A slow glide and fall with the parabola. Kisses the x-axis once, sometimes twice, sometimes not at all. No grading/marking, and do not use Desmos, or you will miss the point of it (FUN). Self-paced, 4–6 hours a week/4weeks. Answers may be singular, multiple, or existentially absent. Indulgence required; calculators will feel neglected. Buckle up.

#178: ਫਿਟੇਹਾਲ!

ਕੋਈ ਨਿੱਤ ਪੈਵੰਦਾ ਮਕੌੜਾ ਜਾਂ ਕੋਈ ਨਿੱਕਾ ਜਿਹਾ ਹਰੇ ਰੰਗ ਦਾ ਸੱਪ ਜਿਹੜਾ ਮੇਰੀ ਲੱਤ ਚ ਰਹਿੰਦਾ ਏ। ਜਿਸ ਬਾਰੇ ਮੈਂ ਸਿਰਫ਼ ਇਤਨਾ ਕੁ ਹੀ ਜਾਣਦਾ ਵਾਂ ਕਿ ਉਹ ਫਿਰਦਾ ਏ, ਕਿਤੋਂ ਵੀ ਨਿਕਲ਼ ਸਕਦਾ ਏ। ਮੇਰੀਆਂ ਉਂਗਲਾਂ ਚੋਂ ਵਹਿੰਦਾ ਏ। ਅੰਨੀ ਜੀਭ ਉਲਾਰਦਾ ਏ, ਕੁਝ ਮੰਗਦਾ ਏ। ਮੈਂ ਧੋਣ ਅੱਗੇ ਕਰ ਦੇਵੰਦਾ ਵਾਂ। ਅਸੀਂ ਦੋਵ੍ਹੇਂ ਅੰਨੇ ਵਾਂ, ਤੇ ਭੁੱਖੇ ਵੀ। ਦੌੜੀ ਜਾਨੇਂ ਵਾਂ foodbank ਵੱਲ, ਪਰ ਪੈਂਡਾ ਆਗੇ ਨਹੀਂ, ਆਗੇ-ਕੋ ਹੁਏ ਲੇਤ ਹੈ। ਅਸੀਂ 365 ਦਿਨ ਭੁੱਖ ਮਗਰ ਨੱਸਦੇ ਵਾਂ ਤੇ 24 ਘੰਟੇ ਚ ਘੱਟੋ-ਘੱਟ ਇਕ ਵਾਰ ਆਪਣੇ ਮਗਰ। 

ਇਹ ਮਾਰਗ ਨਹੀਂ ਪਰਦੱਖਣਾ ਏ ਕਿਸੇ ਗਾ਼ਇਬ ਸ਼ੈਅ ਦੀ। ਇਹ ਸਾਰੀਆਂ ਪੈਲ਼ੀਆਂ ਉਹ-ਦੀਆਂ ਨ। ਇਹ ਸਾਰੇ ਮੁਜਾਰ੍ਹੇ ਉਹ-ਦੇ ਨ। ਇਹ ਸਾਰੀ ਕਮਾਈ, ਸਾਰੀ ਖੋਈ ਤੇ ਸਾਰੀ ਬੈਅ—ਉਹ-ਦੀ ਏ। ਇਹ ਨਕਸ਼ਾ ਮੇਰੇ ਪਿੰਡ ਦਾ ਏ, ਪਰ ਇਹ ਨਕਸ਼ਾ ਮੇਰਾ ਪਿੰਡ ਨਹੀਂ। ਇਹ ਮੇਰੇ ਲੋਕ ਨਹੀਂ। ਤੁਸੀਂ ਮੇਰੇ ਲੋਕ ਨਹੀਂ। ਮੇਰੇ ਕੋਈ ਲੋਕ ਨਾ ਸਨ। ਮੈਂ ਤੁਹਾਂ ਦੀ ਮੁਖ਼ਾਲਫਿ਼ਤ ਚ ਲਿਖਦਾ ਵਾਂ। ਮੂੰਹ ‘ਤੋਂ ਹੱਥ ਭੰਵਾ ਕੇ ਲਿਖਦਾ ਵਾਂ। ਪੋਟਿਆਂ ਨਾਲ਼ ਨਹੀਂ, ਹੱਥ ਛਾਤੀ `ਪਰ ਮਾਰ ਕੇ ਲਿਖਦਾ ਵਾਂ। ਮੈਂ ਕੋਈ ਸਿਆਪਾ ਪਿਆ ਕਰਦਾ ਵਾਂ ਤੁਹਾਂ-ਦਾ— ਮੇਰਾ। ਮੈਂ ਰੌਂਦੂ ਵਾਂ। ਮੈਂ ਰੋਈ ਜਾਵੰਦਾ ਵਾਂ, ਤੇ ਨੱਚਣ ਬਹਿ ਜਾਵੰਦਾ ਵਾਂ, ਉਹ ਵੀ ਫਿਟੇਹਾਲ ਫਿਟੇਹਾਲ ਦੀ beat ‘ਤੇ। ਦਫ਼ਾ ਹੋ ਜਾਵੋ, ਨਹੀਂ ਤਾਂ ਮੈਂ ਥੱਪੜ ਮਾਰ-ਮਾਰ ਕੇ ਤੁਹਾਂ ਦਾ hairstyle ਖਰਾਬ ਕਰ ਦੇਣਾ ਏ। ਮੇਰੇ ‘ਤੇ ਨਾ ਜਾਓ। ਮੇਰੇ ਅੱਗੇ ਨਾ ਤੁਰੋ। ਮੇਰੇ ਪਿੱਛੇ ਨਾ ਆਵੋ।  ਆਪਣੇ ਪੈਰ ਹੀ ਸਾਖੀਆਂ ਹੋਂਦੇ ਨ।

