Boogieing to the Bollywood Beat

“Indian movies are extremely inane with no sense or story or message in them and it is time they stopped having silly songs.”, said a friend of mine to me. I was zapped momentarily at someone casting such aspersions on my favorite entertainment avenue!

“My dear friend”, I refuted him, “Bollywood is not a charity organization that makes movies for the sake of passing moral messages about righteousness or education or the evils of casteism or awareness about some obscure disease or empowerment. Movies are first supposed to be entertainment and then everything else is a bonus if it makes money. If they are not supposed to be entertaining, the producers might as well make documentaries which are a completely different genre. There have been wonderful commercial movies with meaningful social messages such as ‘3 Idiots’ on the education system, ‘Udaan’ on the ambitions of a young aspiring writer etc. However, if these social movies were not entertaining as well, who would watch them? The message wouldn’t hit the nail then anyway. A fantastic movie like Sholay would never have happened if it was only about the message.”

Melodrama, Romance, Music, Horror, Action, Titillation, Tragedy, Comedy, Meaningful cinema, Fantasy all bundled in one is one genre. Bollywood. In my head I agree though, sometimes movies get too silly for words. It is not uncommon to have a grisly death sequence in a comedy movie when the dying guy flashes back with his heroine dancing away on the Alps all of a sudden, and in the next moment onto the Pyramids with a retinue of dancers behind them! An audience not used to the Bollywood way of things might just get befuddled, but wait, there is more. As soon as the Hero’s ‘Mom’ is disparaged by the villain, the hero gets superpowers to thwart 10 goons against him, and he saves the heroine, the mom and everyone goes home happy while he goes to dance against the backdrop of an exotic waterfall with his heroine! But then, even Hollywood can boast of enough terrible movies. 2010 saw enough dumb movies such as Tron which was made from an old superflop, the Last Airbender by an otherwise wonderful director M Shyamlan, the Last Song, Sex and the City 2,..well you get the idea. For every one good movie, there are strings of ludicrous movies, be it Bollywood or Hollywood.

Scene from Raja Harishchandra, first Indian movie

The Indian Cinema industry has been prevalent for almost a century now with the first movie, Raja Harishchandra being made by Dadasaheb Phalke way back in 1913 (well, there’s a Marathi language movie on that too!). By 1930’s the industry was producing well over 200 movies per annum. And now, Bollywood comes up with more than 800 movies every year and that does not even include the other regional Indian cinema which has not all diminished in stature. Amazing. There certainly are reams that I can write on the history of Indian cinema and its development through the decades but you can just flip to Wikipedia for all that factual information. In a few lines, Hindi cinema has seen a wide variety of themes every decade, drawing inspiration and stories from epic tales such as the Ramayana and Mahabharta, history, social themes, books and ofcourse plenty from Hollywood including even the term Bollywood which has its roots in combining Bombay, the heart of Hindi cinema and Hollywood!

But what characterizes Hindi cinema, is its unique ability to be enjoyed by a widely different audience which I cannot stop emphasizing. Having studied marketing, I can well say, how difficult a task that must be. Catering to even slices of a teeming mass of culturally, politically, linguistically, economically, regionally, religiously and socially different billion people is certainly a daunting task. Just when I thought, Bollywood is transitioning to cater to a more urban intellectual and affluent audience that can afford expensive tickets at multiplexes and to international audiences targeting overseas sales, there came up ‘Dabangg’ a typical ‘formula’ movie with a super star as a cop hero, a villain with no scruples, interspersed with some unnecessary songs, an unnecessary heroine as an accessory, the omnipotent mother, plenty of action, melodrama and boom. A smashing hit! A movie liked by the so called urban intelligentsia as well as the rural masses. That is certainly tough to understand!



