roles, fulfilling social rituals that had no space in the workplace. I was surreal to see such multiple avatars in individuals. I’d seen older ladies perform the shonk-blowing and other similar ritual requirements in my family, but these were professionals. Would I too be required to take on ritual roles as part of my professional duties? Or would I want to, given that all professionals are part of the society they live in? It is a strange question but one that becomes very pertinent as I move on from being a student to being an academic professional.

Rituals over, drink was superseded by food. Here again, the dichotomy resurfaced. Eating is a gendered activity – the women serve, the men eat. Why? This is not discussed nor usually contemplated. But when your professors are giving out food (“serve” is something I cannot quite bring myself to write in this context), the hierarchies of the workplace become entangled in the traditional gendered roles and one is no longer so sure of what to do. Should I insist that I’ll take the food myself, or allow myself to be given the food by my host? Should I help in serving myself? I followed the lead of other men (and young women) who allowed themselves to be given food. I punctuated each act with a generous “thank you ma’m” – a strange incantation in a setting such as this. But what could I do? The boundaries of the personal and the professional were becoming vague and I chose to remain professional – it was safer, always.

Eventually, the young professionals and the children moved to the roof. What for ? Nothing apparently, just some late afternoon sight-seeing. I farted a couple of times on my way up so I didn’t have to fart before others. I found people engaging in the rather mundane act of selfie-clicking. I posed as per requirement, wondering how the hierarchies structured themselves now. Where was I ? Older brother to the children, younger colleague to the older (but still comparatively younger) colleagures ? Was this a formal space or an informal one? These were people around my age, but not people I’d have known had I not been a professional. How should I act?

We didn’t stay long after that. I left, the same woody and overtly polite person who had come with a packet of sweets a few hours before. If the event is remembered, it will not be for me. It will be remembered for the ceremonies, the good food, for the excellent décor. But I shall remember it as a lesson in the complexities of our social life. A social life that puts us into roles that conflict with each other, turning us into heterogeneous entities with limited ideas of our duties and the way we should behave.

A week from that moment, I was back in an informal setting – the engagement of my cousin. This time, there was no moving in involved. Again, I had no role to play. But here, I was there because I was a family member. This was different from the professional parties I’d attended as my father’s son. But not quite so different because, here again I was being treated as an elder child. I’d grown up, I was becoming fat, so on and so forth. I could talk to people in ways I’d learnt to over the past two decades. I was back in my familiar role as a child and student (and marginally, a professional – no one seemed particularly interested in that).

Looking back, I wonder what the past is and what the future would be. Perhaps the child is in the past, rapidly giving up his childish privileges to become a professional. The future is perhaps the semi-formal gathering at the professor’s house. I’ve moving on from a student to an employee and unlike content writing, there’s a social aspect to being an employee. What the exact nature of such social requirements would be, only time will elucidate. In the meantime, I must learn how to start moving in based on what I saw that day at the professor’s house.

To begin with, let me say that…..

Yessirree, I hereby certify that I’ve spent about 42 real life hours in the game, making Far Cry 4 one of the longest games I’ve played. Is the story worth nearly two days’ worth of gaming ? Nope. Did I masturbate to the main female characters ? Um welll…..nope, since there’s no Citra in here and all three female characters have been wasted.

So why did I spend so much time playing the game, and am spending a good Monday evening typing out this review ? We’ll never know for sure – was it the beautiful and extremely familiar scenery, the Hindi (and Bengali!) music, the profusion of options to take down an enemy or the sheer number of side-quests you could embark on ? Or was it Shangri-La ?

Speaking of Shangri-La (and Shangri Lager), let me mention one similarity between my review and that elusive place in distant mythology – they’re (almost) unique. I’m sick of reviewers giving a graphics-storyline-multiplayer review structure, and then pretending as if they’ve discovered the blood diamonds of Longinus (more on this later). Nope, my review will focus on Storyline (has to), characters ambience and realiasm – in short, the quality of immersion offered by the game.

So let’s begin….