ਤੁਰਦਾ-ਤੁਰਦਾ ਮੈਂ ਆਪਣਾ ਖੱਬਾ ਹੱਥ ਮੂੰਹ ‘ਤੇ ਫੇਰ ਕੇ ਲੋਕਾਂ ‘ਤੇ ਸੁਟਦਾ ਆਖਦਾ ਵਾਂ— ਫਿ਼ਟੇਹਾਲ਼!

ਫਿਰ ਮੈਂ ਆਪਣਾ ਸੱਜਾ ਹੱਥ ਮੂੰਹ ਤੇ ਫੇਰਦਾ ਵਾਂ ਤੇ ਆਪਣੇ ਹੀ ਮੂੰਹ ਚ ਪਾ ਕੇ ਆਖਦਾ ਵਾਂ— ਫਿਟੇਮੂੰਹ !

ਇਹ ਵੀ ਤੂੰ ਤੇ ਉਹ ਵੀ ਤੂੰ।

#37

There no water, only God. Oh God!

ਜਿਹ ਨੇ 1966 ਵਿਚ ਛਪੀ ਰੂਸੀ ਪਰੀ-ਕਹਾਣੀਆਂ ਦੀ ਕਿਤਾਬ Василиса прекрасная/ ਰੂਪਵੰਤੀ ਵਾਸੀਲੀਸਾ/ Vasilisa the Beautiful ਵਿਚ ਰੂਪਕਾਰੀ ਕੀਤੀ