'Dola re dola' dance sequence from movie 'Devdas'


Refuting my friends point about not having the song and dance routines, “Well, that’s what Indian cinema is about!...I utterly detest the Indian movies without the songs and dances in them. All those beautiful haunting melodies by Lata, Asha, Mohd. Rafi etc, not ever existing! That’s unbelievable. And not having Shiela ki Jawani to save an utterly inane Tees Maar Khan or not having Dhan ta nan in Kaminey to keep the audiences grooving is terrible news too! Think about classics such as HAHK, DDLJ and all other fluffy SRK movies that the nation adored, and we are transported to exotic locales in Switzerland or US which most Indians would never have seen otherwise. No songs in those movies?! Bah! They wouldn’t be 1/10th as good as they are today. “

I guess, I am a die-hard bollywood buff with its melodrama and song and dance sequences and for all its detractors, I just need to say, we ought to be proud that our entertainment industry is one of the biggest in the world even as it caters to such difficult markets. Bollywood has so much potential to not just create entertainment, but also to showcase India’s rich culture in the international arena, delineate positively the burgeoning intelligent population and foster self confidence in Indians. Again, entertainment first, and then the messages!

Book Review: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

When I started reading this first book of a triology, I was entranced by the very strange storyline. It started normally enough with the protagonist Katniss Everdeen, a teenage girl giving the description of the aftermath of an apocalypse and the remains that became Panem ruled by the Capitol.  Panem was divided into 13 districts, one of which was razed because of a rebellion, and then, as punishment, here comes the interesting part- ‘The Hunger Games’ were organized.   These games were no ordinary games, not dissimilar to a regular reality survival show we see on TV, but dissimilar in the fact that, to win these games, participants had to survive from other participants, which meant, they had to kill all the others. As punishment for the rebellion, these participants were kids or ‘tributes’ from the twelve districts chosen by lottery. Katniss Everdeen, the protagonist was chosen along with Peeta to be a part of the Hunger Games.  The prize for the victor was a continuous food supply to their district and a lifelong of comfort for them.  The book goes on to describe the violence and blood thirst as well as compassion that goes on in the arena as the reader begs to stop it all, at the same time being riveted to it.  Chilling concept isn’t it? A story which makes adults want to shield their kids from this very stuff, but can’t,  given today’s violent day and age. Watch kids play a video game, and see how they don’t bat an eyelid as they blow up hundreds , hundreds of times!

The second and the third part of this triology, ‘Catching Fire’ and ‘Mockingjay’ continue with the second Hunger games and with organized rebellions and revolutions against the Capitol buoyed by the symbol, surviving Katniss Everdeen.  I guess, the first two books did grab my attention because of the novel concept even though I hate even watching less brutal reality shows. I got wearied by the time I reached the third part and I wondered, did I really like the first two parts?  Kids killing kids! Really?! Even if they felt remorse or spent sleepless nights after that,still! Too bloody.  All the same, Suzanne Collins has been able to keep the reader hooked to her books.  Though I hate to admit it, her books were rather entertaining  if I actually stopped thinking it could be for real!

Disney Magic

Cinderellas Caslte

What kind of superheroes will an Indian a la Disneyland have, I wondered, when I visited Disneyland in Orlando, Florida.  Some friends of mine instantly recalled our very own Chacha Chaudhari and Sabu.  Instead of the simulated launch on to Mars in the ‘Mission Space’, we could go to Jupiter ofcourse after traversing the planets that come in between. We could have a 3D movie with Sabu throwing off evil villains off peaks.

Or how about a Rajani ride…It would ofcourse include rides which would flout all laws by Newton, Einstein or any scientist!  If Disney had an Epcot World Showcase, our Bollypark could have all the locales which SRK spread out his arms and sang to his heroines. That would pretty much cover all the gorgeous places there are in the world.

Instead of delving into the fairy tales of Snow White, Cinderella, we can always dig into our treasure trove of popular mythological characters like Ganesh, Hanuman, Bhim, Ram, Krishna who have already been animated too.

Anyway, I guess, there is no point in me speculating about what can be, when I have just returned from a trip to this truly magic kingdom…a kingdom for the kids actually.  It was fun walking through the Main Street, Adventure Land, Frontierland, Fantasyland, Liberty Square, Mickeys Toontown and Tomorrowland in this fairyland.  It certainly made me wish I was back there as a kid.  However as an adult, I did enjoy the two Parades, the one in the day time and the electric parade at night, which were fabulous and I enjoyed watching them and calling out to my favorite characters swinging by me.  The electric parade was a dazzling display of illuminated floats and wonderful lighted up costumed dancers and characters.  The shows ended with a spectacular display of fireworks with the backdrop of Cinderella’s castle. Unforgettable. Amongst the rides and shows, I did enjoy the 3D movie with the popular Disney characters, the jungle cruise on the boat, and the Space Mountain rollercoaster ride.

