Emily Rose Page

There are not many artists who dealt with Black Humour with success. A Professer from Victoria college, Palakkad who came to our college to lecture on absurd drama related some interesting instances of Black Humour.He remembered a Tamil movie he saw when he was a child, the name of which he didn’t remember. It was a song-sequence in which the two heroes sing in order to woo the heroine, in a boat. The boat is speeding through the backwaters and the guys are singing to their death to get a glance of the heroine. On one occasion one of these fellows fell over board as he was singing an‘adventurous note’ by hanging over the balustrades of the boat. He “sung himself to death” literally while the other guy continued singing and wooing, with out noticing the event which took place almost in front of his eyes. Get a shock or laugh! We don’t know really what to do. There you are with black humour.

There is another oft- quoted example, where a man who is about to hang himself tried to pull his trousers up, which went down while he “kicked the bucket”. There is an advanced form of Black Humour which can be called Macabre Humour.It is a kind of humour that arises from macabre and Horrific situations which we cannot suppose in life to happen, but used in films and literature to get some effects. The master of macabre Humour in literature is, in my opinion, Ambrose Bierce, the American writer. He was trained on Edgar Allen Poe, Hawthorn and Mark Twain and was their contemporary. He dealt with the themes of these writers with varying success, however he is today best remembered for his tales of Macabre Humour.One of the most famous tales is Oil of Dog,
a story I advocate for those having good nerves.

The story is about Boffer Bings and his parents. His father manufactured dog oil and his mother ran a studio where the unwanted children are destroyed. The young boy Bings worked as an errant boy for his parents. One day Bings happened to drop the corpse of a child in the cauldron of dog oil as he saw a suspicious policeman around the place. It was later reported that, that day’s dog-oil was of high quality and the Bings family began producing Baby Oils after that .The mother even began to kidnap children in order to put in the hot cauldron. One day the authorities asked them to stop the business. So one night both the husband and wife decided to kill each other and make oil .In their attempt both of them fell in the cauldron and died.

I must say that it is one of the bizarre stories ever written in literature in its content and the language. It is not easy to express what feelings this story evokes in our mind. Some other stories of Bierce in same vein are Bottomless Grave and My Favourite Murder. The effect of these stories comes from the light or disinterested treatment of mortality, which is generally a solemn issue for human beings. Topics and events that are usually treated seriously — death, mass murder, suicide, sickness, madness, terror, drug abuse, rape, war, etc are treated in a humorous or satirical manner in such works.

Alfred Hitchcock is one of the very few directors who made use of the effects of Black humour in his films. A good example is The Trouble with Harry (1950), which is generally regarded as a less fruitful attempt by Hitchcock. In fact it is an underrated masterpiece. In 1950s Hitchcock was in the top of his form when he produced films with, primarily, audience in his mind. However The Trouble with Harry came out of Hitchcock’s deep interest in the treatment of the story.

The film is set in an autumn in Vermont valley capturing picture postcard-locations of the village. Among the pleasant sights appears the dead body of Harry.Captain Wiles thinks he shot Harry accidently and want to bury him.Mrs.Gravely thinks that it was her blow that killed him. Sam Marlow, the artist helps Captain Wiles to bury the corpse, which is unearthed several times in course of the story until Dr. Greenbowl confirmed that the death of Harry was caused by natural causes and every one of the party were acquitted of guilt. They took the body home washed and ironed his clothes and left it open in the place where they first saw him and the their trouble with Harry was over.

The film was based on a novel of same name by Jack Trevor Story. The story seems to take place in world where death and all its associations are matters of little importance. But we know that in our world it is not so. We can’t joke in presence of death. That makes it chilling to see people deal with Harry as they go on interring and disinterring him and having a good time doing it. The film stands aloof from the whole body of works of Hitchcock, but unfortunately it is not acknowledged by audience and critics. Hitchcock was very much interested in presenting dangers and horrors in an unlikely atmosphere, which he illustrates as “the murder by brook”. Thus in marvelous autumn of Vermont the last thing we think of is a corpse and there it is. The film often resemble an absurd drama when the film goes on rendering various people’s responses at the dead body, like Dr.Greenbowl stumbling over it and apologizing, and the town tramp stealing the shoes of Harry.

Hitchcock’s 1972 film Frenzy continues his portrayal of Black humour. This is a horror film but it carefully interspersed with subtle humour resulting in the acceleration of macabre effect of the film. A necktie murderer is loose upon London in this story. As in every film by Hitchcock he reveals the murderer early in the film , a sex maniac who rapes and murders women by strangling with the neck tie. After the murder of a woman the murderer realizes that the pin of his tie is in the fist of the dead woman, whom he left in a potato sack in a wagon. He has a tough time in retrieving the pin from the fist of the corpse, which is stiff out of rigor mortis. The feet of the corpse come up and kick his face as the wagon moves when he struggles to take the pin from the corpse’s hand. This set piece is a fine example of black humour .The convulsions freezed in the face of the dead women seems comic at the same time horrible.