ਪੰਜਾਬ ਬੁਕ ਸੈਂਟਰ ਨੇ 1983/86 ਵਿਚ ਰੂਸੀ ਪਰੀ-ਕਹਾਣੀਆਂ ਨਾਂ ਦੀ ਕਿਤਾਬ ਦਾ ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਅਨੁਵਾਦ ਛਾੱਪਿਆ, ਪਰ ਕਿਤਾਬ ਦਾ ਟਾਇਟਲ ਰੂਪਵੰਤੀ ਵਸੀਲੀਸਾ ਰੱਖਿਆ, ਜੋ ਅਸਲ ਚ ਇਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਕਹਾਣੀਆਂ ਚੋਂ ਪਹਿਲੀ ਕਹਾਣੀ ਏ। ਇਸ ਕਿਤਾਬ ਚ ਰੂਪਕਾਰ ਦਾ ਨਾਂ ਏ. ਮੀਨਾਯੇਵ / a. minev ਦੱਸਿਆ ਏ। ਮੀਨਾਯੇਵ ਨੇ (1912–1993) ਅਸਲ ਚ ਇਸ ਕਿਤਾਬ ਦੀ ਜਿਲਦ ਬੰਨ੍ਹਣ ਦਾ ਕੰਮ (Designer/book binder) ਕੀਤਾ ਸਾ, ਜਦੋਂ ਕਿ ਕਹਾਣੀ ਰੂਪਵੰਤੀ ਵਸੀਲੀਸਾ ਸਮੇਤ ਬਾਕੀ ਸਾਰੀਆਂ ਕਹਾਣੀਆਂ ਦਾ ਅਸਲ ਰੂਪਕਾਰ ਈਵਾਨ ਬੀਲੀਬਿਨ (1876-1942) ਏ। ਬੀਲੀਬਿਨ ਵੀਹਾਂ ਦੀ ਉਮਰ ਚ ਰੂਸ ਦੇ ਦੂਰ-ਦਰਾਜ਼ ਪੂਰਬੀ ਪਿੰਡਾਂ ਚ ਘੁੰਮਦਾ ਰਿਹਾ ਤੇ ਜੋ ਮਨ ਨੂੰ ਟੁੰਬਿਆ, ਵਾਹੁੰਦਾ ਰਿਹਾ। 1899 ਵਿਚ ਓਹ-ਨੇ ਰੂਸੀ ਪਰੀ ਕਹਾਣੀਆਂ ਦੀ ਕਿਤਾਬ ਲਈ ਇਹ ਰੂਪਕਾਰੀ ਕੀਤੀ, ਤੇ Progress Publisher, Moscow ਨੇ 1966 ਵਿਚ ਦੱਸੀ ਕਿਤਾਬ ਵਿਚ ਈਵਾਨ ਦੀਆਂ ਤਸਵੀਰਾਂ ਛਾਪੀਆਂ।

1905 ਤੋਂ 1910 ਤੱਕ ਬੀਲੀਬਿਨ ਨੇ ਪੁਸ਼ਕਿਨ ਦੀਆਂ ਲੋਕ ਕਹਾਣੀਆਂ ਲਈ ਰੂਪਕਾਰੀ ਕੀਤੀ ਤੇ ਰਿਮਸਕੀ-ਕੋਰਾਸਕੋਵ Opera ਲਈ ਵੀ ਕੰਮ ਕੀਤਾ। 1920 ਚ ਰੂਸ ਦੀ ਘਰੇਲੂ-ਜੰਗ ਦੇ ਚਲਦਿਆਂ ਇਹ Egypt ਚਲਾ ਗਿਆ, ਪੰਜ ਕੁ ਸਾਲ ਕਾਇਰੋ ਤੇ ਐਲਿਕਸਾਂਦ੍ਰੀਆ ਚ, ਤੇ 1925 ਵਿਚ ਪੈਰਿਸ ਜਾ ਪੁੱਜਿਆ। 1931 ਵਿਚ ਇਹ-ਨੇ Arabian Nights ਲਈ ਰੂਪਕਾਰੀ ਕੀਤੀ। 1936 ਵਿਚ ਇਹ ਲੈਨਿਨਗ੍ਰਾਦ ਵਾਪਿਸ ਮੁੜਿਆ, ਪਰ ਕੁਝ ਕੁ ਹੀ ਸਾੱਲਾਂ ਚ (1941-1942) ਜਰਮਨੀ ਦੀਆਂ ਫੋਜਾਂ ਨੇ ਲੈਨਿਨਗ੍ਰਾਦ ਨੂੰ ਘੇਰ ਲਿਆ। ਲੋਕ ਲੈਨਿਨਗ੍ਰਾਦ ਛੱਡ ਕੇ ਨੱਸ ਰਹੇ ਸਨ ਤੇ ਇਹ ਰਾਹ ਜਾਵੰਦਿਆਂ ਨੂੰ ਆਪਣੇ ਸਕੈਚ ਵਿਖਾਈ ਜਾਵੰਦਾ ਸਾ। ਰੂਸੀ ਦਸਤਾਵੇਜ਼ਾਂ ਮੁਤਾਬਿਕ ਈਵਾਨ 7 ਫ਼ਰਵਰੀ 1942 ਵਿਚ ਠੰਡ, ਭੁੱਖ, ਤੇ ਸਰੀਰਕ ਕਮਜ਼ੋਰੀ ਕਰਕੇ ਪੂਰਾ ਹੋਵਿਆ।

I’ve come close to letting this website go many times, but this time it feels like the end of the road. Cards are busted, food is scarce, and eviction has emerged as a possibility. Both this site and my cellphone have been squeezing whatever life remains from defunct credit cards—which, rumor has it, aren’t working anymore.