But as an unfortunate adult in the world dominated by kids in this magical land,  most of the rides such as Winnie the Pooh, the Magic Alladin carpets, Peterpan, Snow-Whites adventure etc, were for ages 2-8.(we read to  our consternation after enjoying them earlier!). The lines were long and winding and the waits were intolerable 30-80 minutes for each ride.  Though after the first crazy wait, we discovered using our ‘Fastpass’ to beat the lines. And this was supposedly in the off-peak season.  I reckon, the lines would be even worse in the vacations and summers.

Epcot was the other Disney Park I visited, and though the Rain Gods spitefully tried to dampen our spirits and us all day, we still managed to have a great time, especially as the crowds thinned and there were no lines as compared to those in the Magic Kingdom!  Epcot was certainly one targeted to adults and teens and was an educational as well as a fun experience that helped kids and adults alike learn about a variety of burning issues.  It taught environmental consciousness through the ‘Circle of Life’ short film through the eyes of Simba, Timon and Pumba. Another show explained power and energy sources with the Ellen DeGeneres dream that took us through a journey from the Dinosaur jungles to the nuclear age today in a vast moving theater. The fun rides were the space mission ride to Mars, the fast paced drive on Test Track, the entertaining 3D video by the King of Pop Michael Jackson as Captain EO and the Soarin’ ride to California. However, the best part about Epcot was the World Showcase with its miniature country pavilions.  Dining at an Aztec temple in Mexico, riding a Norse boat in Norway, seeing miniatures of the Teracotta warriors, and learning about the various other cultures of France, Germany, Itay, Japan, Morocco, France, UK and Canada through short films in huge theaters were highlights.  I particularly enjoyed the China video that was very well done and was projected in a 360 degrees absolutely humongous theater. All in all, a wonderful experience for people of all ages. 

How I wish I were back there as a child! Some snapshots of my trip here.

Walt Disney- The Man behind it all.

And the fun started with the Parade!

The Genie to grant wishes with Alladin

Dancing with the stars

Lighting up the day at night!

Dazzling lights and illuminating memories

Hola! At an Aztec Temple

A German Square

A Japanese Pagoda

A spectacular show at the Magic Kingdom

The Epcot dome

Krazy about the Kindle

As this is my first blog of the new year and decade, I wish you, my dear reader, a very Happy and a Wonderful New Year!

 

I remember a class in school once in which we envisaged a future world in 3000AD that would have kids having no more books and them scribbling on tablet like computer devices. Well, with the advent of the e-reader and tablet devices, I believe, we are slowly getting there. Imagine, kids not having to carry those heavy satchels that we once did. One device would do it all.

eBooks started way back in 1970 with the advent of Project Gutenberg that still works to digitalize and preserve books. From a limited selection formerly available to a limited audience, eBooks have come a long way in threatening the paper and pulp books. Amazon can be credited with developing the first hardware to read e-books, the e-reader. The Amazon Kindle is a product that I cannot help eulogizing over and over again to anyone who will or will not listen.

At a tiny 8” x 5.3” and as slim as a 100 page notebook, the Amazon Kindle has a capacity to carry 3,500 books, if one can read that many in a lifetime! It is a miraculous device with benefits that totally outweigh real books. Reading tomes such as Tolstoy or Tolkien feels much lighter than it actually is! I can read in the flight, in the train, on the beach, in the park, in the gym and what’s more, I never fall short of choice as I can carry my own personal library wherever I go! If I want more, I can simply browse to the Amazon store and buy books wherever I am to be delivered within seconds! If I am driving, and can’t read, I can make it read aloud to me. I can increase the font while in the gym and make it autoscroll. The embedded dictionary as a super fast reference certainly helps my vocabulary. The Kindle apps in various other devices, help me flip between devices as well. I can highlight, book mark pages,  share them over facebook and twitter, make notes and read more than I ever did!  What more could a book lover really want? Unlike backlit devices such as the Ipad and other tablets, this magic tablet doesn’t even strain my eyes anywhere, and it beats me, why one would read in the dark anyway!

