Quote Challenge Special: Carroll

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
― Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)

I don’t have the book with me anymore, and I loved the 2010 movie having the same name with Mia Wasikowska as Alice Kingsley. Lets first look at those impossible things which she talks about in the movie. “I try to believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast. Count them, Alice. One, there are drinks that make you shrink. Two, there are foods that make you grow. Three, animals can talk. Four, cats can disappear. Five, there is a place called Underland. Six, I can slay the Jabberwocky.” Lets ask each member of the Vampire Team about one impossible thing for humans these days.

Vampire Owl: It is love. It is almost non-existent. What you see nowadays is a lie. People act so much that some strange feelings and dramatic performances are often misjudged as the result of love, but they are not. There is infatuation in romance and the random creation of love and care which leads to no good. This is the same reason why people don’t like fairy-tales these days. It is just not possible, and some people are really working hard to make sure that there is no effort. Love as an impossible things will be instant success if you share on social media.

Vampire Bat: It is equality. It is more impossible than many other things combined. When was the last time you saw equality? Other than when Lady Death came to take the souls, when was the time? The equality in death is not transferred to life. What is it about life that death doesn’t have? It has the same beauty in the form of after-life. Life is full of inequalities, of wealth and of opportunities. No matter how hard you try, some opportunities will always be reserved, and this denial of opportunity is a human rights violation which happens only life and not with death.

Vampire Crocodile: It is forgiveness. It has never been an easy thing to do, if you look deep into the pages of history. People are only losing any remains of that skill further these days, because they are not taught to forgive, but to have that revenge which becomes their sweet little thing. Actually they watch too many revenge movies like Kill Bill and Django Unchained and have rather so much of addiction. People are even worried about having revenge for even the simplest of incidents, and one has to wonder how much humanity has learned after so many years of existence.

Vampire Alligator: It is tolerance. The situation is only getting worse. People just don’t like the other, the one who is not him or her. Intolerance is a Jabberwocky which cannot be slain, and so it is a permanent Mission Impossible. There are too many things happening around the world, and people always find a new reason to kill the other. It is religion at times, and even in the absence of the same, they find many other. These days, the lack of religion is even more intolerant. People just can’t stand the customs and traditions of others and their set of beliefs which they are following without troubling anybody else.

Vampire Penguin: It is appreciation. With those Seven Deadly Sins taking over humanity, how can there be appreciation? When there is too much avarice and vanity, how can the achievements of others be appreicaited? It is all about being better than others, isn’t it? Then how can we appreciate others because it is all about showing that you are better than others in front of the people you know? Too much ambition is fed to the children by the parents, and this is what should be expected as they grow up. At least everyone is moving together towards the same grave? Can’t at least that truth be accepted?

Vampire Panda: It is freedom. We long for it and we keep preaching the same, but we never strive hard enough to attain it. Instead, we are happy with the shadow of the same and being bound with the chains which have followed us. Some of those chains follow us, and the rest are provided to us by the society. It is not about what you want to be, but what society makes you. There is the need for civilization and education, but if they don’t make you a better person whom understands the significance for freedom and a number of other things, what is it?

***All images used in this blog post are from the official Facebook page of Alice in Wonderland movie.

This is a special extension of the three day quote challenge for which I was nominated by Kiran, and also dedicated to the challenges by my other friends who tagged me, Simran, Moon, Somali and Sreesha (at FB). I also declare that I shall not do any more quote challenges until further notice, because I am already surrounded by too many quotes 😀

TeNy

Quote Challenge Extra: Orwell

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
― Animal Farm (George Orwell)

Even though I loved the vampire fiction, my initial feeling was fear for them. But things had to change. But I then realized that they were better, as never do they discriminate in their lives. It is more of a result of the later knowledge that I will never be considered equal to others, and I can never demand that status from people around me. I was always the person who scored more for the wrong subjects, and I was never as good as others in acting the love and care. Acting was not my department, because it never really came to me naturally.