So I’ll let the towers beep until they stop… and when they do, it won’t be sudden. It’s been a long time coming. Here’s the good news though. Despite very real chances of having to close my website and get rid of the phone, I will be working with the same discipline as before. Paper and pencil— is all it takes. I don’t have money for much else. Huge thanks to Ontario Works, Compass food bank and patrons who helped me get this far.

Until then—
Enjoy your time here.

Sat down to write something, assuming it will go towards “Passages in Weariness”. Surprise surprise! Sohbetçi (footnote writer from Estella) showed up with his cat.So here’s a brief from Sohbetçi for Jean Baptise’s Novella Estella.

Space | 8.21.2025

Things have to fold onto something to exist, even fold on themselves if there is nothing left to latch on to. Planets do that too. Folded things press upon themselves and feel the other. I fold my hands, let them touch each other. Wait, something is inside— a housefly. I can hear her knocking on all the walls. She is inside a living house, me. House hears her, unfolds and she flies away.

Fold anything at right angles to turn it into a home, but it must not spin, or it will shrink, explode, or fall back on its core while you are inside it. Then you’d have to collapse on your core too, that will kill you. Also, houses can’t open up by themselves like hands. You need to tear them down, perhaps set them on fire. Fire stabilizes everything. If you want to go that route, make sure there’s no fly or person inside the house before you set it ablaze.

But I am still inside the house and no one has set it on fire yet. I knock on its walls if outside can listen. Someone knocks back. Something always knocks back.

Rushed outside to find that a package had arrived— Leo, a Bombay cat. I asked the outside to stay out, and brought the cat inside and opened it, a fairly large cat from the inside I would say. I liked her. I swallowed her so she could see if I was a good fit too. We blended well, I spoke cateese and she fed me dead mice everyday. She liked me too. Then I showed her my house made of right angle walls.

“It is small”, she said.

Where shall we go then?, I asked.

Somedays you can stay inside me, others, I will live inside you.

So we made a little arrangement, and there’s Space everywhere. Cats can do that, I have learnt.

Take a cat out of a man, there will be nothing left.

Welfare check is two months late. The City said it was a system error. They apologized. Do not apologize. The system just exposed that there are things beyond reason. I suspect it wasn’t error, but sign. Errors are signs of something prohibited. I have that problem too. I sometimes have this strong urge to send my nude photos to a random address, to be seen, but not as a clothed system. I hid them in manuscripts I sent to magazine people, so they could find me. Never heard back from them.

Sink is jammed again, in synch with my shitting, it makes me collect my own feces with the hands I feed myself with— circuit complete. Only days it doesn’t leak are when I do not eat at all. After the night when I dream of eating my feces with my hands, there’s no appetite the next morning. I wake up, dictate the dream into my phone, then go back to sleep—to dream it again.

notes:

sewer broke/ shit all over/ collect with hands and put in a grocery bag/ … and so on.

Day breaks and I wake up in the puddle, yet again. Sewer pipe broke last night. I don’t rush to fix it, because I have to record it first, maybe write it down. So here I am writing it down so I could read it later and understand what days and nights are made of.

I eat with detachment, so eating gross things doesn’t gross me out. What I don’t like, is sleeping with Freud and Jung, they smell like sewer. I do not like sleeping with people I work with either. They sleep when I babysit them in the daytime, what morons!

Sewer pipe is still crying mud.
Poor pipe.
She’s too fond of me, opening up everyday when I haven't opened up to anyone in years.
Foolish pipe.

Food is scarce, but wildflowers bloom around the house.
Tied Jung to the sewer with duct tape, I went picking.

- Hey Mister cat, what are those blues ones called?

-Blue-eyed grass.

-And their friends?

-Daisies, dandelions, red berries, and  purple clover.