Storyline

Far Cry 4 is quintessential Far Cry ordinary guy becomes superhero type of story, sans the survivalism of its predecessor. Honestly, for me at least, the fact that Jason had to run pell mell out of Vaas’ camp and then went back to eventually take him out on his island (saving his friends along the way), added a sense of vindication that made following the story uniquely fulfilling. With Ajay Ghale, a Nepali…sorry, Kyrati……who was taken by his mother to the US when he was a kid, and has returned to scatter her ashes at “Lakshmana” in picturesque Kyrat, this sense of revenge and urgency are not present. And as Ezio Auditore da Firenze will tell you, revenge is a great dish, whether served hot or cold.

The other problem of the story is the villain. Unlike Vaas and Hoyt, it is rather hard to feel that sort of visceral anger at Pagan Min, a Hong Kong born-drug peddler turned political adventurer who overthrew the Kyrati dynasty and became ruler. Yes, he turned the country into a drug farm and ruthlessly suppressed people and their religion. Yes, he allows men like Paul de Pleur Harmon to torture people and Noore Najjar to run a man vs animal vs man show at the cost of numerous human lives. Yes, his army is inflicting numerous abuses on the people of Kyrat.

BUT…at the end of the day, Ajay is in a weird way, insulated from all this. Right from the time he’s caught with the Golden Path rebels but is instead taken to a fine lunch at Harmon’s fortress, right down to when Min “gifts” Kyrat to him at the end (if the player doesn’t kill Min), one gets a sense that Ajay is the “chosen one”, both for the rebels and the royals.  I kept expecting a twist in the tale that would actually make me want to kill Min right till the moment when he closed the door behind me at Lakshmana, but it never came. Indeed, except for a brief period during the Durgesh Prison mission, you never feel that Min has done you any harm whatsoever. Why go on and kill him, then, if not to take over Kyrat for yourself ?

The Golden Path, the rebels fighting Min’s royal army, are a staple part of Far Cry lore (remember the rebels in Far Cry 3 howling “this is all me!” when you’ve done the hard work for them ?) and are neither better nor worse than their predecessors in the Pacific Islands. Sabal and Amita are less mysterious and more business like than that tatau-monger, but all in all the rebels are sufficiently tepid for them to form an intrinsic but not very interesting part of the game.

Coming to the pace of the storyline, I’d say it is mediocre. Granted that I played story missions at long intervals, but even then, the story takes meaningless twists and turns. For instance, out of nowhere are we asked to take down Noore. Surprises are few and far between, the only two notable exceptions being the first Yogi and Reggie mission, which lands you in Shanath Arena (and introduces us to the beautiful Noore) and the Yuma mission, which we learn was actually masterminded by Min himself.

The quality of the story is decent, and at some places, actually makes you pause and wonder about the results of your decisions in a Bioshock Infinite-esque style. For instance, the mission in which we’ve to dispose/spare either Sabal or Amita (for me it was Amita) is a simple but heart-wrenchingly painful mission. It becomes even more so because you’ve to take down four Golden Path rebel guards, each of whom take away 50 Karma Points from you in turn (more on this later). It’d have been even more heart-wrenching if Ubisoft had put something better than “You’re sparing me, but you’re killing Kyrat” in Amita’s mouth at the end of the cut-scene (again when you spare Amita’s life – hell, I spared everyone, angel ain’t I ?)

To spruce things up even more, there is a separate, unrelated set of quests situated in Shangri-La. You’re introduced to them when you inquire about the thangka (a painting) at Yogi and Reggie’s (really your own ancestral home). Long story short, a warrior called Kalinag was sent by an unnamed king to find the land of Shangri-La, but instead of coming back like a obedient explorer, he went ahead and deffeated the evil Rakshasa that was wreaking havoc in the idyllic place. With the aid of the time-slowing bow, the elephant (penultimate mission only) and the tiger, you are asked to take down different types of rakshasas who frankly resemble the Royal Army units a bit too much once you’ve seen past their colorful attire. There’s not much story here (despite Kalinag providing a shuddh Hindi-only narrative at the start of the missions), but it is entertaining nevertheless, and makes the acrobatics required to reach the later thangkas (in modern Kyrat) sufficiently remunerative.

These aside, there is hardly any storyline to the other missions, so we’ll discuss them in the gameplay section.

Gameplay

Gameplay is, and always will be, the strong point of Far Cry 4. Ubisoft realized that the demi-god-like powers of the player are what made Far Cry 3 such a hit, and they stayed true to their roots. As expected, you get a holster of four weapons, unlocking slots by skinning and crafting through the Crafting menu (now accessible through the M button shortcut). Crafting also lets you obtain larger ammo pouches, explosive belts, heavy ammo carriers and so on. An interesting addition is the bait bag, which lets you throw bait (pieces of flesh from previously killed animals) to attract predators. The predator generated is truly random, ranging from a massively hard to kill bear to a dhole (wild dog).

