Thursday, October 15, 2009

The Power of the Supernatural

This is in extension to the earlier post of "The Era of fantasy". Guess I never overcame the fixation with the paranormal, the supernatural. Why does it interest me so much?

I decided to ponder over it a bit and came up with recent supernatural stuff I have seen/read which kind of brought Goosebumps. Not that I loved it but I was fascinated by it. On the top of the list is the most recent one, so here we go:

1. The Twilight saga: A 4 book vampire series by Stephanie Meyer, followed by a movie of the same name staring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. The reason of my fixation? A nicely written first book that makes you go back to the romanticism of the teens and the movie which had some good looking characters to ogle upon. It actually triggered a series of Google/ wiki searches. So I ended up watching and reading 'interview with a vampire' which was okay, because it did not romanticize the gothic vampire character the way Twilight did. Then I read the short story "The Vampyre" by John Polidori, which was okay too. I remember having sleepless nights after watching Van Helsing, while atleast Twilight cured me of that.
Before I'm seen as a vampire-addicted fan girl, I will move on.

2. The Butterfly Effect: The Ashton Kutcher starrer movie, the idea was cool (I need to improve my vocabulary; I usually come up with "cool" when I need to describe something.) The subsequent sequels (sequels are subsequent rgt? ) were boring but the first movie was for a want of better word cool. The time travel and the ability to change the past and land up in alternate future lines was interesting. What the movie lacked was the typical Indian climax. But who's complaining?

3. Deja vu: Again, the movie. The whole set-up was outstanding. My favorite scene is when Washington points a light at the screen and the heroine in past time reacts. The idea was fascinating. Makes me remember another old movie based on time travel 'Back to future'. I thoroughly enjoyed all parts of the movie.

4. The Horror shows of yester year’s television: The 9.30 pm slot of Zee Horror show, the title music of the show which even today brings a sense of unease. Looking back, the show was gross. I did enjoy the ‘Aahat’ show on Sony though. The stories were a bit eerie but they were unbelievably believable, whatever that means. I still remember one episode where an unbelieving character is told by a fortune teller that he is going to die in a month after witnessing some signs which would guarantee his death, the signs were: 1. Blue roses, a man with three hands, Number seven and a Tiger which emits fire from his mouth. Well we all know that such things don’t exist, the plot progressed with the character seeing blue painted roses on a curtain, a man holding a sitting mannequin which looked like he had three hands (1 of the mannequin) and Navratra celebration where a performer is dressed in a tiger’s costume and giving out fire from his mouth. That sure was scary!

The fact that I still remember all of it proves that we get attracted to the unnatural. But the twist is that I have never come across a nice Indian movie based on supernatural like Butterfly Effect or Déjà vu or even Final Destination series(Not that I liked it). What we got in name of time travel was the unmentionable Love story 2050. Ditto with literature, Gothic literature is famous all over the world, but in India we still read how certain group of boys cleared their IIT exams or the usual emotional stuff. Where’s the element of fun? Is it because we are too practical or do we not believe in it enough when India is seen as a land of ghosts, ghost stories and mystic. I just don’t know.

Thinking of it, I am planning to pen a novella based on supernatural. I don’t know how much its going to be sneered at but I need the escape to fantasy to be able to deal with the mundane reality of my life where I spend nine hours analyzing material properties, MS, GCI, etc.

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