I can almost now imagine an exam question now. Cite the differences between an ebook Reader and a real book in a history lesson in the near future! Well, the pros I have stated above. The only thing I do like in books not available in the Kindle , is…is… well there is nothing I can think of now!

Those individuals, who smell the paper in old books, love the sound of turning pages, enjoy delicately handling crumbling paper, cringe about e-ink and decry the new eReaders and eBooks should just have a reality check and check foolish sentimentality. It wouldn’t hurt to think of all the paper and trees that will get saved as more and more books go the e-way. eBooks and eReaders are here to not just stay, but to take on the real books. Maybe I should just start collecting hard copies of books now. They probably will be very rare a few years down the line and might sell for a fortune!

Cheers to the New Year and  Happy Reading!

"Lights, Camera, Action!"

'Lights Camera Action’…is virtually the only thing I knew went on behind the silver screen.  That changed, once I visited the Universal Studios at Los Angeles.  Movies are one thing, which all of us have grown up with, and totally taken for granted.  What went on behind the scenes was a new realization.  Hand drawn pictures and portraits were replaced by black and white cameras, which gave  birth to the pictures juxtaposed to give the silent movie which went on to become full blown color movies in high definition and sound which we see today, with 3D being the next generation.  I hope the characters never jump out of the screens for a live performance after that!

Apart from being entertaining, the whole Universal experience was highly educational when I further realized the rigor and genius that went behind creating those scenes which we absolutely fail to appreciate such as exploding cars and buildings, alien space ships flying, racing chases, swimming with man eating sharks, dinosaurs chomping away at people and the million other myriad things that we utterly take for granted.

The studio tour in itself was a revelation, knowing the dreadful Amity island beach of the shark thriller ‘Jaws’ was but a tiny pond, the shark was a mechanical equipment, the underwater shots were from a big tank! It was exceedingly interesting to learn about what brilliant camera work could magnify and the effects that it could produce.  I saw quaint European towns, New York city, Mexican villages, all in the course of that one hour!  It was a revelation seeing that all these cities were but facades and totally not real!  Explosions and floods being simulated seemed almost real and it was amazing to see just how catastrophic these could look on the big screen. 

This visit only cemented my belief that film ‘actors’ are just a piffling part of the entire cinema experience.  Though they are the face of the final product and get all the money, acclaim and fame, it’s the people who work behind the scenes such as the directors, cameramen, special effects peoples who are the real brains and heart of the entire movie.  Give anyone 10 years of experience, a 100 times and several hours to mouth one dialogue in multiple takes that too guided by a director, they better say it right atleast once! Well, if they don’t, God help such people! Fortuitously watching a painful film shooting for 8 hours with star acclaimed 'actors' mouthing one dialogue completely made me lose respect for all ‘actors’! But, well, we still have best actor awards for work being done by the directors and everyone else on the set. And that is why, I firmly want these so-called ‘actors’ with their humbug charms and supposed skills to be atleast good-looking, be able to dance well (for Bollywood atleast), maintain a good physique as ‘acting’ really isn’t an art anyway!

Well, now that I have finished venting on this long felt sentiment, back to the other highlights of the tour that I would like to remember forever.  Jurassic park was a major highlight of the Universal experience and the knowledge that the massive dinosaurs were actually extinct and I was looking at controlled machines, certainly helped manage those nerves! The 3D fight of KingKong and the dinosaurs was simply mind blowing and I certainly feel lucky to have survived in that jungle where that earth-shattering fight took place! Another of my favorite rides was the racy ride with the Simpsons in Krustyland where I thought I was on a roller coaster flying about  in that animated world, but it turned out that, I was in a car that just rocked in several directions while being in one single position while I looked at a giant domed screen! That certainly was brilliant. The rest of the shows on Shrek, the Mummy and the house of Horrors, etc entertained as well and there was nothing that I thought fell short of my expectations. 

All in all, a wonderful, fun and educational experience that I would highly recommend!  My rating would be 5 stars for Universal studios!