This randomness is vital, because the type of animal generated decides how effective the baiting will be. “Baiting” in this case means to attract predators to enemy clusters and cause confusion, allowing you to slip out, attack or simply watch the chaos unfold. To UBi’s credit, the system is made intentionally imperfect – if there is a guard dog in the cluster, it will consume the bait, while if there is a “Hunter” in the cluster, it can control any animal that is generated, and send it against you. Lastly, sometimes “No animals seem interested in the bait”. Why, because the government is giving out too much free man-meat to the animals ?

Apart from baiting, there are the standard distraction methods – break open animal cages, cause random explosions, throw rocks or simply position dead bodies in open spaces after you’ve disposed of the soldiers. These variations make assassination, eye for an eye and outpost missions endlessly enjoyable, and just in case you succeeded in a helter-skelter style, you can always replay it using the outpost master game mode (though assassinations and eye for an eye quests come only once0.

Speaking of game modes, there are a good number of them. Outpost capture is essentially unchanged. Supply drops now require you to collect supplies from many areas and only in the last section, where the delivery has to be made, does the timer start ticking. Eye for an eye quests are similar to FC 3’s quests, requiring you to take down a commander with a chosen weapon choice. Hunting missions are now part of the Kyrati Fashion Week series, requiring you to take down Golu with a Ripper. Sorry, I meant deadly honey badgers capable of killing yaks and bears with the best LMG in the game. Sorry again, I actually meant to say that rare animals had to be taken out with a specific weapon class. Golu, we will miss you, always.

These aside, there is an advanced difficulty outpost capture option called fortress capture. Sadly, in easy mode, all but one (Rajgad Gulag) are easy as hell. All you have to do is climb up to a nearby overlook or rocky outcrop, use a silenced sniper rifle and some mines to wipe out the lot. Considering how the game marks these fortresses (walled outposts really) as hard, it’s pleasantly and then worryingly easy to take one fortress after another. And oh yes, take them even when their owners are still alive and kicking.

Exception, as I’ve said, is the Rajgad Gulag, Min’s fortress. For starters, there is no outlook I could find, the entry instead being through a rocky underground tunnel, the lead up to which is mined. The moment I was in, I was discovered and what followed were the 20 most difficult minutes of fighting as the royal army threw no less than a dozen heavies, a range of snipers and 4 helicopters at me. The reward ? Ripper of course.

These aside, there are a number of short quests involving capturing various stuff/killing Yuma’s lieutenants in the Himalayas for either CIA agent Willis or Longinus, a gun dealer. The earliest missions, with their use of oxygen masks, gives a Metro 2033 feel to the game, which sadly is missing in the later missions. Longinus’ own later missions make you feel like an undercover cop chasing and taking down blood diamond dealers and retrieving the diamonds.

Lastly, there are two series of quests – Hurk’s quests and Noore’s quests. Hurk’s quests are interesting, but not exactly novel. Noore’s are far more poignant, and one wishes they’d lasted longer. Essentially they ask you to find the whereabouts of Noore’s family, whom de Pleur is holding hostage.

To finish off this section, let’s talk about enemies. There is the standard foot-soldier who can be taken down in a coupled of knife attacks (or a takedown, obviously), the heavies, who are flamethrowers or LMG-carriers, the Molotov and knife throwers and of course, snipers. An interesting addition are hunters, who are hard to spot, impossible to permanently mark on the camera and capable of controlling animals. While they are extremely vulnerable to gunfire and themselves fire arrows instead of bullets, their stealthy nature makes it insanely pleasurable to perform stealth takedowns on them.

Talking of takedowns, apart from the standard “Death from above”, “death from below”, knife, grenade, gun and chain takedowns, you now have cover takedown. Sadly, it is impossible to tell when a takedown from a corner will give you a normal takedown or a cover takedown.

Ambience

“Namaste”

Yep, Kyrat is as Hindi as it gets, though you do catch strands of actual Nepali at Shanath and other areas. The game was developed after extensive research into Nepal’s culture by the developers, and this shows. Everything from “Bhaar me ja…” in the opening cutscene to the music blaring from Rabbi Ray Rana’s radio (he has his own quests too, but never mind) give off an Indian feel.