I was never to have the same status again, because I never studied any science after I got rid of the shadow of the forced courses over me. I would never be considered as good enough because I didn’t study science. With so many engineers and doctors around, how can I be of any good in this society? Then I thought that may be getting a job will be my key to getting closer to equality. It could make some relatives consider me to be of any good. For them, Bachelor of Arts go far below everything, with commerce also coming a long way above it.

My favourite demon; even he doesn’t discriminate in taking souls.

Then I thought that I will apply for Phd after MA. I saw the reservations list and realized that the only way I can study in any university from the General category is by death and later becoming a ghost. I am not denying that people do get admissions from every category, but people deserve more chances as humans and not due to belonging to a caste. Even the questions are like helping people who want to learn things byheart. I want to earn knowledge and not study things byheart. I want to know and not to memorize.

Death was pretty much a fine solution, but I did wonder if souls are allowed in such classes because they won’t be considered equal too. I have met so many people who have got admission for Phd and still struggles to write one full essay. Such people get admission to Phd and despite scoring a long way above and despite being the one to help all these people with grammar and spelling, I will get nowhere near. You get prepared for a Phd and for that you need to take a memory test through which people who can’t write an essay gets in.

Souls are taken without any reservation; all are devoured in the right order.

May be I should burn my books. There is no point in all these. When you go to write to English NET exams, you see an objective question paper which make sure that people who don’t know English grammar become the “qualified”. The rich Reserved gets in and the poor General category tries again and again. Things in life gets repeated, and I was again told that I am not equal. All Indians are my brothers and sisters, but I am not close to being equal to a good number of them. Well, it could be because I am useless and I should apply for equality after death.

“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it”. Seriously? Paulo Coelho, you should be from another world. The only thing that the universe has already decided is to mess up people’s lives. May be it is how things work at Brazil, but calling a nation a universe is rather extreme a step, isn’t it? The universe here already got the reservations ready and will provide even more for vote banks. Yes, we have the equality in death, and is it the end that we should conspire to achieve?

PSC does the same thing, and it is like a struggle till death. This is that kind of a world where if you want to study, you are not allowed. Everything is bloody reserved. I am still glad that Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code is repealed. There is always the last chance. There is provision for suicide, and even a mental institution is a lot better than being in a world in which there is no equality. Why would someone read and study so much for absolutely no result when ending everything is so easy? How can someone blame the British before the independence while treating one’s own people without equality? Why should there be legal discrimination based on one’s religion, community or caste?

***All images used in this blog post are from the official Facebook page of Diablo game.

This is a special extension of the three day quote challenge for which I was nominated by Kiran, at https://drkiranacharya.wordpress.com/2015/06/19/day-three-quote-challenge.

TeNy

Quote Challenge 3: Stoker

“It is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain.”
― Dracula (Bram Stoker)

I have my classic vampire love shared between three major vampire texts, which are among the first few of its kind. John William Polidori’s The Vampyre, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The last one was the first one I read as expected, and remains the best known vampire novel of all time, giving Count Dracula that cult status that others didn’t manage to achieve. I read the first copy of Dracula in Malayalam, and it was another reason why it felt good for me when I was a child.

You won’t get the other two works in most of the other languages here, and nobody can identify a vampire better than Count Dracula. How many people know Lord Ruthven or Countess Mircalla? Well, among the people I know from here, none so far. Yes, everybody knows Dracula. Even someone who has no literacy knows Dracula. Yes, they might have different version of him for knowing in detail, but they know him anyway. So, Dracula being such a big name, it only becomes a need for me to remember a few of the quotes from the work featuring the legendary vampire.

Christopher Lee playing the Count (photo from wiki)

Coming back to the quote, where does the fault lie? What all does science want to explain these days? There is the case of logical thinking. It has lead to people asking me too many “why”s. When I wanted to take Humanities group for Plus Two, they were like who studies history and why? I gave up to that question at that time because I thought that they knew better. This idea about science being better than everything else was injected into me like a virus; I was brainwashed and I was ready to fall into that bottomless pit which had absolutely nothing for me.

