The alien within

I would never admit it to anyone but I guess I have been at the internet long enough to trust most people here.

I had once made contact with an extraterrestrial being. At that point I thought it was a supernatural being; like answers to my Yoga meditation. It was a spiritual experience for me rather than an exciting space adventure.

It seemed like a dream but I knew things from the experience to analyse and logically deduce that it was indeed a cosmic ordeal I went through.

It started in the monsoon. The clouds were dark and the weather seemed like it would drown the city in its fury. I usually stay indoors during such heavy showers but I went to the terrace of my apartment building to get the thrill of the thunder and lightning that lit up the sky at around 11 PM.

I smoked a few wet cigarettes, they taste funny when wet. Anyways, suddenly there was a zap from the sky at a perfect 45 degree angle. I thought I was dead and burnt alive by lightning bolt.

But no, my heart had not stopped! It had slowed down to negligible proportions. My body was travelling at multiple values of Mach speed. I assumed it to be a worm-hole sucking me to the other end of the universe. Weird thoughts ran across my mind. From horrible images from the movie "Event Horizon" to funny food of the "Restaurant at the end of the Universe" (Hitchhikers Guide).

It wasn't a worm hole!

I was being reformulated atom by atom in a quarantined traction beam. I was later informed that this was for my own protection so that I don't suffer from intergallactic illnesses from my first exposure to life forms galaxies away.

So after this thorough hygiene routine I was face to face with a doberman staring at me with dark eyes of that evil kid in the "Omen" movie. He just sat there and stared. It took me 5 minutes to realise that I was floating above the floor while the dog had his feet and butt firmly on the plastic-like surface of the ship.

When I tried to stand up the dog stood up and said, "Not the blue with the faint red stripe, sir." Before I could say anything, he suggested, "The name is Jeeves and I am your designated best friend". The jolly mutt went about illustrating the virtues of this alien civilisation and the gizmos on the spaceship. We even toasted at the bar to the life on the dark matter cruiser which was an exploration vessel of these aliens mining matter for creating customised new worlds in prime Universal locations. We drank wine of the Europa's under-sea weeds with plasma apples from Sirian constellation. A supernova exploded across the bar room windows. The real estate was booming apparently.

After this introduction it was time to face my new mentors. Jeeves was suddenly sober and strict. He chatted with the bartender.
"If you would not mind stepping this way, sir, I think we might be able to carry him in."

"Carry him in?"

"His lordship is lying on the mat, sir."

I then realised that I was stoned drunk on toxic Jupiter moonshine.


I lay there forever it seemed.

Hours, days, months and years passed before my eyes as I lay there contemplating a new future for mankind.

Finally the dog barked instead of serving me tea!

I was standing on a desert. A desert of red dust and manic winds. A tempest of primordial soup rising above our heads, a spaghetti of heavenly bodies, merging and twisting in endless turmoil with absolutely no noise at all. I understood finally what they wanted. I felt like I was carrying a cross heavier than even that of Jesus. A responsibility that even Atlas wouldn't dare to shoulder. I shuddered at the yellow eyes glowing at me from the sky. I knew what they wanted from me. I was the "change" that Americans and the other miscellaneous people on Earth wanted.

The gladiators marched in while I stood at the center of the colossal stadium.

The ground beneath me sank and as the tigers ran to reach me I was swallowed in mud. Grimy, slimy ooze soaked into my clothes and pores of my epidermis. I was a pea in a pod. A pod planted in a cocoon of cybernetic beings created from the best genetic source of the Universe. I grew scales on my back and hair on my forearms. My manhood throbbed like Mike Tyson on viagra. My muscles expanded and my chest drew in the entire liquid in my pod and I burst out in triumph of rebirth.


"Hey guys, with these powers, I could be a Superhero! I could kill anyone with a thought." I proclaimed to the yellow-eyed midgets in neon-blue lab coats.

"Or you could come be a rodeo clown on Planet 999." they replied in choir like unison.

"But I could save the world"

"Or you could scare the Tiberian Bulls with your fart!" they insisted.

"What do you really want from me?"

Now these yellow-eyed freaks started giggling like schoolgirls. "Can we touch it?" one of them asked.

"We don't have that in our planetary lifeforms" another added.

"We just need to feel it against our skin, hold it till we scream in ecstasy" they went on like that with strange space sex innuendo.

"If I let you hold it, would you send me back to Earth please?" I asked.

And they ran toward me. They grabbed my left-hand and yanked away my Timex. They felt it on their wrists and wondered what the significance of time was to Earthlings.

And the thunder struck again! I found that drinking tequila on an empty stomach with Salvia sage of seers can cause 10 minutes to seem like an eternity.

Full Metal Jacket: movie review

So you thought you have seen the best War movies with “Apocalypse Now”, “Black Hawk Down”, “The Bridge on the River Kwai”, “Three Kings” and “Courage Under Fire” and the others ? Well think again soldier! Because this movie will blow the pajamas off your yellow behind. This is a realistic depiction. This is a life of a man turned into a killing machine. This is a true-cold-blood War movie.

The story based on the novel “The Short-Timers” by Gustav Hasford follows a bunch of new recruits from their training in the Marine Corps into the assignment at Vietnam, into the War-zone and into the dead face of the VietCongs. From the opening scene itself you see the actors and their fate in their eyes. The first 40 minutes is sheer brilliant delight; you can’t miss a word of dialogue and you can’t take your eyes off the regimental training.

From a man to a Marine. R. Lee Ermey who was a Marine trainer was hired on set as a consultant to make accurate depiction of Marine Corps training. His mean brilliance led to Kubrick casting him in the movie as the drill sergeant – he played on film what he did before retirement to real recruits of the Army. From a man to a killing machine.

The movie moves next as the recruits are assigned to the battle-zone. Actor Matthew Modine ends up as a journalist for “Stars and Stripes”, the official military newspaper.

And then the Tet Offensive starts in Vietnam. Under fire, on duty in the field, Modine’s character “James Joker” is asked to join in with a rifle.

“This is my rifle this is my gun...this is for fighting this is for fun” sang the boys holding their rifle and crotch in each hand during their training run.

The drill sergeant has taught them well. They need to remember what they learnt because otherwise “...you would be a dead Marine; and a Marine cannot die without permission”.

Awesome, mindblowing stuff!

The soldier Leonard (also played by a first time actor who worked as a bouncer and gained 80 pounds weight for the role of a fat idiot) steals the show along with the sergeant Hartman in the first half of course.

The last half belongs to James Joker and Animal Mother (actor Adam Baldwin). The last 40 minutes is equally as engaging and spellbinding as the first.

You would think that this accuracy would mean it was shot on location in some South East Asian country. No, Stanley Kubrick did not like to be farther than 10 miles from his home. So the movie was shot in East London in a old location which was being torn down for rebuilding. So the broken buildings are real and they were being blown up gladly by the cast and crew of “Full Metal Jacket” at no objection. Modine is brilliant explaining why he wears a peace button on his uniform while his helmet has “Born to Kill” written on it. “...duality of man” he explains before he joins the ranks of combat Marines. Kubrick showcased not just another movie on Vietnam War. No, what he did was to show how an ordinary American man is turned into a crazed killer for waging War.

Watch this and learn the horrors of War.

Weirdly after watching this movie I have a strange compulsive urge to enlist myself in the US Marine Corps.

Sadly the book and the other books by Gustav Hasford are out of print. Sign an online petition here to bring them back. You can read the books for free there as well: http://www.gustavhasford.com/

At Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Metal_Jacket