Nepal/Kyrat or not, the game provides an unique ambience that anyone who has travelled in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh or Arunachal Pradesh in India would be familiar with. Amidst the varied vegetation, you have a landscape full of lofty mountains, ravines, beautiful valleys and picturesque roads, all seemingly coming out of a Ruskin Bond book. There is also the quintessential Sherpa, who acts as a moving trading post, and can be extremely useful when you realize that you’ve chosen the wrong set of weapons for a mission and need to change them quickly without aborting the mission.

Along with this, Kyrat accurately reproduces the architecture of the region and of northern India at large. Where Indian architecture really blooms, however, is in Shangri-La, where entire temples – fully navigable if you have the desire to do so – have been designed with mind-numbing detail. Statues of yakshis bending on one knee, providing offerings, huge statues of deities carved into stone and of course, the magnificent metallic statue of Kyra (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Tara, an actual Tantric goddess worshiped in Tibet, Bengal  and Nepal) are marvelous in the level of detail they offer. In an era when games only too often portray post-apocalyptic or collapsing worlds full of rubble and debris, the carefully designed temples, complete with rose petals to add a serene ambiance, have to be admired.

If the endless sojourns on the hilly roads and the temple darshans in Shangri-La weren’t enough, the game provides a number of Hindi and one Bengali song (Raat Gyarah 59) by Indian band Bombay Royale. These add a lovely retro-Indian feel to the missions, and make the Maruti 800/Alto cars, the large trucks and autos – yes autorickshaws – seem so much more like what is actually found in these parts of the world.

Far Cry 4 truly is, Tomb Raider and Call of Duty’s Indian missions aside, the first game with a truly subcontinental ambiance, and it creates this in such a way that you’d probably want to skip that trip to Darjeeling in favour of playing this game.

Characters

As much as the developers tried to create an Indian ambiance, they took it away by giving all the major characters (save perhaps Noore) an English accent that is completely removed from the feel of the game. From Min’s “Aaa-jeh” to the weird mix of Indian and Western accents in Sabal and Amita’s speech, one is often left wondering just why the huge budget of the game could not afford some decent Indian voice actors. The only ones who truly come across as authentic are Hurk, Willis and Longinus, the latter’s accent being quite close to his dark looks and the weird torn canvas shirt that he wears at all times.

Beyond speech, the main “heroes” lack depth. Ajay has more depth than Jason, it is true, and occasionally blurts out lines like “I guess I’m the gunman around here”, or “I’ll decide what happens to Noore”. While it is harder to relate to Ajay’s privileged position under all circumstances (compared to Jason’s hardship) one does agree that Ajay has some character.

The other heroes, Sabal and Amita, are well fleshed- out but after a point, become increasingly predictable. Sabal harps on about the ideals of Mohan Ghale, while Amita tries to win you over with a “it’s not easy being a female fighter” and “this was what Ishwari actually wanted” banter. After the first couple of times, this virtually precludes the possibility of the player actually being swayed by either character’s talk during the Balance of Power missions.

Enemies, as in all Far Cry episodes, are extremely well produced. Min himself is beautifully made, with his pink coat, his blond hair and his body language producing a stark yet lovely contrast with the poverty stricken country he rules. Instead of taking his anger out on you (unlike Vaas), he is almost always beating, killing or maiming one of his own soldiers, which actually makes him a more interesting character than Hoyt and in some aspects, more interesting than Vaas. As mentioned above though, such interest is almost totally devoid of dislike or hatred of the character, given that Min almost seems to be apologetically clearing the path for you to become the ruler (even getting you to remove Yuma).

Paul de Pleur Harmon is the epitome of the double-life ruthless but civilized character. He spends half his time in the US with his family, composed of a nondescript wife and a sinister daughter with a knack for producing literature dripping with false empathy. The remainder of his time is spent in Kyrat, torturing dissidents of the regime using all kinds of tools and animals. The player only interacts with him when he is safely locked in the cargo hold of the player’s car and is being transported to Golden Path holdout for interrogation, and he shows himself to be the mastermind behind keeping Noore tied to Shanath. A typical bad guy, and not much more.