When I wanted to study literature, they were like, why read so many books of fiction? I had fallen into that trap too many times, and this time, I just didn’t tell them when I joined the course. It was my escape from that question about someone doing what he or she loved the most. Nowadays, I often wonder why that question exists, as another case of using “why”. The scientific answer to life after tenth was the Science Group and the Engineering degree. They needed explanations for me studying what I liked – how logical.

Bran Castle, commonly known as the Dracula Castle (photo from wiki)

Science asks for proof for too many things, for the existence of God, spirits, soul and may be even for Simona the Kitty being a cool cat. Among all these, the last one might be the more difficult one as I have to prove it all by myself. These are the days when people are judged by their skills to boast and ride on their vanity than their goodness – now that is logical, isn’t it? Emotions are less significant, as logic is all that matters. There are things that need logic, but that doesn’t apply to everything.

Into the past, we wander into those times when taking a degree was the thing to do. With the modernity, came science and it took over the minds of the people who were so attached to materialism and they took the creativity straight out of the hearts of their children. They forced the poets, the novelists, the historians and many others to pursue science. They thought and taught their children that science will be the answer to all their problems. In the process, they never tried to see through the little eyes and took away the true skills of their children.

The procedure still continues as if there is no end. They think that there is nothing to do with the arts degree. I have heard from many people that intelligent people don’t go for arts and humanities or languages. I would like these people to join and make sure that the intelligence is shared with us. Why don’t these people just make a visit and provide us with a long lesson on our stupidity of not studying science? Well, I don’t think that they have anything new to say, because I have heard most of it in my life.

I have been nominated by Kiran, at https://drkiranacharya.wordpress.com/2015/06/19/day-three-quote-challenge, for the three day quote challenge. Thanks for the tag 🙂

Rules for the challenge:

• Post one of your favourite quotes (different quote on each day) on three days. The quote can be from your favourite book, author, or your own.
• Nominate three bloggers to challenge them.
• Thank the blogger, who nominated you.

For my day three, I nominate my blogger friends:

Harsha (https://allresourceupdates.wordpress.com)

Clementia (http://dclementia.blogspot.in)

Anita (http://icecandy16blog.wordpress.com)

And this ends the challenge.

TeNy

Quote Challenge 2: Tennyson

“We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
― Ulysses (Lord Tennyson)

Alfred, Lord Tennyson – that name itself had a lot to do with my life. I was often asked about by name by my English teachers, and they have always loved my name while I was in school. I never really realized that it would mean that I could be doing a degree and also the post-graduation in English Language and Literature, but yes, even though late, I did realize what I was supposed to do. Even then the name helped; having the same name as the greatest poet of an era and the longest reigning Poet Laureate has its advantages.

To add to it, I do love his works, and my favourite among them is Ulysses which I studied more than once, and read so many times – then there is this quote “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”. Well, it is a nice quote, but among those which I want to talk about and wish to relate with life includes most of the lines in Ulysses rather than anything else. Among them, the one I have mentioned here has a lot more significance, at least for this period of my life.

The quote is about something that we all face, about not being good as we used to be. I have always thought about the same. I am sure that as of now, I am able to write better and with more variety than I used to, just an year ago. I am able to write about things that I never thought I would write about. Two years ago, when I began my other blog with the pen name, The Vampire Bat, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Why The Vampire Bat? I had no idea. But then things got better. I never knew I could bring anything new to my writing style.

But there are things with which I am not getting any better. They include most of the things which are not related to writing. I know that I won’t have the stamina to play more than one singles game in Badminton if I give it a try after such a long time. I know that I might not be able to bowl two consecutive deliveries without sending one for a wide. I also know that I might not have the energy to withstand one single football game any more. I am not that good, and I am not of that strength as I was when I was doing by degree.

