Sandpaper

My first brush with noir was with the game Max Payne. Though when I look back now I realise that I had been reading comics of Doga since forever. I like gritty and I have been a fan of it, it's a stylistic choice though and I like other aesthetics too but gritty aesthetic is the closest to my lived reality. I remember that when I left my first college I specifically decided to be an antihero, I was a believer of shade of grey then I still am in some ways but when we consider the political reality of the world dichotomy of good and evil is the only truth. Deep down you are either good or evil, there is no grey there, though life experiences can shape people to be grey though it's always good that turns grey and never the evil so you can say that grey is good that has gone through terrible suffering. I had been suffering with fibromyalgia since I was 18, though now thanks to my medical knowledge I have overcome it, but that came with the cost of knowing the true political reality of the world. I have gone past the phase of an antihero, disillusioned and cynical. What I now know is the truth and if I get power, which is impossible in a setting like these because those who have and gatekeep the actual power are criminals, there is going to be bloodbath. I realised that the providence of this country thrives of raping, torturing and humiliating innocents and the chief emotions it is guided by are baseless malignant ridicule, rape and schadenfreude. Once you get the proof of this, life doesn't remain the same. Noir is a ripe genre for this kind of a setting. I remember getting into black and white photography in 2013, I remember translating my life into noir aesthetic. It's the pain that translates into grit and in my case it was totally undeserved but then I realised that there are millions of people in this country who are being mindlessly tortured and raped in the name of God, fate, karma and providence. I'm just lucky that I found out my diagnosis, baseless hate thrown on to my mind and body especially when I had no business with those who was doing it to me. I realised in the process that honestly doing your job or work is impossible, if not in this country then at least in Purvanchal, and end point of a good person is either being corrupt or criminal which kind of doesn't suit my lifestyle as I'm a kind of person who likes to do his work honestly and come home and read books. The totalitarianism is more than hundred percent, and I can tell only about Purvanchal, your life's decisions are taken by others and then you are forced to live those decisions. The individuals in the providence breed you like animals and you have to fold your hands and keep getting sodomised by them and their whims. This was not the issue though, the issue was that these are local mafia and politicians and godmen of your locality. This is when things became unacceptable to me. Noir is just a genre though and I explore other genres too. Noir is just a something that soothes me, and I hope there comes a time when noir is not required or only exists as a source of entertainment for those who are into grit.