A trip to Yosemite Valley

Towering trees, bumbling bees; Azure skies, peaks old and wise
Snowy pebbles, brooks that babble, Mystic mountains, springs and fountains
Plains some mossy, still lakes all glossy; Icy cloaks, pines and oaks
Skulking bears, prancing reindeers;Scampering squirrels furry, coyotes in a hurry
Rains and thunder, Nature’s wonder; Glistening snow, eyes that glow
Hills and vales, Treacherous trails; Winding roads, Glaciers once flowed
Myriad hues, beauty so true; Blue and Golden, resplendence beholden
White and green, a splendid scene; Pristine white, shimmering moonlight
Sculpted boulders, fire that smolders; Zephyrs trance, a verdant dance
Pindrop silence, sweeter than violins; A trickle of water, frozen in winter
Glorious clouds, Beauty endowed; The Great Half dome, God’s own home?

Mother Nature has drawn one of her priceless canvases in Yosemite National park with an elegance that makes her splendor even more beautiful. Big is beautiful at this national park known for its old wise sequoia trees that are the biggest in the world, the tallest waterfalls and the most challenging of peaks protecting themselves from nosy humans by the sheer force of nature again.

I fortunately was permitted to see this priceless picture on a sunny day while it was splashed with a pristine whiteness on the myriad hues of greens and yellows. I hated to sully the whiteness of it with my footprints. While I could not stop Aahing and Wowing and taking pictures, I realized that it was one of those places where a mere camera lens could not capture even a 50th of the beauty that the live canvas possessed.
Someone rightly said, when nature has a project, she is a genius at work. From the bare leafeless tree to the ice laden pine, she ensures each season has something wonderful to look at. I fall short of words here, to describe the endless vales of snow covered pines and cones that I saw and went past, the winding valleys covered with mist and sheer drops below overlooking unbelievable vistas making us want to stop at every twist and turn where there was space to stop and gaze.

Despite all the human advancement, nature still makes man feel miniscule on just seeing the vastness of what She can create. The United States has certainly preserved the park well, and I am pretty thankful and privileged to see such beauty in this world where almost every piece of habitable land has been captured by humans.

Book Review: Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

The one thing I think I liked about this book and now movie was its title and the cover. I watched the movie with much anticipation but Alas!, I was disappointed, not so much in the execution, but the fact that it was long and boring despite a great concept, locales and a lot of strong characters! I tried the book then, thinking books are usually better than movies, but again I was disappointed. EAT PRAY LOVE was supposed to be a celebration of life, and was supposed to uplift me. It turned out to be one big rigmarole by an unduly supposedly depressed woman who ranted on and on and on about what a nervous wreck she had become and how brave she was facing everything alone. Had she left the part of her depression out for atleast half of what is in the book, I would have been much happier reading it! She wondered what went wrong, all throughout the book, so did I..even granted that she wasn’t ‘normal’ and like ‘all other women’ who enjoyed happy and married monotonous lives with their families, I didn’t get right upto the end her reasons for a mental breakdown!

Besides the part of her sad sad life, I didn’t really find the rest of the book very uplifting either and I didn’t get any vicarious thrills out of her wolfing down pizzas and gelatos at Naples or her absolution in India or her finding her ‘balance’ in Bali. What I did glean though is what I might like to see and experience in the places that she has talked about. Like I said before, most of the characters were really good, especially Kekut in Bali, but apart from that I got heartily tired of reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s whining!

Perhaps I have been too critical since I have been reading too many classics off-late. All in all, this book might perhaps help people with serious problems (hopefully not boyfriend ones) try new things and inspire them to lead happier lives by letting go, but as a read for people with perfectly peaceful lives, it might get a tad boring.

To Spend or Not to Spend

I recently read an article on Mukesh Ambani’s One Billion dollar splurge on his 27 storey home and some readers’ reproachful comments about him frittering away wealth instead of feeding 68 million kids for 20 full days! Mr Ambani is the fourth richest man in the world, has built a vast empire employing several thousand people and still people expect him to be charitable as well as though it is his responsibility to eliminate poverty in the world! Eliminating poverty is certainly not as simple as all the rich people in the world donating their wealth to all the poor. If they choose to be charitable, it certainly helps in some way, however that is not something that should be imposed on them and it certainly is unfair on them to be judged because they spend their money the way they like. And honestly, I wouldn’t even call living in a beautiful home a splurge (even though I found the Ambani mansion pretty ugly!) Everyone has that one dream of having a beautiful home and a comfortable one. Why then deny Mr Ambani that pleasure and insist he live in a 3 bedroom house just because the even wealthier Mr Warren Buffet does. Who is John Galt after all. (for those of who may recall Ayn Rand’s tome Atlas Shrugged)

