Acidity is a controversial novelette written for the popular South Asian website Chowk.com by the notoriously eccentric Pakistani music critic and writer Nadeem F. Paracha. Dealing with the rapid social and political changes taking place after the Cold War, the story is also about the author's five-year plight as a heroin addict. Written in a style reminiscent of William S. Burroughs cut-up technique and early Dada lietrature, Acidity viciously attacks modern consumerism, capitalism and organized religion. A novelette (or novelet) is a piece of short prose fiction. ... Composite satellite image of the Indian subcontinent Map of South Asia. ... The front page of the English Wikipedia website. ... Chowk. ... A music critic is someone who reviews music, songs and albums, and writes about them. ... The term writer can apply to anyone who creates a written work, but the word more usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, or those who have written in many different forms. ... Nadeem F. Paracha, (Born November 9, 1967) is a Pakistani journalist, music critic and short story writer. ... For the generic term for a high-tension rivalry between countries, see cold war (war). ... Heroin or diacetylmorphine (INN) (colloquially referred to as brown sugar, junk, babania, horse, golden brown, smack (for the sound made when a user slaps an arm to find a vein), black tar, montega, H, big H, lady H, dope, skag, juice, jude, diesel, boy, etc. ... Addictive redirects here. ... William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs (February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American novelist, essayist, social critic and spoken word performer. ... The cut-up technique is a literary form or method in which a text is cut up at random and rearranged to create a new text. ... Cover of the first edition of the publication, Dada. ... Consumerism is a term used to describe the effects of equating personal happiness with purchasing material possessions and consumption. ... Capitalism has been defined in various ways (see Capitalism in Wikiquote). ...

Though disturbing in its imagery, a rude and bizarre brand of slapstick humor cuts across the book as well. Fans of the novelette have described it as the writer's peak of anarchic brilliance, while its detractors have called it the work of a crank. The novelette received particular criticism from religious readers (both Muslim and Hindu). Humour (Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the ability or quality of people, objects or situations to evoke feelings of amusement in other people. ... A Muslim (Arabic: مسلم) is an adherent of Islam. ... A Hindu is an adherent of Hinduism, the predominant religious, philosophical and cultural system of Bharat (India). ...

The Project

Written using literary dadaist tools such as Automatic Writing, the cut-up technique and "Firsthand Scribbling" (a term coined by Paracha to describe "off-hand writing dictated and instructed by a drug induced state"), Acidity was actually a diary that Paracha kept during his four years as a drug addict. Though already written in an experiemental manner, Paracha, while recovering from his addiction, spend time cutting up the pages of his diary and resetting them. For an article about music album Automatic Writing go to Automatic Writing (album). ...

The Plot

The novelette sprints along an addict’s pathological observations of "the bleak and absurd comedy of 21st century’s social and political neurosis and his equally pathological dialogues with the main players of these neo-millennium-neurosis." While comparatively, the addict prides himself "to go whir pooling in the good old elements of old fashioned chemical psychosis, idealistic decadence and slacker-lethargy" he believes these have more sincerity and ideological purpose. Detractors of the novelette criticised it for being too violent, absured and disturbing, but over the years it has managed to bag quite a few fans as well. And though it is true that it attacks organized religion and capitalism viciously, fans love the madcap and absurdist humor that runs across the novelette and which is almost slapstick in essence. And not only does Paracha mock and attack religion and capitalism, he mocks and parody's his own drug induced state as well. Paracha called Acidity "a lovely little example of Chaplinsque humor emerging from a mind going through a nervous breakdown and a drug overdose!" Disambiguation: Theatre of the Absurd In Philosophy, The Absurd refers to humans who continue to live their lives, despite knowledge that their lives are utterly pointless. ... The term neurosis was coined by the Scottish doctor, William Cullen in 1769 to refer to “disorders of sense and motion” caused by a “general affection of the nervous system. ... Psychosis is a generic psychiatric term for mental states in which the components of rational thought and perception are severely impaired. ... Absurdism is a philosophy, usually translated into different art forms, that holds that any attempt to understand the universe will fail. ...

See also

• www.chowk.com
• Nadeem F. Paracha
• William S. Burroughs
• Dada

Chowk. ... Nadeem F. Paracha, (Born November 9, 1967) is a Pakistani journalist, music critic and short story writer. ... William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs (February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American novelist, essayist, social critic and spoken word performer. ... Cover of the first edition of the publication, Dada. ...

Read online

• Acidity (http://www.chowk.com/show_article.cgi?aid=00002651&channel=leafyglade%20inn&start=0&end=9&chapter=1&page=1)