The Four Boys Club

At the turn of the last episode, Storyteller part 1, you got a glimpse into how and why the four boys came into being. Maybe the reason isn’t as dramatic as you would have hoped, but things hardly ever are. You are never warned with a dramatic musical prelude before you meet a life altering event. Seriously, when was the last time you consciously knew an event you were living was actually going to...

You’ve probably heard a lot about the shifting nature of reality, but nothing has summed up the entire phenomenon as well as Bill Cipher when he said “Reality is an illusion, the universe is a hologram.” And before that, was the masterpiece The Truman Show; where Jim Carrey, as ordinary as his profession (that of an insurance salesman), realises eventually how his entire life has been a TV show. B...

Grief is perhaps the one topic many a book has been written on. There are endless research papers, endless shows, endless whatever medium of entertainment or information you consume that cover grief as a subject. I suppose, after love (and maybe death, though I’m not entirely certain about that one), grief is what has captivated people’s interest the most. You know about those five stages of grief...

Fantasising about the past… Now, who hasn’t indulged in a little bit of that. You know that utterly cliched, overused line about how the past is history and the future is a mystery and all that? The message that that line is trying to convey is that dwelling on the past is futile and even downright stupid. But when did we ever evolve into a species that had managed to escape stupidity? If fantasis...

“Ideas are bulletproof,” goes a line in Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta. I don’t disagree, and, yet – as you’ll notice in the case of Midhali in this episode – your thoughts and ideas being bulletproof is actually like a double edged sword. You can kill the mind that holds that thought, but the thought in itself… it transcends the very box it’s kept in. It can inspire, it can uplift, it can lead to a...

You’ve got to feel a sense of power in knowing things. After all, don’t they say that knowledge is power? In seeing through the fog of lies. In resisting being coaxed into the colourful story they are painting for you. In… well, in knowing the truth. Because… Shanky knew things. He knew the truth about many things that happened in Bandem’s life; and not just the ones you’re expecting. Bandem had h...

Many a story have been written about what the “greatest tragedy” is; each with their own interpretations. And, rightly so, there is no correct, or one, answer. And yet, I think we can say all these interpretations circle around one idea: the end of a life. Now, whether you think of it as death, or whether something more arbitrary, is up to you. The beauty of art, someone said, is that it can’t be...

There’s a line June Gable said (who played the undeniably funny Estelle Leonard in Friends), which, truth be told, goes down really well in many a situation. “Things change. Roll with them.” Of course, she didn’t exactly say it in the same context as in this episode of The Four Boys Club, but it can be perfectly applied here. Because, well, things do change, don’t they? And with things, so do peop...

Baz Lurhmann made a reference to friendship in his Sunscreen speech. “Friends come and go, but a precious few you should hold on,” he said. Notwithstanding the context he said it in, but friends do come and go. The tide comes and washes the land away, changing the landscape of how it all once looked. From being friends long ago, Mompy and Bandem are now… well, people who wouldn’t much care for one...

Every artist needs a muse – how many times have we heard this phrase? An inspiration so to speak, something which drives them. Vince Aletti likened a muse to a mirror; a reflection of their desires, anxieties, dreams and needs. Ross Baldwin said how, without a muse, an artist is simply a madman. Now all that’s fine and dandy, but no one has really touched upon something far more empirical. An insp...

A lot happened in the first season of The Four Boys Club. We were introduced to the four boys themselves – Shanky Vai, Mompy Arda, Bandem Asra, and Anpag Benza – and got a peek into their lives. There were moments that were dramatic (after all, each story needs drama) and – perhaps I’m being a little ambitious – it makes for a good storyline. So, before the second lot of stories is released soon,...

The things is, you can’t keep yourself away from that well. You can fool yourself into believing it’s not there; convince yourself that the very idea of it is not just ridiculous but inconceivable. But, deep down, you know it is there. You know looking into it is a mistake, because the face reflecting on that seemingly serene surface of water isn’t yours. It terrifies you at first, but you remind...