Well, those were my views on this one rich man spending his money on his dream house. However, this article brought to my mind the other stuff the rich and famous buy and which I don’t approve of! I know, now I m being judgmental just after all those statements above about each to his own. . I completely endorse buying something that would lend value, a technologically advanced car with more features, a large home that’s in a prime location with the latest gadgetry and comforts, to some extent for creativity in outfits and accessories, but I fail to understand how people can actually pay the ostentatious amounts they do for objects that are as ephemeral as passing seasons and stuff that they may not use probably twice. My case in point is handbags

The Luxury bag market is a multi-billion dollar industry and luxury brands Hermes, Fendi, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, Chanel all jostle for space as new brands try to entice rich gals with their expensive goodies. Well, I was astonished that salaried people even bought these bags at all but apparently they do! Check out the prices of these bags below. Don’t be taken in by the simple design you have probably seen on the roadside purse shop as well! For starters this seemingly simple wallet from Hermes costs $2,600 or Rs 1,16,000.

Now if that ain’t too bad, how about a fancier and larger purse from Hermes for you? Well that costs $7,600 or Rs 3,40,000.

I continued this eye-popping exercise of checking the prices of these bags till I reached a magic figure of…. 1 Million Pounds or or $1.6 Million or Rs 7 Crores for the world’s most expensive bag!!!

Well if Mukesh Ambanis wife, Nita Ambani buys 600 of those bags, it would cost as much as her home would! I guess, the new home is a good bargain after all then!

I wish I had a Time Machine

How I hate waking up in the morning and getting dressed to go to work. Maybe in the near future, we won’t have to go to offices anymore. Maybe we will have a few screens showing us the people installed in our homes for meetings and a robot to take down notes and email them to us after formatting them. Maybe we’ll have flying cars. Maybe shopping will be through simulated rooms with us experiencing even the feel of the fabric and not just plain online shopping. Perhaps we will be able to touch our near and dear ones from miles across on the computer or whatever becomes of it. Maybe we won’t need to know different languages. Speak in English at one end and have it translated and come out in perfect Chinese at the other end which is something I believe Google is working on.

Floppies have become pen drives and hard drives, desktops have become laptops and will soon be tablets or phones or something else totally. Landlines have become mobiles which in themselves are computers. Maybe we will be able to use any surface as a laptop with some projections out of thin air and of course we will have a robot cook and clean for us. I hope we don’t become all fat and wobbly creatures with all that work being automated and not having to step out. Post offices will cease to exist and philatelists (stamp collectors) will perish if they already haven’t.

Maybe schools will cease to exist and kids will be taught like they do in The Matrix..put in a CD through the brain and copy paste the ‘books’ or delete to make more room. No more mugging up History! Books, paper and pens of course will not exist and maybe even most trees won’t. Hopefully we will have travelled to some more inhabitable planets and shifted half the population there. Maybe we will be able to control rains and storms. Maybe we will never run out of food.

Maybe biodegradable only will be the only norm, maybe plastic will be abolished. Maybe the world will cease to have boundaries and maybe there will be no more terrorists. Maybe everyone who is corrupt will stop being so. Maybe there will be no more diseases.

Maybe there will be a nuclear war fought over water not oil. Maybe trees will be present only in Museums. Maybe there will be an ice age, or maybe the ozone layer will tear apart and half of the world will become uninhabitable. Maybe aliens will attack us. Maybe a new form of disease will come and eliminate humanity. Maybe the world will become a garbage dump. Maybe there will be no more room for more population on earth. Maybe, Frankenstein’s monster will become reality and Sarah Connor will not be born.

We are all getting so ahead of ourselves in Technology or maybe I was born just after the dinosaurs! Computers in all sizes, Google, smart phones, Global Satellite systems (GPS), Video conferencing, e-readers, Social Networking are exploding and the world is closer and more aware than it ever was before. What was unbelievable in the past is reality today and we are still in awe of the technology wave that is sweeping us. While the human race is not just ambling ahead, but taking great leaps racing ahead, let us remember the bleaker side and take steps starting with recycling, generating less waste, using fewer disposable things, saving electricity, planting trees and spreading the word in building this amazing future perfect world called Utopia!