I know that I don’t understand things that well as I used to, and I feel that I won’t be able to memorize things that well. I keep having that feeling that I have done with reading, studying and all; and even when writing about a movie, I feel that I might not be able to do justice. When I understand that almost everyone that I know from my college got a job and a good number of them are married, I do feel that I am trailing, and when I get to do one of these things, I won’t be as good as they are now, because I will be tired and older.

I am always reminded of the same, by one person or the other, being the oldest person without a job, and about the rating in the marriage-alliance market going down as I get older. The strength of that old days – we all miss them, and I miss my friends from those wonderful days too. I also feel made weak by time and fate, but I hope to do well, and overcome the weaknesses that have come upon me. I am surrounded by two things, immortality of one world which I love and the mortality of the other which I have to embrace.

I cannot take a step backward, not at this period of time. May be we can dig through the dead end. There are people who want me to, and events which are fair enough to make that call for me. Inspired by my favourite single line of all-time, “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”, I still leave myself with some hope for miracles, and at the same time keep doing what I hope that I can do well till the end end of time. In the name of the great poet with whom I shares my name, it might really be depressing for his soul if I gave up. Ulysses had a sea, and I have an ocean. But I am still younger. The last times were used to inspire athletes for London Olympics 2012, so why can’t it continue to do so for me?

***The images used in this blog post are from the game Age of Empires III which I used to play.

I have been nominated by Kiran, at https://drkiranacharya.wordpress.com/2015/06/19/day-three-quote-challenge, for the three day quote challenge. Thanks for the tag 🙂

Rules for the challenge:

• Post one of your favourite quotes (different quote on each day) on three days. The quote can be from your favourite book, author, or your own.
• Nominate three bloggers to challenge them.
• Thank the blogger, who nominated you.

For my day two, I nominate my blogger friends:

Ranjini (http://rangelz.wordpress.com)

Tara (http://crimsonapril.com)

Archana (http://drishti.co)

TeNy

Quote Challenge 1: Rice

“Revenge is the concern of those who are at some point or other beaten. I am not beaten, I told myself. No, not beaten. And victory is far more interesting to contemplate than revenge.”
― The Tale of the Body Thief (Anne Rice)

***250th post, btw 😀

Revenge has been something which managed to create superhit movies out of average flicks. What would have been Kill Bill, Django Unchained, Inglourious Basterds, I Spit on Your Grave and The Last House on the Left without the power of revenge? Vengeance has been too sweet in the movies, and the same has been reflected in literature and glorified by fans because there is that feeling of satisfaction that people have when they see the protagonist managing to finish the act of vengeance.

The lesser humane of the two main vampires from Interview with the Vampire, Lestat de Lioncourt says these words in the novel. He always has stories to tell us, and here we see his lack of interest in revenge. It is not something which he learnt from holy books or wise men, but from his experience. He is a man who creates his own interesting quotes, and we can see that from the different books of Vampire Chronicles series that he brings some nice quotes of wisdom for the readers.

Interview with the Vampire – there is more to that talk with quotes of wisdom.

Lestat not seeking revenge doesn’t mean that he is not angry, but he never accepts that he is beaten. In Interview with the Vampire, we can see that he keeps coming back, and his ultimate desire was never vengeance. He wants to be victorious every time, and a case of revenge will mean that he was once beaten and he is trying to turn the tables. He wouldn’t stand the chance of being beaten by anybody as he considers himself to be good enough to thrive in any environment.

Even for the death of his vampire daughter Claudia, he only blames himself, and as he has the results of a revenge which was brought upon her by other vampires in the name of what she did to him, he has only nightmares about it – the one revenge which happened in his name doesn’t give him any feeling of happiness. Once again, if that was a revenge, that would mean that he was beaten by a child vampire who tricked him into being a dumb vampire even with all his experience.

The Embrace of the Vampire – Why don’t you choose this one instead of revenge?

Well, if you have read Interview with the Vampire, you will know things from the viewpoint of the more humane vampire, Louis de Pointe du Lac. There is more to Lestat than what is written there; even the movie follows that path as the interview of the one vampire who proves to be the man with more conscience than most of the modern humans combined. It might seem that revenge was in his list there, but it never really was, as Lestat had risen above that already.