I set a bouquet and announced—
“Listen you two pervert children—Freud and Jung.
I’m tired.”

Let the sewer stay in the day so I can see it.
Don’t plagiarize my night with laboured life.

I’ve got flowers
I’m sowing the night I want to sleep in.

You stay taped to the desiring machine
hold the pipe steady.

A forest thick and lined with pheromone infested apples which fly upwards if plucked. Thieves shrivel, raise their arms and clench their palms, cursing the God who holds a weight greater than the starved and the wretched, still bound to their feet in the litter. Eat Shit!

shoe, a shoe-shoe though we fit in well to breed— sheer tedium, while somewhere else 72 virgins with electric clitorises rub themself on salted bread and men of god, enchanted, fall asleep. Here nothing is asked, nothing is given, so nothing happens, yet we fuck and breed. Here body rises up to block the sun from excavating another inch of land. No! Not you again, something else maybe.

Here imagination crawls back to the garden of Eden not with repentance but the habit of stealing again. A place where food is memory in disguise of an apple and future is shit. Eat and shit day in, day out. Here, madman rules.

Imagine first fuckers without carrying their guilt, or even a temptation in curiosity. Imagine so, for the sake of exercising imagination. Imagine as if anything you imagine would be a secret you could take to your grave. Imagine, if such a takeout was possible. To each a world of theirs and theirs alone, yet fucking and making baby people is possible. Something wants to get somewhere, connect to something, and body is the price. Mutate, mutilate, scratch your arm-pits— change. Imagine, and keep it close to your heart. Imagine something which isn’t there, not yet.

Tie a bag to each planet as if you were tying your own hair before sleep. Plastic against branch, knot against wind. It will not keep you safe, it will not show the way — it will only be there, fluttering. A bag knows nothing, but it knows it is tied. I too have been tied to things I didn’t choose: a jaw, a toe, a memory that insists on walking behind me. The wedding ring is inside me still, soft now, part of some other organ. The planets spin without wanting to, without knowing why. The bags spin with them. You follow the sound they make, not because it will take you home, but because you have nothing else to follow. Sometimes the noise is only in your head. Sometimes it’s in the bag. And you can’t tell the difference, so you keep walking.

They say the mind is a neural network. I say it is a bruise learning to pretend it isn’t tender anymore. You touch it and flinch—but only inside. I keep walking. The gravel is not metaphor. It’s just what’s there. I think I am thinking. Still, there is a strange mercy in this bouncing off of the thought. It proves that at least something returns, if not the thing itself. Even if it’s only some form of yourself, misunderstood by you.

OP: 26th June 2025
Edit: 3rd Aug 2025

revised. 2nd Aug 2025

If there be a self, let it have the body too, lest self can avoid salt altogether. And what such self would be if not a site of constant evaporation of nothing, not even a blind single cell?

Body is mine. Only Body is mine, and it has this strange habit of accumulating salt of the earth,  weighing heavy on the soul. Time blows the entropy ever gently,  deposits calcium over calcium, tooth over tooth, and decay over decay, as if the cosmos ccouldn’t wait to switch the lights off and rest for an eternity. Nothing then would stick to nothing, not even the stuff inside a single cell bacteria. Calcium has arrived to claim the remainder— Everything. All stories, hunger, love, and phenomenology, found well rested in what remained— an absent nose and half a jaw found in the dig. No name.

I cover the house; my body, with clothes, and my mind with thoughts. Though it gets heavier and for all who are born naked, it takes a lifetime to learn to carry the extra weight which shouldn’t have been theirs in the first place. Seeing that it starts with salt and ends with bones, I took off all my clothes and started to brush my teeth vigorously until my gums started to bleed. No! Not the blood! blood is mine. Scrape and floss the deposit, whatever I did not arrive with. Shoes, pens, thought and calcification. Scrape the shit out until a weightless soul reveals itself. Scared, I punched myself in the face but morales fell off, exposing the root canal. Take the deposit, not the roots; they are mine. Fixed my face but the jaw came off. Not the jaw, it’s mine to keep. It has to be dug out and found in the future. Take what I didn’t come with.