Draculaaaaa

I am currently riding the Vampire wave which has caught the attention of readers and viewers alike. Stephanie Meyer with her Twilight series certainly caught the attention of young romantic readers with her thrills and chills in the backdrop of a soppy romance between a good-at-heart (if he has one) vampire, Edward Cullen and the still human teenager. This fascination around their world did not start with Buffy the teenager who stalked, staked and slayed vampires mercilessly in the late 90s and early 2000s but ever since Bram Stoker wrote the epic novel Dracula in 1897 which I read recently. There have been more than 700 movies that have been made on the topic (recent ones in this decade being the inane Twilight series, the hilarious spoof on them, Underworld, and several versions of the original Dracula. You can find the list of movies here http://www.uh.edu/~cfreelan/vampires/vampmovies.html). There has also been a recent spate of TV shows (popular being True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, Angel Forever Knight, Blood Ties, Being Human, Being Dracula, Blade, Moonlight, Kindred-the Embraced) which continue to attract wide audiences. Dracula the literally immortal vampire, alone has been the central character in over 170 versions which makes him the most repeated subject in movies so far from the early 1900’s to 2011 in Fangland when Dracula comes to New York. Hats off to Bram Stoker for his fiery imagination that can still cast fear into the hearts of many after the turn of a century.

Vampires as they are known are blood sucking creatures that can transmute into bats or even into mist, control elements of nature, control evil animals, and raise an army by merely infecting more people. They sleep in coffins, cannot stand garlic, cannot stand light, cannot see their reflections in mirrors (poor female vampires) and are afraid of anything that is Holy. The only way to kill them is to drive a stake through them, behead them and stuff their mouths with garlic! The Un-Dead is a term coined for these creatures that have the wile and cunning of the living, powers gained on dying and immortality. It is not in the scary masks and made up faces apart from their malicious fangs, that they cast terror but in the fact that they look like all other humans, only more charming and connive to ensnare their victims into letting them drink their blood. Vampire lore has indeed come a long way from Count Dracula who was evil vampirified to Edward Cullen, the good vampire.

 

Duhh..are vampires for real? Well, I don’t think so despite the presence of the many websites which exhort ‘real vampires’ to join their communities and give helpful tips to identify people as vampires! Come to think of it, maybe real life vampires are just blood sucking leeches and mosquitoes! What do you think?

Here are some bloody cheesy vampire jokes:

Why is it a bad thing to tell a vampire to get a life?

Because it might decide to take YOURS.

What's the difference between a lawyer and a vampire?

A vampire only sucks blood at night.

How did the ghost say goodbye to the vampire?
So long sucker!

Why does Dracula consider himself an artist?
Because he likes to draw blood!

What is a vampire’s favorite holiday?
Fangs giving

Wat does a vampire fear most?

Tooth decay.

If you like Vampire stories, you might be interested in Zombie movies. Do check out this blog (after you share your views with me!) http://www.vinni.in/2010/07/the-greatest-zombie-movies-of-all-time/ for more to keep you awake!

The Great Common Tamasha

The Commonwealth games have already begun! Well, perhaps not the actual sports, but the ongoing tamasha before the games itself is no different from any game! It is India vs the Rest of the World, the Organising committee in India vs the global committee overlooking the games, US the common people vs Them the Corrupt Government. Debates abound, and forums, blogs, TV, Radios, Newspapers all cry foul. Every little thing is zoomed on to the last detail and penalized heavily by further outcry. To add the final icing on the cake, there is the suspense of finding out, if they are indeed going to be pulled off well, with a segment even hoping they are not so that there is a further brouhaha that will bring the defaulters to book even if it is after a few decades and by that time their account books are fatter than ever with the credits they make in the meanwhile.


I wonder what the hell is happening ? Does it take a public outcry from all corners of the globe to get the Prime Minister involved into the organizing of these simple games when he should have probably just done the lamp lighting or something insignificant like that? The whole situation is so insane. On one hand, we talk about being the next super power and on the other hand, dunnkkkkk, we can’t manage a piffling few thousand sportspersons accommodations..why even big fat weddings in India boast of over a 1000 guests and organized immaculately! It’s a shame, a great shame.

Richa