There’s a dark well. A well you go to, to draw water from when you’re angry. You know the water is toxic, poisonous even, but you still do. Because you can’t help it. Sometimes the anger is too substantial, too overpowering, that things like reasoning lose all significance. You stand just outside it, peer down… and you’re scared. Scared of the water. What if it burns you, leaves you suffering and...

We can agree that, for the longest time (or at least since we started chronicling The Four Boys Club), Anpag has been someone we’ve known about the least. All we know about him is that he is a reluctant member of the club, doesn’t particularly like his friends, and therefore, was the likeliest to leave the group before anyone else. As true as those things were, he impressed upon us a sense of arro...

You remember the girl from the previous episode, There… and Then Gone? Yes, the one we can call Bandem’s sweetheart? Her name as a matter of fact is Midhali, something which wasn’t revealed last time, and we are going to learn more about her, and her involvement, right now. As we found out towards the end of the last episode, all that had transpired was a fantasy; Bandem’s fantasy. But the reality...

Do you remember creating fantasies in your head as an adolescent – the age where the world is literally your oyster and possibilities are endless? Where the prospects of something being improbable, if not impossible, doesn’t stop you from wishing it true? We’ve all been there, immersed in our own version of reality; and no matter how unlikely the outcome, we are ambitious enough to… well, you know...

We’ve heard that story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Two selves in one, and all. I suppose Patricia Highsmith described it brilliantly in Strangers on a Train (which if you remember was also adapted into a Hitchcock movie): “There's also a person exactly the opposite of you, like the unseen part of you, somewhere in the world.” This episode in a way deals with that phenomenon. In more ways than...

Today, we go back to the first episode of our podcast. Remember that – “The Distraction”? Bandem found myself in a bit of a pickle, having nudged (without intending to, as we had learned) a man in front of a car. We didn’t pursue that story then, for we had more facets of The Four Boys Club to explore. But now, we go back to that horrid incident; as much Bandem may call it an “accident,” and we wa...

We’ve all had role models as kids, right? A celebrity rockstar, a sportsperson who shattered records, a prominent pioneer. What is it with the lives of these personalities that makes them so… alluring? Do we see ourselves leading their lives? Do we see ourselves… as them? For some, role models need not be anyone popular. They can be as ordinary as common people. People we can relate to, whose thou...

Think back on that one incident, perhaps from years ago, that has never really left your mind. Even though the participants from that incident have clearly moved on, even forgotten about it, to this date it still clings to your mind; maybe even boils your blood. Something akin to that has happened to many of us, hasn’t it? The memory of that one incident which has for the longest time invaded our...

Last time, we went a little deeper inside the treehouse; and saw what really happened from close quarters. But as undeniably important it was to be witness from the inside, the world obviously hadn’t stopped moving on the outside. The incident in the treehouse was as significant as it was serious, and I don’t think we can deny that. After all, you can’t just bring a body back home and dismiss it c...

We heard about Mompy and Bandem secretly smoking in Mompy’s treehouse in the first episode, did we not? Much about it could not be said back then – for we did have more pressing issues to discuss – but that scene warrants being looked into more deeply. It certainly wasn’t just a case of two teenage boys sneaking out for a smoke. Mompy’s dad knew his son smoked, after all. But as we – the audience...

In every group, there is a member looking inwards from the outside. One who is reluctant to be included in the band, but for a reason finds themselves being part of one. Even though no one has given him a tangible reason to feel so, Anpag believes he is like an outsider. That he is “different” than the other three boys. One who is looking at Shanky, Mompy and Bandem from the outside. And what he s...

Have you heard that saying about the saint and the sinner? How every saint has a past and every sinner a future? I think it’s one of the best representations of how things are never – nor should they ever be seen – in black or white. Everyone called Mompy’s father The Cool Dad. And why should they not? He was cool, after all. And, you know what? The boys even felt envious of Mompy. But The Cool Da...

Friends fight, right? Don’t they say the more intense the fight, the closer the friendship? The more heat, the brighter the flame and all that? Okay, I’ll be honest. I don’t know anyone who said that. But I did know of two people once upon a time – whose real identities will of course remain concealed – who once proclaimed to me they were proud to never have fought in the ten years of their friend...