So, the quote of the day is not an invitation to be like Lestat. He will never be my favourite vampire character, and neither will Louis even though this one is closer. Claudia is actually even further closer. There are Clara and Eleanor from Byzantium if you are looking for movies alone, and in the case of books, there is the need to pay reverence to the legendary characters from Dracula, Carmilla, The Vampyre and a number of others. So, the quote can be taken outside the vampire world.

I have been against taking revenge, even though I cared less about those little ones. There is nothing that interesting in having vengeance, as it is something which has to be left to God, or fate if you want to think that way. If you try to take revenge, it is more of your weakness, and only by rising up from that state and moving towards victory can the replacement to revenge be done. Yes, be the better person, and your achievement is the true vengeance which is not evil, but a good result of an indirect inspiration provided by the evil which has been done against you.

***The images used in this blog post are from the Facebook Page of the movie Interview with the Vampire.

I have been nominated by Kiran, at https://drkiranacharya.wordpress.com/2015/06/19/day-three-quote-challenge, for the three day quote challenge. Thanks for the tag 🙂

Rules for the challenge:

• Post one of your favourite quotes (different quote on each day) on three days. The quote can be from your favourite book, author, or your own.
• Nominate three bloggers to challenge them.
• Thank the blogger, who nominated you.

For my day one, I nominate my blogger friends:

Anoop (http://anooppillaiz.wordpress.com)

Amreen (http://painttheworldwithwords.wordpress.com)

Namrata (http://namratakumari.blogspot.in)

TeNy

Why Interview with the Vampire?

Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles – you should have heard the name, and there is no reason why you won’t have, because I have been writing something or talking about the same for around eight to ten years now. Based on the work of the same name by Anne Rice, published in 1976, the movie based on the same and starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Christian Slater, Kirsten Dunst and Antonio Banderas released in 1994. This has also been the main pillar for my thesis for MA English Language and Literature.

One thing which is certain about this work is that Anne Rice has never created a better work after this one, and this first book from her remains her best. Created right after the death of her little daughter and bringing up the idea of the child vampire (something of depressing beauty), there are not many surprises about that. It also has Louis de Pointe du Lac, the most humane vampire as its main protagonist, as the creature with so much of conscience and a big amount of philosophy as he denies his own existence as the creature of the night and struggle with himself being “the other”.

The extremity of “the other” – manifestation of the tormented soul of a child vampire.

Anne Rice has successfully used the history from different ages and locations to supplement her story. There is the relation of the characters with the time period of their existence, and for vampires, they belong to more than one age and with the new birth, they are not people one place or even one nation. As they belong to the universe of immortality, history and cultures begins to be part of them, and they would experienced most of it without reading one single book. History remains the background here.

The major incidents of the world do make changes on the vampires, and the human world around them gets affected by the vampires as much as they do in return. The novel itself was written during the time of the hippies, and at the same time period, Anne Rice brings this novel on vampires to the light. Even Louis chooses San Franciso, the centre of all these. The vampires come to us as people who are different and are mostly confused, except for those vampires who have lived through centuries and have a lot of experience to deal with situations. Some of them are already part of many cultures.

Interview with the Vampire – there is more to that talk, but even more to experience.

We can even see a certain amount of the Cold War between capitalism and communism between the two protagonists of the novel as even though they never really drops the nuke, the tension is high due to the difference in their thought processes and ideologies. The city where the flashback begins is also at New Orleans, home to the cities of the dead. There is so much of the mystery which surrounds that world and happens to be the perfect place to discover a vampire.

Louis’ rebirth into vampirism also occurs in 1791 after the French Revolution begins. The doubt in Louis’ mind only increases, and he moves towards finding his own ideology as the grasp of the religious institutions lessens and morality also goes down. There are some interesting quotes which are made by the characters about the same, like evil being a point of view, God also kills and on goodness being too difficult. It remains a period of doubt for both humans as well as vampires. You see changes with the vampires of Paris and those of other parts of Europe.

