3.2 Viveka
I didn't really think much of the breakfast show. Or whatever you call Mikey's behavior that morning. True, it seemed very odd that he should suddenly turn over a new leaf. But stranger things have been known to happen.
After I mulled over it, I felt that Vhy was just over-reacting. I know how tough it can be with same-sex siblings. I'd just read a Ph.D. thesis about it by a friend at New York State. Susan Ing, a Vietnamese student I'd met while doing my post-grad diploma course in Film Production at Columbia, NY. Of all the places possible, we'd met at an all-night showing of Miyazake films. She was the closest thing to a best friend I had besides Steve.
But then Steve was much more than just a best friend.
Speaking of which. Steve had e-mailed his animated short film to me the previous night. I got his sms telling me he'd sent it, just before the interval of M:i-2 during that big shootout in the research lab. The minute I got it, I apologized to my movie companions--two old school friends I hadn't seen in ages--ducked out of M:i-2 and came home early, just in time to catch Vhy making out with his well-endowed gf in the passage of our house.
But when I tried to run the file on my comp, it wouldn't open. I thought the file might have got corrupted or something, so I'd MSNed Steve telling him I was online and to resend it to me via MSN Messenger right now. But by then, he was neck deep in some rush job animating a sugarfree chocobits cereal logo for an ad agency--literally while the creative director of the agency sat beside him, chewing his nails anxiously because the presentation was the next morning--and wasn't even logged on, which of course I didn't know until the next day, because after 2 a.m. I crashed out.
Today, when I got to my comp after finishing some chores that couldn't wait, it was late afternoon. I found his emails saying he was resending it in a different format, just in case. But there was something wrong again. Try as I might, I just couldn't get the file attachment to open.
It was frustrating as hell. Steve had been working for ages on this short film, and had talked my ear off about it, both while I was in New York and after I came back to Bombay/Mumbai, and I knew the final result just had to be way cool. But I'm no comp whiz like Mikey, I can just about use the dumb machine to get my work done, is all.
I would have asked Dad for help. As the head of a software firm, he knows everything there is to know about comps. But he had left for office eons ago. Mom was working on her weekly opinion column when I knocked and then peeped in her room.
From the tapes she was forwarding and rewinding and watching, I figured it was something to do with cola advertising. Mom gets all worked up about social issues, and I can't say I blame her. I was still trying to come to terms with how much India had changed in the seven years I'd been abroad, studying. Going by all the McDonald's and Coke ads and Domino's Pizza, it was almost like being in NY, NY again. Except for the garbage on the streets!
Mom was sweet enough not to mind my intrusion into her work-time. "Try Mikey's comp," she suggested. "Your father said he keeps upgrading it so much that it's probably equivalent to some sort of a supercomputer by now. I'm sure his PC would be able to open your problem file. Besides, from what you're saying, it's probably a patch you don't have--and Mikey will have every patch ever invented, I'd think."
Why hadn't I thought of that. "Great idea! Thanks, mom," I said. And went into Mikey's bedroom. His computer was already on--I doubt he ever puts it off--and in a few seconds, I was accessing my mail again. It was almost scary how fast and smooth his machine was, even when compared to my P-III. I felt a delicious thrill when I saw the icon of Steve's file.
Crossing my fingers and sending up a silent prayer to Goddess Saraswati as I waited. I double-clicked the file icon when it appeared and...
Bingo!
The animated short began to play almost instantly. The sound was so loud it blew me away at first. I turned it down frantically, then relaxed and turned it up a bit again. Only Mom was home, and in her bedroom with the door closed and her TV on, she probably couldn't hear a thing. Still, I took a second to shut Mikey's bedroom door.
For the next fourteen minutes and twenty-three seconds, I was mesmerized. The instant the film finished, I replayed it. And then again. And again. I must have gone through it some half a dozen times before I finally forced myself to pause the program and get up from Mikey's chair.
I paced up and down for several minutes, excited out of my skull. I decided to call Steve right away and tell him how much I loved the film, how much I loved him, and what a great talent he had. I mean, this was what he and I had spent hours talking about back at Columbia: Animation film that was like the Brothers Quay on ganja but with the solid plotting, cyberpunk craziness and adultness of the best shonen anime. I can't even begin to describe it actually. You would just have to see it to know how totally brilliant it was.
It was one thing to talk about it; but he'd actually done it! Let the folks at Disney, Pixar or DreamWorks see this and eat their hearts out: Even Dinosaur with its $80 million budget looked like an assembly line product compared to some of the techniques Steve had innovated here. And he'd done it alone--taking four years and a shoestring budget. I was certain if he took this to someone like Steve Jobs or David Geffen, he'd instantly be offered a multi-million dollar contract--and he'd probably refuse it! That was Steve, the maverick genius. And my guy. I felt proud and happy for him.
I sat down at Mikey's comp again, closing down the movie program and clicking on the SeeMail icon. That would connect me directly to Steve's laptop and WAP phone. Wherever he was, he'd get the message, open up his laptop and be able to video-talk with me. It was the next best thing to catching the next flight out, which was what I really wanted to do.
Something odd happened with Mikey's monitor at that point.
It went completely blank for a second.
Not just blank, black.
Like someone had put the lights out inside.