If we are chilled watching a macabre humour film, it’s a good omen. That means ‘God’s in his heaven’ and ‘all’s right with the world’. But if we feel its normal, begin to fear. Some thing has gone wrong.
The world may have become ‘black’. The trouble with black humour just begins then…

It remained with me. I know it did. When he left my room that day, I knew that he had left some thing with me besides the cigarette stump he dropped in my ashtray. So I record this event in my diary apart from the routine documentation of official affairs. Infact, as per my usual way this is a time I go for a pleasant stroll in the Marine Drive with Rosy and my children after the successful completion of a pretty good business. I think I wont forgive my self for pondering over the jaathakam of a dead bo(d)y.

I wonder how human beings are subjected to odd behaviors. As an ordinary businessman in Cochin or rather Kochi, as they call it now, I had very little chance to deal with people like the one I am going top tell about. They say Kochi has changed a lot. However, as it is said in a film recently, though Kochi is not the old one, I must say the I remains the same from my shabby boyhood days to this man of Metropolitan Kochi. Changed or not, the city is just wonderful, though sometimes I think I want to flee some where when I take a walk through the city to recount my old days. Some times I stand kneeling on the balustrades of the Venduruthy bridge, feeling with fingers its familiar roughness, staring at the fearful depth of Vembanad and the poisonous blue sky against the irregularities of the shipyard.

I run a Private Transport Company in Kochi from 1988 onwards, named Velankanni Matha Transport Co-operation Private Ltd. I have five Volvo buses running between Kochi and Mumbai, and a five storied building amidst the city, which include lodges and a margin free market. I was very committed to my business and it was expanding literally and figuratively. See, as I judge myself, a man in the latter half of forties, I am very straightforward regarding all activities of my life, and am not averse to confessing to you those things which some of my friends, who are in the same business, thinks as something below their dignity to do.

Those who know me and my business know very well that my real business is Pani Theerkkal or Quotation as we say in local language. That means, in simple language, killing for money. In Malayalam we have a proverb that one shouldn’t forget the way he came. I followed it. It was my first profession. But I didn’t linger there but went on experimenting, and rendered a kind of respectability to this job. So today I am not that twenty- three-year-old Thotti Thoma who slept under railway overbridge near Ernakulam North station, but Thomas Kurisinkal of Velankanni group. That is hard work and professionalism, not to forget God’s grace. I spent a considerable amount of money every year for lighting candles in the churches, for muslim Yatheem khanas and for the Temple affairs in which my wife has a strong belief. I even used to put some coins in the synagogue in Mattancherry.

I digressed a little. I must say some thing about my business. It was one of the profitable businesses in the city, I must say, as a person who is in it for almost fifteen years. It was not the petty quotation of hundred rupees of old days, but deals involving lakhs. That’s it. If my knowledge is correct, there are more than ten companies in the city working under respectable names. I am proud to say that Velankanni group has earned the trust and admiration of its clients through these years. I was careful to provide every benefit and satisfaction to my clients. I lived happily in a two-storied house in the suburb of the city with my beautiful wife and two angelic children she has borne to me. I was a loyal husband to my wife and a loving father to my children.

The day my story started was a fine Monday morning when a young man in black dress tapped the door of my office-room and asked, “May I come in, Sir?” I was reading a book and munching my favourite seedless grapes, when I raised my head and motioned him in and asked him to sit down. He was a boy of early twenties with fine reddish brown beard and long hair which hung up to his shoulders. Through his shirt I can see an inverted crossed tattooed on top of his hairless chest. I knew that there were Satanists in the city and many youngsters were interested in it at that time. I offered him a cigarette.

“What can I do for you, young man?”: Me, as politely as possible in the way I usually deal with my customers.

He hesitated for a moment and said: I brought a business for you.”

With the look in his face, I guessed that he came with my “real business”. I smiled.

“Have some grapes”. I said.

“Thank you.”

I took the note-pad and pen, which was the usual procedure.

“Who is the fellow?”

He took a photograph and gave it to me. It was a good-looking, clean-shaven young man, who evoked a feeling of having seen

somewhere.

“Name?”

“Mine?”

"No.His.”

Is it necessary that I should provide details about him?

“We used to keep a record of our dispatched clients. It wont harm our customers.”

He seemed satisfied.

“Devin. Twenty years old. A sales man in a foot wear shop in the city. Lives in Kaloor, Kochi. Is it enough?”

“Thank you. Enough and more for the time being”.

“When it will be done?”

“As soon as my staff locates him. You will hear from us by tomorrow evening.”

“Thank you.”

Give your mobile number.”

“My number?”

“Don’t worry about it. It will all be safe and sound”

“Infact, I don’t have a set. No need to acknowledge me. I’ll know as soon as you finish your job”

“But we need you, because the balance amount will only be collected after the business is over. So we have to contact you. Now
you can pay your advance and return”

“ Sir, I will pay the full amount now”

I said: “That’s not our procedure”.

“Sir, But I wont be here by the time you finish your job. I had to leave the city soon”.