Embrace of the Vampire – This theatre of vampires is an extension of the cultural side.

The vampire characters are given not just the human feelings here, and the relation in not just through the emotions, but through a certain shared history which reflects sometimes as the background for the characters and at other times, in relation to the times of the author when she wrote it. This makes the novel more related to humanity rather than adding trivial things like romance as in many other vampire works. It becomes part of the cultures of different parts of the world for centuries. For the movie, the cast takes the whole thing to another level.

***The images used in this blog post are from the Facebook Page of Interview with the Vampire. The ideas presented here are further extended from my reading while working for my Post-graduation thesis, and most of these are also part of the same in another way.

TeNy

Reaper and his Messengers

For the Mad Hatter Day 😀
There has been very few things which had provoked my thoughts other than those ideas about death, and it was a prominent part of my life for a long time along with those vampires, zombies and ghosts. Four years earlier than where we stand now on the sands of time, there was an incident which made it stronger. It was during our journey to Colombo through Chennai as part of a Ramayana Tour arranged by Riya Travels; it was a beautiful experience, but before there was any experience, there was the presence of Sir Death, the smartest hero and villain I have ever known – the available information about the same is shared as it is:

On 25 July 2010, Kingfisher Airlines Flight IT 2482, bound to Chennai, detected smoke in its cargo hold, due to chemical reactions happened in a chemical consignment cargo for a laboratory. Leakage from ten packets of boric acid powder and two 100 ml. bottles of liquid detergent where packed in a single consignment, resulted in the chemical reactions, causing smoke which triggered attention of ground staff. It was found that, there was security lapse among the cargo security staff to allow such a consignment reach the aircraft’s cargo hold. There were 36 passengers and 3 crew members on-board. The consignment was taken off and the flight was cleared to take-off.

The messenger of death with its tombstones (Pic from The Crow’s FB page)

That deals with our flight. There was no delay with the smoke as nothing was there after the airplane had taken off. The smoke came too early for Death to take over. May be there was too much to handle upstairs to take me, or may be Death needed more people when crashing one flight. The ways of Death are indeed strange, for it vanishes even when there is the need for its presence and comes when it should have stayed in its abode. One has to wonder if Emily Dickinson was ready for her suitor when he arrived, as she already let us know about the uncertainty with the same due to her being too busy.

So, without earning Death’s displeasure, I shall call him the Grim Reaper, the name that we usually associate with him – or the Angel of Eternal Sleep should also be nice, I would think. I would mostly go with Miss Dickinson there with her good depiction of her suitor, as long as the one passing to the other world is me. On such an occasion, he is indeed a gentleman, and I would respect his choice and the duty to take me away. But there shall be no such respect when he sneaks in to take my loved ones, and in that case, neither he or his messengers are welcome here.

Poe and his plutonic black bird (Pic from The Raven’s FB page)

Talking about his messengers, let the due respect be paid to them, the crows and the ravens; from being the sacred creatures of Apollo, the legends have grown. We had Edgar Allan Poe depicting it with all its mystery in his poem as he asks the raven to return to the underworld of Pluto/Hades. It is an enchanting creature of the shadow world and darkness there, and its chant “nevermore” is rather the mocking of human hopelessness on the face of death, and only the dark creature knows the master of death. It is as if it knew what awaited the man in the depths of Tartarus, and it is a bird of wisdom which knows how meaningless man’s vain puruits are.

There was the 1994 movie based on the crow and its ability to bring the soul back to the body as it acted as the messenger to the other world. Acting as the link between two worlds, this crow should be Grim Reaper’s favourite. The leading actor, Brandon Bruce Lee had also died during the shooting of this movie adapted from comics. The feeling of watching that movie was something dark and beautiful, and leaves us with the desire for a reboot. It is like looking at the black bird and feeling that it is no longer the same creature any more. May be I need such a bird as a pet as much Grim Reaper needs his scythe.