And then these words appeared on the screen, glowing like monster eyes in a horror movie:
Do you wish to enter the Vortal?
After I mulled over it, I felt that Vhy was just over-reacting. I know how tough it can be with same-sex siblings. I'd just read a Ph.D. thesis about it by a friend at New York State. Susan Ing, a Vietnamese student I'd met while doing my post-grad diploma course in Film Production at Columbia, NY. Of all the places possible, we'd met at an all-night showing of Miyazake films. She was the closest thing to a best friend I had besides Steve.
But then Steve was much more than just a best friend.
Speaking of which. Steve had e-mailed his animated short film to me the previous night. I got his sms telling me he'd sent it, just before the interval of M:i-2 during that big shootout in the research lab. The minute I got it, I apologized to my movie companions--two old school friends I hadn't seen in ages--ducked out of M:i-2 and came home early, just in time to catch Vhy making out with his well-endowed gf in the passage of our house.
But when I tried to run the file on my comp, it wouldn't open. I thought the file might have got corrupted or something, so I'd MSNed Steve telling him I was online and to resend it to me via MSN Messenger right now. But by then, he was neck deep in some rush job animating a sugarfree chocobits cereal logo for an ad agency--literally while the creative director of the agency sat beside him, chewing his nails anxiously because the presentation was the next morning--and wasn't even logged on, which of course I didn't know until the next day, because after 2 a.m. I crashed out.
Today, when I got to my comp after finishing some chores that couldn't wait, it was late afternoon. I found his emails saying he was resending it in a different format, just in case. But there was something wrong again. Try as I might, I just couldn't get the file attachment to open.
It was frustrating as hell. Steve had been working for ages on this short film, and had talked my ear off about it, both while I was in New York and after I came back to Bombay/Mumbai, and I knew the final result just had to be way cool. But I'm no comp whiz like Mikey, I can just about use the dumb machine to get my work done, is all.
I would have asked Dad for help. As the head of a software firm, he knows everything there is to know about comps. But he had left for office eons ago. Mom was working on her weekly opinion column when I knocked and then peeped in her room.
From the tapes she was forwarding and rewinding and watching, I figured it was something to do with cola advertising. Mom gets all worked up about social issues, and I can't say I blame her. I was still trying to come to terms with how much India had changed in the seven years I'd been abroad, studying. Going by all the McDonald's and Coke ads and Domino's Pizza, it was almost like being in NY, NY again. Except for the garbage on the streets!
Mom was sweet enough not to mind my intrusion into her work-time. "Try Mikey's comp," she suggested. "Your father said he keeps upgrading it so much that it's probably equivalent to some sort of a supercomputer by now. I'm sure his PC would be able to open your problem file. Besides, from what you're saying, it's probably a patch you don't have--and Mikey will have every patch ever invented, I'd think."
Why hadn't I thought of that. "Great idea! Thanks, mom," I said. And went into Mikey's bedroom. His computer was already on--I doubt he ever puts it off--and in a few seconds, I was accessing my mail again. It was almost scary how fast and smooth his machine was, even when compared to my P-III. I felt a delicious thrill when I saw the icon of Steve's file.
Crossing my fingers and sending up a silent prayer to Goddess Saraswati as I waited. I double-clicked the file icon when it appeared and...
Bingo!
The animated short began to play almost instantly. The sound was so loud it blew me away at first. I turned it down frantically, then relaxed and turned it up a bit again. Only Mom was home, and in her bedroom with the door closed and her TV on, she probably couldn't hear a thing. Still, I took a second to shut Mikey's bedroom door.
For the next fourteen minutes and twenty-three seconds, I was mesmerized. The instant the film finished, I replayed it. And then again. And again. I must have gone through it some half a dozen times before I finally forced myself to pause the program and get up from Mikey's chair.
I paced up and down for several minutes, excited out of my skull. I decided to call Steve right away and tell him how much I loved the film, how much I loved him, and what a great talent he had. I mean, this was what he and I had spent hours talking about back at Columbia: Animation film that was like the Brothers Quay on ganja but with the solid plotting, cyberpunk craziness and adultness of the best shonen anime. I can't even begin to describe it actually. You would just have to see it to know how totally brilliant it was.
It was one thing to talk about it; but he'd actually done it! Let the folks at Disney, Pixar or DreamWorks see this and eat their hearts out: Even Dinosaur with its $80 million budget looked like an assembly line product compared to some of the techniques Steve had innovated here. And he'd done it alone--taking four years and a shoestring budget. I was certain if he took this to someone like Steve Jobs or David Geffen, he'd instantly be offered a multi-million dollar contract--and he'd probably refuse it! That was Steve, the maverick genius. And my guy. I felt proud and happy for him.
I sat down at Mikey's comp again, closing down the movie program and clicking on the SeeMail icon. That would connect me directly to Steve's laptop and WAP phone. Wherever he was, he'd get the message, open up his laptop and be able to video-talk with me. It was the next best thing to catching the next flight out, which was what I really wanted to do.
Something odd happened with Mikey's monitor at that point.
It went completely blank for a second.
Not just blank, black.
Like someone had put the lights out inside.
And then these words appeared on the screen, glowing like monster eyes in a horror movie:
Do you wish to enter the Vortal?
posted by Ashok K. Banker at 12.10.05
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