I put back the roots and fix my teeth, then the face, using the Bataillian scalpel instead of a Kantian hammer. Kant is good for breaking stones, not fixing people. I might have to sacrifice a few teeth, but I must lose them from the place of abundance, not transaction. Gave away my right toe. We weren’t exactly talking-talking for a while now. Giving away the unproductive surplus, the accursed share, I am keeping the body.

Whatever arrives, arrives as a deposit and attracts deposit—salt. Whatever arrives, arrives from, and for an erosion. it’s only salt— walking back towards a time yet to come. You will be found in the form of a broken skull and half a jaw. The future is made of the past. All that happened, will be found, collected, and returned.

What if the values we hold; love, sin, restraint etc., aren’t universal truths, but artifacts of how the Cogito was wired to think itself into order? Kant’s model of mind declared certain truths “a priori”—as if reason could legislate reality, bypassing experience. Eroticism, however, exposes the fracture: desire arrives where law cannot reach, and the body resists being theorized.

I was laughing recently at a Hindi song: “प्यार करने वाले कभी डरते नहीं , जो डरते हैं वोह प्यार करते नहीं ”. Lovers never die; only the fearful fail to love. But this too, is Kantian in disguise: declaring its own value structure as necessary and universal. The song mistakes feeling for proof—just like Kant did. This is not to insult lovers or Kant, but to take a sassy shot at the Kantian poet who has no fucking clue, but must rub the pen in the groins— “It is so, because so it is”; finding Reason in an act of pure transgression. Fear can accompany any other emotion and more so, if what is held against it and also held high must fall with a greater thud. Must not such thinking cause self-injury? To bite your own tale and pity thy miserable life? What caused what? Point a finger at such Reason, other four point back at you. What convoluted reason and its bastard child, new-found Morals? Why blame only Kant, Schopenhauer offers a quiet death, much like his eastern counterparts who advise not to strangulate but die slowly— by sitting under the tree you could have hanged yourself from? Kant isn’t the first to test those waters after all. Is Love a matter of habits, or is it an external force that makes matter coagulate in certain manner, manifest itself as love? Long story short, neither love nor fear define each other, but become prisoners of Kantian categorization (Reza Negarestani’sSpeculation On Anonymous Material is a good listen, though he ends up eating his own tail around the midway). A value system sold as a guiding map, yet works like a trap.

If one imagine a total moral collapse with such cognition, what emerges is not clarity but recursion. In this blurted out thinking about thinking, one can only defeat old values to rediscover them, dressed in new justifications, posing as revelations.

Erotic thought becomes that irrational force that demands an autopsy—where we don’t just examine what we desire, but how desire itself is formed, filtered, and disguised by the thinking subject. If the Cogito is the instrument by which we imagine freedom, we must also admit it is the very thing that invents restraint. Ironically, Kant made a declaration of freedom of soul by erecting a personal reason to guard the values which make such emancipation possible. A prisoner guarding another prisoner?

To move beyond the moral loop, we need to ask: can the Cogito un-think itself? Can thought suspend its own recursive stupidity and allow for something else to arise; something that doesn’t aim to define love, fear, or ethics, but dares to live them in the collapse of the old? This section begins where philosophy often ends: with an erection and cognitive failure.

When a crystalized “Outside” inside one’s head comes in contact with Lacanian backwaters, it erodes and degenerates in peculiar ways. Every serpent is summoned, beheaded, and squeezed off the last drop of venom; a concentrate suitable for sickness of a different kind. Following the defiant scripts of De Sade and the symbolic economy outlined by Lacan, eroticism here becomes less about physical contact and more about the re-staging of prohibition within the psyche. Reimagined, the law is not merely broken, but re-invented, re-inscribed and dissolved as a purely symbolic act.

The pleasure, then, is not in what is permitted, but in what is forbidden and yet mentally enacted. In these backwaters, taboo and solitary arousal aren’t considered “cultural filth” deemed lower than the divinity bestowed upon man, but a phenomenological framing of mind’s work to produce a space for transgression. Here, the focus shifts from ethical norms to libidinal ethics. What kind of value is charged, inverted, or made volatile in the erotic? When imagination trespasses the socially guarded boundaries of age, consent, monogamy, or morality, it reveals not a moral failing, but an affective truth—that pleasure, when thought through its limits, may expose the structure of desire itself.