Alice and her world of wonders (Pic from Alice in Wonderland FB page)

This is part of my own celebration of the Mad Hatter Day on October sixth which I enjoy as the un-birthday on which twenty one cups of tea and a certain dose of madness are to be added. Let me ask you then, why wouldn’t a raven be not a writing desk? Well, what if our tables were ravens? What if they acted like a portal and had the entrance to the other world? My dear Jabberwocky, I do wonder, how you make perfect sense to me; there is no vorpal blade that remains in the modern world, and can you grin like a sweet little Cheshire Cat as you show me the way out of my thoughts? It is a bloody frabjous day, even for the jubjub birds. Happy Mad Hatter Day, everyone 😀

TeNy

Vampires of the Soul

There is no other book that I loved more than Dracula, and I used to read many versions of the same in English and Malayalam during my childhood, and I have known Bram Stoker before I knew William Shakespeare. Count Dracula has been part of my early life more than anyone else and even inspired me to read more horror and made me watch my first horror movies, and my first horror movie in English to be watched on a VCR, John Carpenter’s Vampires. It would introduce me to the entity called “the vampire” which would never be redefined better than it did for me in this work.

Dracula was one person who never really scared me. But people around the world were worth being afraid of more than this one vampire. Some of them suck the life out of you, others money, and the worst of the suck the happiness out of you, and they are the vampires of the heart and soul. Most of them feel that they are the only people in the world, and the Earth no longer revolves around the sun, but instead exist for their own needs and all the people in the world are made for them to use. This one-human-centric universe have been sucking everything good out of our known world for centuries.

Consider the case of Count Dracula. He wanted to migrate to another country leaving his rural world behind. For the same, he leaves his old world behind and is ready to blend in with the so called urban people. But what does he get in the end? He is forced to keep running and in the end gets a stake through the end for trying to understand other cultures and mingle with them. He was a man of nature, blended with his natural environment and feared by the people of his land due to him being an introvert.

The beautiful Bran Castle, commonly known as the Dracula Castle (photo from wiki)

Now, there comes the problem of being introvert. There are many organizations for supporting even the dumbest things in the world saying that it is one’s personal life and there is the choice to be different. But being an introvert is rather too difficult, as the other take away or rather suck everything away, and bening terribly talkative has been becoming a need, and on the tip of the talks, there would be big lies which will help one to advance in life. The others who can’t lie or show off their vanity will suffer like Dracula.

Still, the society considers introverts and people who can’t use tell a beautiful lie every hour or so as not easily acceptable. Being talkative should be a choice, and when people are chosen according to the performances during a few minutes of interview, it is a case of losing the right person for the job and instead finding someone who can talk and justify all mistakes and atrocities. You can’t find the right person by talking for a few minutes, because lies are too easy to say for the new generation designed just to succeed. This is the world of fake smiles, and the season of faking love.

Dracula was undoubtedly an introvert and a man who couldn’t socialize easily, and the use of diaries, letters and logs in the work and making it an epistolary one means that it was rather the idea of a group of people from one side of the society, and even the ideas claimed to be of other people could have also been forged. May be he had some bad teeth, and it is also possible that he was too much addicted to wine – there goes the ideas about bad teeth and drinking the red fluid. He just belonged to another culture and it is usual to be afraid of the customs and traditions, plus he had his own special abilities.

Christopher Lee playing the Count, considered the common depiction (photo from wiki)

It is a usual misconception to related Dracula to the devil, and it is plain wrong. The vampire is surely not the devil, and beyond that, the Count has a personality which is far better than this plagued society which is not just affected by hatred towards other religion, caste, race and community, but also towards the random people who don’t know one’s idol or their most awesome person, a sportsperson, a movie star – any random celebrity. Yes, vampires have to look scary and not like a dumb teenager, but the story of the Count is debatable. Dracula was million times better than most of the vain humans of this age even on his worst day. Yes, the Indian cricket fans have already proved the same with their racist and sexist comments.

TeNy.