Noore Najjar is a totally different person. When she is not throwing men and animals into deadly combat against each other in the 18th Century Shanath arena, she is desperately seeking to release her family from Pleur’s clutches. After throwing Ajay into the arena (and providing you helpfully with a knife to start the slaughter), she shows herself to be a woman desperate and ready to go to any lengths (including running a heroin production ring on the side) to ensure her family’s safety.

Interactions with Noore are completely through cut-scenes, but reveal her to be another well fleshed out character. Fleshed out did we say again ? Yep, wide hips, a lovely waist, heavy breasts, flowing hair and a fair, Indian face make Noore a truly well-fleshed out character. In fact, while Yuma shows more skin (coming up!) it is Noore who sports a truly attractive body, albeit one that is always covered.

Despite these omens, the fact that her assistants are topless AK-47 wielding beauties, did arouse (ah, I can’t seem to escape these double meaning words) hope that she would participate in at least some physical action (wink wink). Sadly, we’re suddenly asked to get rid of Noore. We spare her a bullet to the back of that lovely, long-haired head, but what do we get ? She curses the crowd for its blood-thirstiness, slits her own hand and jumps into the arena to become bear/tiger food. Such a lovely face on an exquisite body, and animal food ? Seriously, Ubisoft ?

Our second female villain is Yuma, and honestly, she was the only one I disliked right from the start. After the “mindfucking” in Durgesh prison, we meet her again as she tries to take you on a psychedelic ride, explaining the ulterior motives of Amita (I’d chosen Amita at that point),. As you persevere using a bow and arrow (in modern Kyrat), you are eventually asked to take down Kalinag. Kalinag, of course, is Yuma herself and she only shifts to her female form after we’ve thoroughly perforated Kalinag’s manly chest. A female character being put into combat as a guy for the player to kill. No, I did not expect and did not want a sex scene with Yuma, but for Banashur’s sake, whoever turns female characters into males in the only actual interaction the player has with her ? SERIOUSLY, UBISOFT ?

The most interesting of the male ensemble are Yogi and Reggie, two drug-addicts who are occupying Ghale home and introduce Ajay to the arena, to Shangri-La and their own drug testing missions. The riot of colours involved in the latter two make Y missions worth it, even though the duo are as insufferable as a persistent honey badger.

Finally, there are some minor male characters – Longinus, Hurk, Rabbi Ray Rana, Mumu Chiffon and a single female character, the owner of Kyrati films. Apart from the latter, who appears in stockings and then asks you to risk your life and reputation in wild races, the rest are interesting, but only in fits and starts. Longinus is on a personal quest for redemption, and will give you a truck load of Bible quotes as he sends you on his kill and capture missions. RRR (as I call him) isn’t a very interesting character either, while Hurk is just good ol’ Hurk. They’re good enough, but only as side characters.

To wrap it up

Far Cry 4 is a great game, and not because of the story or the characters. It builds on Far Cry 3’s legacy and does so admirably. Gameplay is more varied, and the ambiance – waah, Kyrat! With enough side quests, a good choice of customizations and battle tactics and some interesting side-stories (Shangri-La for instance) this visually stunning game easily puts other open world first person shooters to shame.

Namaste, indeed, to a whole new gaming experience!

Hi Guys,

Since you’ve taken the trouble of typing my name (and domain extension) in the URL bar, it is my humble duty to welcome you to my personal blog. And if I’ve to welcome you, I might as well do it in style.

So…..

PS There’s a special offer going on on Amazon for pitchforks. Sadly I lost the link. :'(

Anyhow, now that the welcome part is over, let’s get down to business, which as someone famously said – 

 

My business on this site is basically to share all things that interest me, and which I feel I should share with the world (share, not Facebook share!)

I will be updating this blog from time to time, so if you’re interested in knowing what I’m on about at any given point of time

 

Yes, puhleeezzz keep calm, because (as my real life experience shows) my opinions are known to go left right and fifth dimension off center depending on what is coming out of my mouth. Also, don’t be surprised if I use some cuss words. You know,,,,,,F****** b*****, etc etc.

But if you survive all that and still retain an interest in my blog, you sir, are a man/woman after my heart. 

But that’s in the future. Right now I’m just setting stuff up, and will start posting after a few blue moons (that’s the name of a drink in case you didn’t know). Till then,

Peace Out!