“In that case…you can pay the amount in the cash counter and get your receipt.” “Thank you, sir”

“Welcome”

We shook hands and he departed.
I kept the photograph and details in a cover and called Attendor Mony to handle it over to Murukan, who was the chief co- coordinator who dealt with that part of the business. Murukan was a wonderful guy who was more like a chum than an employee. He was with me from my street days itself . A well-built man with a Mammootty-like arrogance in his ways and deeds. He was a film buff and never left any movies unseen. As the day was free I went home buying a packet of popcorn for children and forgot about the whole affair.

Usually I used to leave rest of my affairs to Murukan and his boys. But this time due to some strange co-incidences I was drawn towards it. This is how it happened. The next evening I went for an outing with my family to Marine Drive and the park. We had some ice-creams and had some fun. Every week I used to find some time to spend with my family. Rima and Maria, my children ran ahead of us playing with a balloon while me and my wife walked munching some groundnuts. I was talking to Rosy about the strange guy that came to my office. She asked me why the man wanted to kill the other. I said it was not part of the business to inquire about it.

After a while I sent my wife and children home with my driver, as it was my routine to walk for half an hour each day. The street beside the lake was empty except few pedlars. The sky was turning red carving the silhouettes of ships and shipyard on one side of the street, with the black lake making noises on the stonewall. I noticed a young boy in red T-shirt was coming against me, lazily, watching the ships and chewing bubble-gum. Siren of a ship was heard.
Then I thought I saw him somewhere, just when he passed me, and realized to my surprise that he was the boy in the photograph whom my client brought the day before. I went forward with an ominous feeling in my mind. The road was desolate. There was a man-selling apple in a cart and two bicycle men passed me. They were whistling a song that was familiar to me from the old movie West Side Story.Then immediately I recognized them as Murukan and his boy as I know that the song had something to do with their work as a code or something. I told myself that I had to expect something behind me. And it was not wrong.

I saw a big container Lorry turning from the by-road to the road I was walking and passed me. I didn’t turn back. But I began counting in my mind and by six I heard a scream, which I recognize as that of that boy’s. I turned back and saw the Lorry speeding away spreading smoke everywhere and people running from all sides towards the victim. I was about to continue my walk, but the thought it would be abnormal and walked towards the crowd. Through the people I moved forward to see the boy.
It was not my first experience to see the blood. But that sight gave me dizziness. And I saw something, which shocked my heart to my mouth. His clean-shaven face smeared with blood was familiar to me. The shock was completed when I saw an upturned cross-tattooed on his hairless chest. The client and the victim were one and the same !

· Jathakam--- Horoscope
· Yatheem Khana----Orphanage.
· Thotti-----Scavenger.
· Mammootty—Matinee idol in Malayalam cinema.

Do you think that it is easy to kill a person? Your limited knowledge and experience regarding this will have its source on the cheap crime thrillers that we some times call “penny dreadful”, or from the exaggerated and romantic gangster movies, I guess. You might have seen people falling stone dead after he is shot, or some times, going on talking melodramatic utterances laying his head on the lap of his dear ones, and bidding farewells for time that seems endless. That may not be the case in real life, you see. You must not blame the movies for that. Movies are meant to show some thing larger than life. Never mind it. Infact, our difficulty in killing a person is directly proportional to the victim’s lust for life at the time he is being killed. There is chance that a person who has decided to commit suicide may die even by a minor fever.

Mr. Hitchcock has always related in interviews that his films were not true to life. And he doesn’t want it to be. However, there are instances where he portrayed life situations realistically. Let me call your attention towards a movie directed by Mr. Hitchcock, called Torn Curtain (1966), starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews. The movie is regarded as one of the worst Hitchcock films, but today it is best remembered for a spectacular murder scene! It was said that Hitchcock wanted to show the audience how difficult it is to kill a person. During the Second World War Hitchcock was asked to direct some documentaries, which shot the cruelties in the German concentration camps. Probably, Hitchcock remembered that while he shot Torn Curtain’s murder scene.

In the film Paul Newman plays the role of an American nuclear scientist, visiting Germany as a spy nosing after a secret formula. A German bodyguard named Gromek becomes suspicious of Newman and follows him. Gromek at last catches Newman in an eerie farmhouse, and he is threatened to be exposed. There remained no other way for Newman other than killing Gromek with the help of the farmwoman. What follows is a disgustingly realistic murder scene, where Gromek is first attacked with a pot full of hot cooked food thrown on to his head. When Newman tries hard to strangle him, the woman stabs him with the kitchen knife in his neck. He is then hit with a shovel on his knees and finally dragged towards the mouth of an oven where he is gassed to death. Gromek is a well-built man who is not ready to die so easily, and Newman and his accomplice is exhausted by the task. Essentially it should be called “Hitchcockian “, indeed. And I advocate you to get hold of the movie and watch it

By the way one of the easiest way of killing is by strangling with a string. Do you know why? The victim will be exhausted very soon and won’t be able to defend himself for a long time. However, make sure that you have a strong pair of hands. If you are a clever man you will use your necktie for strangling, and please remember to iron the tie well before wearing it next time, or it will betray you before an expert sleuth. Wow! Today’s time up. Think it over. Help yourself for a delicious nightmare!. See you next time.